Hindu Achievements in Exact Science: A Study in the History of Scientific Development c18.2

c18.2

SUPERSTITIONS die hard. The progress of rationalism is slow. Hippocrates and Galen held a knowledge of astronomy or rather astrology to be essential to physicians. In Europe, even so late as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, diseases were regarded as punishments of God, and the intervention of priests was requisitioned where one should call on a physician or a surgeon.⁴⁰ Thus, when after the return of Columbus's party from the newly discovered America to the Old World, venereal diseases created havoc in every country in Europe, people used to offer masses and prayers and alms to assuage the wrath of God. From the Popes and Cardinals down to the soldiers and traders, every rank of the society was infected by the disease. It was, therefore, considered to be a visitation from heaven to punish the licentious and rectify the universal ribaldry of the times.