Athothis : a satire on modern medicine / by Thomas C. Minor.
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this fact is so notorious that Charaouzet proposed to have droves of swine follow armies, and for sanitary purposes, as well as utility, to use this flesh, fed on excrement. As for my Egyptian prejudices against pork, it dates back to the first dynasty. Know, mortal, that the evil spirit Set, after tearing the eye out of Horus, was changed into a pig, and my people, therefore, had no love for an animal inhabited by a demon. The Jews inherited this dislike of pork from the Egyptians, and Moses, in the eleventh chapter of Leviticus, states that ' the swine, though he divide the hoof and be cloven footed, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you. Of their flesh ye shall not eat, and their carcasses shall ye not touch. They are unclean to you.'' " What an absurdity !" laughed Paulus Androcydes, scornfully. " What intelligent modern would dare to affirm that the spirit of a demon could be driven into a hog?" " Christians of to-day," answered Athothis, " believe in the eighth chapter of Saint Matthew, and therein it is told how Christ, traveling through the Gergesene's country, met two men, possessed of devils, who begged to be relieved, and ' there was a good way off from them a herd of many swine, feeding. So the devils besought him, saying, if thou cast us out, suffer us to go into the herd of swine.' Christ granted the devils' request, thus fully evidencing his true Jewish dislike for pork." " I have earned this reply," said Paulus Androcydes, apologetically, " and, as a good Christian, can no longer doubt that swine flesh is unhealthy. Yet ancient medical writers extolled its use: Hippocrates claimed it was wholesome ; Galen that it was nutritious, and ' tasted like human flesh;' while Celsus loudly praises the deli-