The church in the days of Voltaire contended that its servants were the
only legitimate physicians. The priests cured in the name of the church,
and in the name of God--by exorcism, relics, water, salt and oil. St.
Valentine cured epilepsy, St. Gervasius was good for rheumatism, St.
Michael de Sanatis for cancer, St. Judas for coughs, St. Ovidius
for deafness, St. Sebastian for poisonous bites. St. Apollonia for
toothache, St. Clara for rheum in the eye, St. Hubert for hydrophobia.
Devils were driven out with wax tapers, with incence (sp.), with holy
water, by pronouncing prayers. The church, as late as the middle of the
twelfth century, prohibited good Catholics from having anything to do
with physicians.