Ebook The British Journal of Homeopathy, 1852

The Romans being a people who owed their existence to phy sical power, and grew to extensive sway by the exercise of temperance, moderation, activity and valour, little required and little valued the art of healing, and, accordingly, they were slow to receive it; and when in later years it found its way into Rome, along with other arts of the Greeks, it excited the jea lousy and apprehension of those who, in a corrupter age, desired to retain or recover the simplicity of their earlier history, when the healing of diseases was sought rather by the performance Of religious rites or devout attendance in the temples of the gods than by any scientific methods. Of this form of medical treat ment by divination, the Etruscans, a Grecian colony, may be considered the founders, and to them are to be ascribed the various temples of Apollo, Esculapius and others, to which the sick resorted in the hope of divine direction.