Introductory Outline
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attendant or nurse. As the medicine-man advanced in power and prestige, his psychic or supernatural functions became clearly divided from the practical procedures, as we have seen, and in time the erstwhile physician became a priest, assuming to understand and control the forces of health and disease, and dealing only with them, while his assistants became the practical doctors, though of a rank below the priest-physician. This distinction is clearly marked in the dawn of history. We shall meet the two classes, theurgic and practical, in Egypt and Greece, and in Persia there were three, the knife doctor, the herbs doctor, and the word doctor, the last being considered the highest.
The "witch" probably the first rival of the medicine man
As superstitious belief also became defined, there came to be a distinction in magic, and two kinds were believed in—white magic, which was occult power or supernatural knowledge used benignly, and black magic, the malign use of occult power for evil and destructive purposes. As this distinction grew, there probably first arose the conception of what we today call quackery—an illegitimate encroachment on the province of the physician. It seems reasonable to suppose that the practical attendants and nurses may often
