It is an early work by historian and philologist Sergey Aleksandrovich Zh. (1867—1941), published in 1893. The author has already chosen the method of specific historical analyzes which was later the basement for his research work.
He starts with a short survey of the topic and introduces some works on religious healing for his readers: some of these works were dated back to the seventeenth century (outdated ones), but there were others, made by his direct predecessors — often compilations, not original studies. The author argues that the development of archaeology and getting factual materials are to enrich the understanding of the problem of religious healing.
Analyzing such phenomenon as classic Greek oracles in a detailed way, Zh. puts a special attention at the preparatory period — the so called incubation, i.e. waiting for a revelation coming during a dream and giving an answer to a certain question. The author does not give the only interpretation of the origin of that incubation, keeping two possible versions: the times of Homer, and Pindar. The incubation is traced him back to necromancy, i.e. to revelations through dead souls. The author describes of the history of incubation, a healing version of which (when the dream revelations contain advices for ill persons how to be healed) was thee latest of all.
Then, Zh. describes the rite of religious healing in a detailed way: he uses works by Aristophanes, and other Greek authors as historical sources. According Zh., that rite included washing, fasting, sacrifices, some actions of priests, and, finally, the dream, when the ill person was waiting to see Asclepius. Dedicatory inscriptions could be done either before the healing, or after it; the author puts a special attention at them, stressing the role of priests in the distribution of the habit to make such inscriptions.
In the final part of the article, on the character of religious healing, the author makes an attempt to interpret the success of such rites — he analyzes epigraphic monuments and gives some testimonies of keeping such religious healing in Europe till the nineteenth century.