Here should be noticed the mental malady of Saul. His melancholy seems to have had its origin in his sin; it was therefore grounded in his moral nature, but ex- tended its effects, as commonly, to the intellectual. The "evil spirit from God," whatever it mean, was no part of the medical features of his case, and may there- fore be excluded from the present notice. Music, which soothed him for a while, has entered largelj' into the milder modern treatment of lunacy.
The jialsy meets us in the New Test, only, and in features too familiar to need special remark. The words "grievously tormented" (JIatt. viii, 0) have been com- mented on by liaier {De ParuL p. 32), to the effect that examples of acutely painful paralysis are not wanting in moiiorn patliology, e. g. when paralysis is complicated with neuralgia. But if this statement be viewed with doubt, we might understand the Greek expression (/3a- aai'i'^ofiivoQ) as used of paralysis agitans, or even of chorea (St.Vitus's dance), in both of which the patient, being never still for a moment save when asleep, might well be so described. The woman's case who was " bowed
together" by •' a spirit of infirmity" may probably have been paralytic (Luke xiii, 11). If the dorsal muscles were affected, those of the chest and abdomen, from want of resistance, would undergo contraction, and thus cause the patient to suffer as described.
Gangrene {yc'tyypaii>a, Celsus, vii, 33, de fjanffrtend), or mortification in its vari<ins forms, is a totally different disorder from the " canker" of the A. Y. in 2 Tim. ii, 17. Both gangrene and cancer were common in all the coun- tries familiar to the scriptural writers, and neither dif- fers from the modern disease of the same name (Dr. M. Good, ii, GG9, etc., and 579, etc.).
In Isa. xxvi, 18 ; Psa. vii, 14, there seems an allusion to false conception, in which, though attended by pains of quasi-labor and other ordinarj^ symptoms, the womb has been found unimpregnated, and no dcliverj' has fol- lowed. The medical term (Dr. !M. Good, iv, 188) *;<- TTVtvfiariorrtg, mold reutosa, suggests the scriptural lan- guage, " We have, as it were, brought forth wind ;" the whole passage is figurative for disappointment after great effort.
Poison, as a means of destroying life, hardly occurs in the Bible, save as applied to arrows (.Job vi, 4). In Zech. xii, 2, the marg. gives "poison" as an alternative rendering, which does not seem preferable, intoxication being probably meant. In the annals of the Ilerods poisons occur as the resource of stealthy murder.
The bite or sting of venomous beasts can hardly be treated as a disease, but in connection with the " fiery (i. e. venomous) serpents" of Numb, xxi, 6, and the de- liverance from death of those bitten, it deserves a notice. Even the Talmud acknowledges that the healing power lay not in the brazen serpent itself, but " as soon as they feared the Most High, and uplifted their hearts to their heavenly Father, they were healed, and in default of this were brought to naught." Thus the brazen figure was symbolized only; or, according to the lovers of purely natural explanation, was the stage-trick to cover a false miracle. It was customarj' to consecrate the image of the aflliction, either in its cause or in its effect, as in the golden emerods, golden mice, of 1 Sam. vi. 4, 8, and in the ex-votos common in Egypt even before the exodus: and these may be compared with the set- ting up of the brazen serpent. Thus we have in it only an instance of the current custom, fanciful or supersti- tious, being sublimed to a higher purpose. The bite of a white she-mule, perhaps in the rutting season, is, ac- cording to the Talmudists, fatal; and they also mention that of a mad dog. with certain symptoms by which to discern his state (Wunderbar, iit ."tip. p. 21). The scor- pion and centipede are natives of the Levant (Kcv. ix, 5, 10), and, with a large variety of serpents, swarm there. To these, according to Lichtenstein, shoidd be added a venomous solpuga, or large spider, similar to the Cala- brian tarantula; but the passage in Pliny adduced (/f. X. xxix, 29) gives no satisfactory ground for the theory based upon it, that its bite was the cause of the emerods. It is, however, remarkable that Pliny mentions with some fulness a mm ai-anciis — not a sjjider resembling a mouse, but a mouse resembling a spider — the shrew- mouse, and called araneus, Isidore says from this resem- blance, or fnmi its eating spiders. Its bite was venom- ous, caused mortification of the part, and a spreading ulcer attended with inward gri|)iiig pains, and when crushed on the wound it was its own best antidote. See
DiSKASK.
The disease of old age lias acquired a place in Bibli- cal nosology chiefly owing to the elegant allegorj- into which " The Preacher" throws the succeeding tokens of the ravage of time on man (Eccles. xii). The symptoms enumerated have each their significance for the physi- cian; for, though his art can do little to arrest them, they yet mark an altered condition calling for a treat- ment of its own. '-The Preacher" divides the sum of human existence into that period which involves every mode of growth, and that which involves every mode of decline. The first reaches from the point of birth or