Aesculapius

“ Æsculapius was physician to the Argonauts, and considered so skilled in the medicinal power of plants, that he was called the inventor as well as the god of medicine. He restored many to life, of which Pluto complained to Jupiter, who struck Æsculapius with thunder, but Apollo, angry at the death of his son, killed the Cyclops who made the thunderbolts. Æsculapius received divine honours after death, chiefly at Epidaurus, Pergamus, Athens, Smyrna, &c. Goats, bulls, lambs, and pigs were sacrificed on his altars, and the cock and the serpent were sacred to him. ”

“ A serpent entwined round a knotted staff is the symbol of Æsculapius. A humorist of the present day has suggested that the knots on the staff indicate the numerous "knotty" questions which a doctor is asked to solve! Tradition states that when Æsculapius was in the house of his patient, Glaucus, and deep in thought, a serpent coiled itself around his staff. Æsculapius killed it, and then another serpent appeared with a herb leaf in its mouth, and restored the dead reptile to life. It seems probable that disease was looked upon as a poison. ”

“ There was a very celebrated statue of Æsculapius at the renowned Asclepion of Pergamus, the production of the artist Pyromachus, as well as one similar to that of Epidaurus. It became the prevailing type in art. In it the god was represented as a mature man of benevolent expression, with his rather long hair bound with a fillet, and in his right hand he held a staff enwreathed with a serpent. ”

“ It is, perhaps, self-evident that a statue of a god must necessarily be quite ideal; and, of course, an ideal is without absolute permanency. Still, it remains true that in the case of Æsculapius, as well as that of every other deity, there was a more or less definite conventional way of representing him. This, however, was largely dependent on the presence of attributes. Thus, it [46] would be not only inconsistent with custom, but almost futile, to attempt to delineate him without the presence of a serpent.
The most magnificent representation of Æsculapius was the one at Epidaurus. ”

“ His statue in this temple was formed of gold and ivory, and represents him as a god seated on a throne, and holding in one hand a staff with a snake coiled around it, the other hand resting on the head of a snake; a dog, as an emblem of watchfulness, at his feet (an intimation very appropriate for the medical profession) . The Asclepiades, the followers of Æsculapius, inherited and kept the secrets of the healing art; or, assuming that Æsculapius was merely a divine symbol, the Asclepiades must be regarded as a medical, priestly caste, who preserved as mysteries the doctrine of medicine. ”

“ With this mythical belief of the horse that produces ambrosia, is also connected the transformation, described by Ovid in the second book of the Metamorphoses, of Ocyroe into a mare, because she had predicted that Æsculapius would save men from death by the medical art. It is a well-known fact that Æsculapius was revered near fountains whose waters were supposed to have salutary effects, and that he was protected by the sun-god Apollo; and the two physicians, sons of Asklêpios or Æsculapius, seem to be nothing more than a specific form of the Dioscuri. ”

“ As the Greeks always carried the encomiums of their great men beyond the truth, they feigned that Æsculapius was so expert in medicine, as not only to cure the sick, but even to raise the dead. Ovid says he did this by Hippolĭtus, and Julian says the same of Tyndărus: that Pluto cited him before the tribunal of Jupiter, and complained that his empire was considerably diminished and in danger of becoming desolate, from the cures Æsculapius performed; so that Jupiter in wrath slew Æsculapius with a thunder-bolt ”

“ Come, Agathocles, be not so gloomy. Do you think it is Aesculapius who has come to your aid? He, at least, is no spruce, young rival. Be conciliatory, or I may, perhaps, venture to try my fortune even against—"
"I am rather of the opinion that some cunning Hermes has tricked Eros and Aesculapius and my Lord Lucius as well," said the physician. An expression of grim humour lurked in his face, and Sergius felt strangely uncomfortable.
"What is a physician if he talk not in the language of oracles," he said, querulously. "Well, you may send me to my couch now, if you will ”

“ Aesculapius, when grown up, became a renowned physician, and even in one instance succeeded in restoring the dead to life. Pluto resented this, and Jupiter, at his request, struck the bold physician with lightning and killed him, but after his death received him into the number of the gods. ”

“ The story of the bringing of Æsculapius to Rome, like that of the bringing of Cybele from Pessinus in Galatia, is an interesting one, and must be known if one would fully appreciate the fact of the god being given the serpentine form, the serpent being generally regarded as only an attribute of him at his chief seat, the great Epidaurian Asclepion, or Temple of Health. ”

“ Although the actual organization of medicine among the Homeric Greeks was thus quite distinct from religion, the worship of Asclepius (or Aesculapius) as the god of healing demands some notice. This cult spread very widely among the Greeks; it had great civil importance, and lasted even into Christian times; but there is no reason to attribute to it any special connexion with the development of the science or profession of medicine. ”

“ Taking it for granted, then, that there was really a serpent transferred from Epidaurus to Rome, which was regarded as Æsculapius, the interesting question arises, of what species was it? A very conclusive answer may be given.
It is known that at the Epidaurian Asclepion a species of serpent existed in considerable numbers by permission. After stating that all serpents, “but particularly those of a more yellow color, are considered as sacred to Æsculapius, and are gentle and harmless toward men,” Pausanias says: “They are alone nourished in the land of the Epidaurians ”

“ That Æsculapius, whom you extol, an excellent, a venerable god, the giver of health, the averter, preventer, destroyer of sickness, is contained within the form and outline of a serpent, crawling along the earth as worms are wont to do, which spring from mud ”

“ When he grew up to manhood his name was heard in every land, and people blessed him because he was the friend of life and the foe of death.
As time went by, AEsculapius cured so many people and saved so many lives that Pluto, the pale-faced king of the Lower World, became alarmed. ”

“ This celebrated siege, which lasted ten years, took place in the twelfth century before the Christian era (that is, 1193 to 1184 B.C.) ; admitting, therefore, the account of the parentage to be authentic, one may argue therefrom that Æsculapius must have lived between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries B.C. Many temples were built and dedicated to Æsculapius; these were called asklepeia, after the Greek form of his name. The priests were called Asklepiadi, and alleged their direct descent from Æsculapius himself. ”

“ THE FATHERS OF MEDICINE. Though Æsculapius is said to have lived so near to the time of the Trojan war, yet the Greeks knew very little about him. The superstition of the time gave him a position among the gods, and as he was adored under the character of the genius of physic, it came at last to be doubted whether he was ever a mortal; consequently his priests were obliged for their own sakes to make themselves masters of all the physic that the master could teach, that they might be qualified to give advice to those who applied to them ”

“ There is, however, nothing more surprising about this place than that it is esteemed noxious and fatal to the healthy. [104] This last remark of our geographer, proves how jealous the priestly physicians were of their medical monopoly, and how fearful lest the saner part of mankind should detect and expose the pretended virtues of their medical sanctuary.
We have hitherto mentioned the name of Aesculapius but casually, though there was no god of antiquity more celebrated for curing every species of malady by the incubatory process. ”

“ The priests and priestesses, who were the guardians of the temple, prepared the remedies and directed their application, and thus commenced the practice of physic as a regular profession.
These official persons were ambitious to pass as the legitimate descendants of Æsculapius, and therefore assumed the title of the Asclepiades. The writings of Pausanius, Plutarch, and others abound with accounts of the artifices of these early practitioners. ”

“ The three most famous schools of the Asclepiades were those of Rhodes, Cos, and Cnidos. There were also that of Crotona, in Lower Italy, established by Pythagoras, and the school of Cyrene, in the North of Africa. Famous temples of Æsculapius existed at Titanæ, Epidaurus, Orope, Cyllene, Tithorea, Tricca, Megalopolis, Pergamus, Corinth, Smyrna, and at many other places.376
A spirit of healthy emulation existed in these different schools, which was most advantageous for the progress of medical science. ”

“ It is clearly established that, long before the birth of philosophy, medicine had been zealously and successfully cultivated by the Asclepiadæ, an order of priest-physicians that traced its origin to a mythical personage bearing the distinguished name of Æsculapius. Two of his sons, Podalirius and Machaon, figure in the Homeric poems, not however as priests, but as warriors possessed of surgical skill in the treatment of wounds, for which they are highly complimented by the poet. ”

“ Ibn-Abi-Oceibia [18] takes a singular mythology of Æsculapius from a Syriac work; in another place [19] he connects him expressly with Babylon. It is strange that Dr. Chwolson attaches any importance to such chimeras. He even supposes that his Askolábita [20] must be considered as the prototype of the Asklepios of the Greeks. In the same ephemeral spirit he asks in another place [21] whether Asklepios and Hermes were not, in reality, ancient sages deified after their death. [22]
Kúthámí, however, does not only make allusions to Greece. ”

“ At first he was known at Rome only in the worship of private individuals, who had brought him up from the Greek colonies of Southern Italy, probably Tarentum or Metapontum; but his cult was contagious, and the stories of his miraculous cures were eagerly heard. It is no wonder then that in the presence of a great pestilence in B.C. 293, when the Sibylline books were consulted, "it was found in the books," as Livy says, "that Aesculapius must be brought to Rome from Epidauros." ”

“ He has told us in the Florida (20) that he has written dialogues, hymns, music, history, and satire. And we have copious references to works from his pen, that, perhaps fortunately, no longer exist. Beside the three poems which survive in the Apologia and a translation of a passage of Menander, preserved in a manuscript once at Beauvais, but now lost (Baehrens, Poet. Lat. Min. 4, p. 104) , he mentions a hymn to Aesculapius, written both in Latin and Greek (Florida 18) , and a panegyric in verse on the virtues of Scipio Orfitus (Florida 17) . ”

“ This is particularly true of the Asclepieion at Cos, where Hippocrates is believed to have received his medical training. It is interesting to note that the mystical features of the temple treatment—features which certainly did not originate with Aesculapius himself or with his sons, Machaon and Podalirius—eventually proved powerless to stay the slow but sure advance of sound medical knowledge. Even during the period when these false elements seemed to be most strongly rooted in the temple methods, there were forces at work which in due time deprived them of much of their pernicious power. ”

“ It converted the sternest preachers into artists. They forgot to talk about moral lessons. All congratulated the good Aesculapius on his choice of the medical profession as a career and his luck in beholding a spectacle such as this; especially when he added, with glowing eloquence, that it was astonishing how so small an insect, a mere mosquito, should be able to produce an eruption of this magnitude and in colours, moreover, which would have made Titian or Peter Paul Rubens burst with envy.
CHAPTER XVII Decidedly, things were happening, as Mr. Heard would have said. ”

“ An ancient Greek physician—Asklepios, afterward called Æsculapius41—by the ability he displayed in the art of healing, so impressed the minds of the simple and uncultured at that primitive epoch as to be held in repute rather as a god than as a man. ”

“ Homer speaks of Asclepius; however, in early days he was not a god, but simply a skilful leach. Then as we approach historic times the physician’s art becomes more regular. Asclepius is elevated into a separate and important deity, although it is not till 420 B.C. that his worship is formally introduced into Athens. Long ere that time, however, medicine and surgery had won a real place among the practical sciences. The sick man stands at least a tolerable chance of rational treatment, and of not being murdered by wizards and fanatical exorcists. ”

“ Further Particulars Regarding the Life and Career of Asclepiades.—Le Clerc furnishes a number of details which throw additional light upon the career of Asclepiades. During the latter’s lifetime his professional reputation was very great. Lucius Apuleius, the famous Roman satirist and rhetorician, and a contemporary of Asclepiades, calls him the Prince of Physicians, second only to Hippocrates the Great; Scribonius Largus, a Roman physician and writer, who flourished during the reigns of the Roman emperors Tiberius and Claudius (37–54 A. D.) , speaks of him as a great medical author ”