William Osler

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In Greece, the serpent became a symbol of Apollo, and prophetic serpents were kept and fed at his shrine, as well as at that of his son, Asklepios. There was an idea, too, that snakes had a knowledge of herbs, which is referred to in the famous poem of Nikander on Theriaka. You may remember that when Alexander, the famous quack and oracle monger, depicted by Lucian, started out "for revenue," the first thing he did was to provide himself with two of the large, harmless, yellow snakes of Asia Minor.

The exact date of the introduction of the cult into Greece is not known, but its great centers were at Epidaurus, Cos, Pergamos and Tricca. It throve with wonderful rapidity. Asklepios became one of the most popular of the gods. By the time of Alexander it is estimated that there were between three and four hundred temples dedicated to him.

His worship was introduced into Rome at the time of the Great Plague at the beginning of the third century B.C. and the temple on the island of Tiber became a famous resort. If you can transfer in imagination the Hot Springs of Virginia to the neighborhood of Washington, and put there a group of buildings such as are represented in these outlines of Caton's, add a sumptuous theatre with seating capacity for 20,000, a stadium 600 feet long with a seating capacity of 12,000, and all possible accessories of art and science, you will have an idea of what the temple at Epidaurus, a few miles from Athens, was. "The cult flourished mostly in places which, through climatic or hygienic advantages, were natural health resorts.

Those favored spots on hill or mountain, in the shelter of forests, by rivers or springs of pure flowing water, were conducive to health. The vivifying air, the well cultivated gardens surrounding the shrine, the magnificent view, all tended to cheer the heart with new hope of cure. Many of these temples owed their fame to mineral or merely hot springs. To the homely altars, erected originally by sacred fountains in the neighborhood of health-giving mineral springs, were later added magnificent temples, pleasure-grounds for festivals, gymnasia in which bodily ailments were treated by physical exercises, baths and inunctions, also, as is proved by excavations, living rooms for the patients.

Access to the shrine was forbidden to the unclean and the impure, pregnant women and the mortally afflicted were kept away; no dead body could find a resting-place within the holy precincts, the shelter and the cure of the sick being undertaken by the keepers of inns and boarding-houses in the neighborhood. The suppliants for aid had to submit to careful purification, to bathe in sea, river or spring, to fast for a prescribed time, to abjure wine and certain articles of diet, and they were only permitted to enter the temple when they were adequately prepared by cleansing and fumigation. This lengthy and exhausting preparation, partly dietetic, partly suggestive, was accompanied by a solemn service of prayer and sacrifice, whose symbolism tended highly to excite the imagination."

The temples were in charge of members of the guild or fraternity, the head of which was often, though not necessarily, a physician. The Chief was appointed annually. From Caton's excellent sketch you can get a good idea of the ritual, but still better is the delightful description given in the "Plutus" of Aristophanes. After offering honey-cakes and baked meats on the altar, the suppliants arranged themselves on the pallets.

Soon the Temple servitor
Put out the lights and bade us fall asleep,
Nor stir, nor speak, whatever noise we heard.
So down we lay in orderly repose.
And I could catch no slumber, not one wink,
Struck by a nice tureen of broth which stood
A little distance from an old wife's head,
Whereto I marvelously longed to creep.
Then, glancing upwards, I beheld the priest
Whipping the cheese-cakes and figs from off
The holy table; thence he coasted round
To every altar spying what was left.
And everything he found he consecrated
Into a sort of sack -

a procedure which reminds one of the story of "Bel and the Dragon." Then the god came, in the person of the priest, and scanned each patient. He did not neglect physical measures, as he brayed in a mortar cloves, Tenian garlic, verjuice, squills and Sphettian vinegar, with which he made application to the eyes of the patient.

Then the God clucked,
And out there issued from the holy shrine
Two great, enormous serpents....
And underneath the scarlet cloth they crept,
And licked his eyelids, as it seemed to me;
And, mistress dear, before you could have drunk
Of wine ten goblets, Wealth arose and saw.

The incubation sleep, in which indications of cure were divinely sent, formed an important part of the ritual.

The Asklepieion, or Health Temple of Cos, recently excavated, is of special interest, as being at the birthplace of Hippocrates, who was himself an Asklepiad. It is known that Cos was a great medical school. The investigations of Professor Rudolf Hertzog have shown that this temple was very nearly the counterpart of the temple at Epidaurus.

The Aesculapian temples may have furnished a rare field for empirical enquiry. As with our modern hospitals, the larger temple had rich libraries, full of valuable manuscripts and records of cases. That there may have been secular Asklepiads connected with the temple, who were freed entirely from its superstitious practices and theurgic rites, is regarded as doubtful; yet is perhaps not so doubtful as one might think. How often have we physicians to bow ourselves in the house of Rimmon! It is very much the same today at Lourdes, where lay physicians have to look after scores of patients whose faith is too weak or whose maladies are too strong to be relieved by Our Lady of this famous shrine.

Tags: Health

About the Author

William Osler (1849 - 1919) was a Canadian physician. He has been called one of the greatest icons of modern medicine and the Father of Modern Medicine (which is what he himself considered Avicenna to be).