Origin of Medicine - Veneration for Its Cultivators

All medicine is derived from God, and without his will it cannot exist or be practised. Hence the healing art, if disunited from religion, would be impious or nothing. Illness requires us to implore the Deity for assistance and relief, and humbles human pride. The seeds of the art, the wonderful cures, and the powers of remedies, are in the hand of God. He has beneficently supplied various remedies, and pronounces with our tongues, the fate, life and death, of man. Whence, we see the dignity of medicine, and what reverence is due to the Divine Author of it. Sacred history confirms this sentiment, “Every cure is from God.” “The Most High created medicines out of the earth.” Every thing we enjoy are the gifts of God: none but the impious ever doubted this truth; none but fools dared to deny it. It is recorded that Jesus, the son of Sirach, was one of the first who attributed the origin of medicine to the Deity. And we also read in Scripture, “Honour the physician for the need thou hast of him, for the Lord hath created him.”