Mr.Herbert Spencer dwells upon the fact that intense feeling or passion may bring out great muscular force.

Dr.Berdoe reminds us that "a gouty man who has long hobbled about on his crutch, finds his legs and power to run with them if pursued by a wild bull"; and that "the feeblest invalid, under the influence of delirium or other strong excitement, will astonish her nurse by the sudden accession of strength."(298) (298) For the citation in the text, as well as for a brief but remarkably valuable discussion of the power of the mind over the body in disease, see Dr.Berdoe's Medical View of the Miracles at Lourdes, in The Nineteenth Century for October, 1895.
But miraculous cures were not ascribed to persons merely.

Another growth, developed by the early Church mainly from germs in our sacred books, took shape in miracles wrought by streams, by pools of water, and especially by relics.

Here, too, the old types persisted, and just as we find holy and healing wells, pools, and streams in all other ancient religions, so we find in the evolution of our own such examples as Naaman the Syrian cured of leprosy by bathing in the river Jordan, the blind man restored to sight by washing in the pool of Siloam, and the healing of those who touched the bones of Elisha, the shadow of St.
Peter, or the handkerchief of St.Paul.
St.Cyril, St.Ambrose, St.Augustine, and other great fathers of the early Church, sanctioned the belief that similar efficacy was to be found in the relics of the saints of their time; hence, St.Ambrose declared that "the precepts of medicine are contrary to celestial science, watching, and prayer," and we find this statement reiterated from time to time throughout the Middle Ages.

From this idea was evolved that fetichism which we shall see for ages standing in the way of medical science.
Theology, developed in accordance with this idea, threw about all cures, even those which resulted from scientific effort, an atmosphere of supernaturalism.