The therapeusis of the saints / by Walter Lytle Pyle.

  • Pyle, Walter L. (Walter Lytle), 1871-1921.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The therapeusis of the saints / by Walter Lytle Pyle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    or possibly Cunina, to whose care the life of the child was entrusted. Throughout the period of lactation, with mystic passes over the breast, Rumilia produced a sufficient flow of milk. Turning now to the more enlightened Christian woman of the latter period, we find her still happy in the protection of the plethoric heaven of sancti- fied personages, but to a less degree than her Pagan sisters. With the advent of Christianity, Saint Agatha replaced Rumilia in exercising an influ- ence, for good or bad, as the case might be, over the female mammae. Invocations to her were deemed the best means of relief from mammitis. The older Christain woman addressed her prayers to Notre-Dame-de Montserrat, Saint Marguerite, and worshipped at Lourdes and at the statue of Saint Guignolet. The latter will soon be a thing of the past, if its original does not acquire a better degree of proficiency, as it is fast disappearing under the scratches of sterile husbands. Happily, if parturition is seemingly neglected by the saints, the pathological disturbances of the human body are plentifully supplied with patrons and patronesses from this overworked society, each of whom has a designation, either curative or causa- tive, in some disease. Saint Guy had under his domination the neurosis, chorea, often called danse de Saint Guy, or St. Vitus' dance. Formerly they danced before the chapel of this saint to be relieved; but since the discovery of the efficacy of arsenic Saint Guy is neglected, and the neurologist has usurped his domain. Saint Giles struggled with the hopeless task of carcinoma,