34° AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1899
tyrants, and which I have called the monarchical stage of society, there occurs a marked development of the agency of the stars in the affairs of mankind, especially in determining good and evil, and still more especially in determining the state of health and the condition of disease observed on earth. Thus astrology is held to be the ranking science of the world. In this stage dis- eases are imputed to the stars and to their position, especially at nativity and in other important epochs in the lives of individuals.
Perhaps we have already said enough about the theory of dis- eases antecedent to scientific medicine. We now must consider briefly the theory of remedies which prevails in the savage, bar- baric, and monarchical stages of culture.
In savagery, men find their remedies as they are revealed to them in dreams, ecstasy, hypnotism, intoxication, and even in in- sanity. In every savage tribe there are particular ceremonies and other means instituted by shamans for the purpose of invok- ing these aids to diagnosis, and especially of appealing to them for the discovery of remedies. The ceremonies which the medi- cine-men perform themselves for the discovery of remedies can usually be distinguished from those which they perform over their patients to secure the proper action of their remedies. In the one case ghosts are summoned to reveal the difficulties ; in the other case the ghosts are commanded, abjured, begged, threatened, and in various ways induced to leave the body by ceremonial processes. But the shaman, to become such, must first drink his black medicine ; he must summon his tutelar ghost by fasting and feasting and by dancing or by long and intense contemplation, by one or another or all of the agencies for open- ing the portals of ghost-land ; and when the gates are ajar he communes with the spirits. Thus medical lore is acquired in these stages of society by dreams, ecstasy, hypnotism, intoxica- tion, and even by insanity.
There are other methods of learning the potency of remedies.
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