215-222, and 256-260.
XI.

FINAL BREAKING AWAY OF THE THEOLOGICAL THEORY IN MEDICINE.
While this development of history was going on, the central idea on which the whole theologic view rested--the idea of diseases as resulting from the wrath of God or malice of Satan--was steadily weakened; and, out of the many things which show this, one may be selected as indicating the drift of thought among theologians themselves.
Toward the end of the eighteenth century the most eminent divines of the American branch of the Anglican Church framed their Book of Common Prayer.

Abounding as it does in evidences of their wisdom and piety, few things are more noteworthy than a change made in the exhortation to the faithful to present themselves at the communion.

While, in the old form laid down in the English Prayer Book, the minister was required to warn his flock not "to kindle God's wrath" or "provoke him to plague us with divers diseases and sundry kinds of death," from the American form all this and more of similar import in various services was left out.
Since that day progress in medical science has been rapid indeed, and at no period more so than during the last half of the nineteenth century.
The theological view of disease has steadily faded, and the theological hold upon medical education has been almost entirely relaxed.

In three great fields, especially, discoveries have been made which have done much to disperse the atmosphere of miracle.