Asclepiades

“ He had great powers of observation and natural shrewdness, and his success largely contributed to the establishment of Greek doctors and their methods in Rome. There is grim humour in his description of the Hippocratic treatise on therapeutics, which he called "a meditation on death." Pliny relates that Asclepiades wagered that he would never die of disease, and he won the wager, for he lived to old age and died of an accident! [Pg 53]
Themison, of Laodicea, lived in the first century before Christ, and was a pupil of Asclepiades of Prusa, the founder of the School of Methodism. ”

“ See Kühn’s edit. of Galen, vol. xii. p. 226. Asclepiades, who enjoyed during his life high professional popularity at Rome, seems to have flourished in the century preceding the commencement of the Christian era; and the expression of Galen (sylva collyriorum) consequently shows us the great number and extent of the collyria known and used even at that early period. For notices of the time and character of Asclepiades, see Pliny’s Historia Naturalis, lib. xxv. cap. 7 ”

“ So that, when on one occasion, after the death of Asclepiades, a friend of his came to a banquet, and when the slaves refused him admittance, Menedemus ordered them to admit him, saying that Asclepiades opened the door for him, even now that he was under the earth. And the men who chiefly supported them were Hipponicus the Macedonian, and Agetor the Lamian. And Agetor gave each of them thirty minæ, and Hipponicus gave Menedemus two thousand drachmas to portion his daughters with; and he had three, as Heraclides tells us, the children of his wife, who was a native of Oropus. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The two friends lived together, and that they might not be separated when they married, Asclepiades married the daughter, and Menedemus, though much the younger, the mother. When the wife of Asclepiades was dead, Menedemus gave his wife to his friend, and married another. He was blind in his old age, and died in Eretria. Plutarch.――A physician of Bithynia, B.C. 90, who acquired great reputation at Rome, and was the founder of a sect in physic. He relied so much on his skill that he laid a wager he should never be sick ”

“ In the practice of medicine he promoted health mainly by diet and gymnastics, advised music for depression of spirits, and had in use various vegetable drugs. He introduced oxymel of squills from Egypt into Greece, and was a strong believer in the medicinal properties of onions. He viewed surgery with disfavour, and used only salves and poultices. The Asclepiades treated patients in the temples, but the Pythagoreans visited from house to house, and from city to city, and were known as the ambulant or periodic physicians. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Asclepius delighted to wander among the crags and in the ravines of Pelion, gathering herbs and flowers, and studying the habits of birds and beasts. And Actæon had a passion for the woods and the fields, and had ever a pack of swift hounds at his heels, ready for the chase of wild boar or mountain deer.
"When these lads came to me, I saw that I must give to each the food which was best fitted for his needs, and which his mind most craved. Had I dealt with all alike, and taught all the same lessons, I doubt if any would have grown to manhood's full estate. ”

“ Yes, he said, they do certainly give very strange and newfangled names to diseases.
Yes, I said, and I do not believe that there were any such diseases in the days of Asclepius; and this I infer from the circumstance that the hero Eurypylus, after he has been wounded in Homer, drinks a posset of Pramnian wine well besprinkled with barley-meal and grated cheese, which are certainly inflammatory, and yet the sons of Asclepius who were at the Trojan war do not blame the damsel who gives him the drink, or rebuke Patroclus, who is treating his case. ”

“ It was in this [275] guise that he came to Sicyon, Epidaurus Limera, and Rome [725] ; and in later times Lucian tells a humorous tale of how an impostor effected by trickery a supposed re-incarnation of Asclepius in snake-form before the very eyes of the people out of whose superstitions he made a living and indeed a fortune [726] . Here again, if we may argue from modern custom, the serpent-form carried with it the traditional offering of a ‘cock to Asclepius.’ But other gods too had sometimes their attendant snakes, as had Asclepius at Epidaurus ”

“ 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. ”

“ A very few species occur in the southern parts of the United States, likewise south only to mid Argentina. Relationships between New and Old world taxa need to be understood and that will only come with a well-founded understanding of the phylogeny. With regard to the species of Asklepia, it is quite obvious that the three species groups (defined so well by attributes of the endophallus and pronotal margins) have co-evolved in an Amazon center, probably tied in some way to Varzea and Igapó waters as habitats for differentiation of species groups ”

“ Legs. Overall, normal for genus, see description for genus above. Male unknown. Female genitalia. Not investigated, presumably similar to that of Asklepia demiti sp. n.
Dispersal potential.
These beetles are macropterous and probably capable of flight. They are moderately swift and agile runners.
Distribution.
(Fig. 78) . This species has been found at only one location on white-water of the middle Río Paraguay drainage system. But that does not at all indicate its real distribution: as has been pointed out above, very small beetles are inadequately sampled, especially in the Neotropics. ”

“ The god was fetched from Epidaurus in the form of a snake and a temple assigned him on the island in the Tiber (Livy x. 47; Ovid, Metam. xv. 622) . Aesculapius was a favourite subject of ancient artists. He is commonly represented standing, dressed in a long cloak, with bare breast; his usual attribute is a club-like staff with a serpent (the symbol of renovation) coiled round it. He is often accompanied by Telesphorus, the boy genius of healing, and his daughter Hygieia, the goddess of health. Votive reliefs representing such groups have been found near the temple of Aesculapius at Athens. ”

“ Throughout all the historical ages the descendants of Asklêpius were numerous and widely diffused. The many families or gentes called Asklêpiads, who devoted themselves to the study and practice of medicine, and who principally dwelt near the temples of Asklêpius whither sick and suffering men came to obtain relief—all recognized the god not merely as the object of their common worship, but also as their actual progenitor. ”

“ The Acalephae, or Sea-nettles, as they are variously called, are not Testacea at all, but lie outside the recognized groups. Their constitution, like that of the Ascidians, approximates them on one side to plants, on the other to animals. For seeing that some of them can detach themselves and can fasten upon their food, and that they are sensible of objects which come in contact with them, they must be considered to have an animal nature. The like conclusion follows from their using the asperity of their bodies as a protection against their enemies. ”

“ The Romans who sent for Aesculapius from Epidaurus, when their city was troubled with the plague, say, that the serpent that was worshipped there for him followed the ambassadors of its own accord to the ship that transported it to Rome, where it was placed in a temple built in the isle called Tiberina. In this temple the sick people were wont to lie, and when they found themselves no better, they reviled Aesculapius: so impatiently ungrateful and peevish were often the afflicted, that they made no scruple to reproach the very god who administered to their maladies. ”

“ Many of the forms reproduce by geminmation, and in most of them the sexually-produced embryo develops into a tailed larva.
The Ascidiacea includes three groups—the simple Ascidians, the compound Ascidians and the free-swimming colonial Pyrosoma.
Sub-Order I.—Ascidiae simplices.
Fixed Ascidians which are solitary and very rarely reproduce by gemmation; if colonies are formed, the members are not buried in a common investing mass, but each has a distinct test of its own. No strict line of demarcation can be drawn between the simple and the compound Ascidians, and Simple Ascidians. ”

“ Near the oity of Cos stood the Asclepieum, or temple of Asolepius, to whom the island was sacred, and from whom the chief family, the Asclepiadae, claimed descent. Curtius says:— Igitur patefaoto latius vulnere, et spiculo evolso, ingens vis sanguinis manare coepit, linquique animo rex, et caligine oculis offusa, veluti moribundus extendi. ”

“ When we compare a low mollusc, such as a floating ascidian, with a high mollusc, such as a cephalopod, we are again shown that greater organic evolution is accompanied by more evolved conduct. At the mercy of every marine creature large enough to swallow it, and drifted about by currents which may chance to keep it at sea, or may chance to leave it fatally stranded, the ascidian displays but little adjustment of acts to ends in comparison with the cephalopod ”

“ Liebke, 1938
Neat pattern-wing beetles# Asklepia Liebke, 1938:113
Type species.
Asklepia strandi Liebke, 1938:113.
Derivation of genus name.
Asklepius, a Greek God of healing. Why Liebke used this name is unknown. See: http://www.mythologydictionary.com/asclepius-mythology.html
Proposed english vernacular name.
Neat pattern-wing beetles.
Diagnosis (Figs 29–55, 57–75) . Size range – ABL = 1.95 mm to 3.74 mm; with the attributes of the genus Asklepia as described by [9] . Adults with head and pronotum smooth and shiny ”

“ Asclepigenia, the daughter of Archiades and Plutarch, but the wife of Theagenes, from whom I have received many benefits, while she was yet a girl, and was nourished by her parents, fell into a disease, grievous, and incurable by the physicians. And Archiades, who had reposed in her alone the hope of his race, was deeply afflicted with her condition. ”

“ Also studied were the lectotype of Asklepia lebioides Bates and holotypes of Asklepia pulchripennis, Asklepia geminata, and Asklepia hilaris from the Muséum National d‘Histoire Naturelle, Paris (MNHP, Azadeh Taghavian, Collection Manager) and a paralectotype of Asklepia lebioides from the Natural History Museum in London (BMNH, Beulah Garner, Curator) . Primary type specimens of new species will be deposited in their countries of origin if required by legal agreements, or museums of ownership at the conclusion of our studies on this tribe. ”