"If you and I were physicians, and were advising one another that we were competent to practice as state-physicians, should I not ask about you, and would you not ask about me, Well, but how about Socrates himself, has he good health? and was anyone else ever known to be cured by him whether slave or freeman?"[7a]
[7a] Jowett: Dialogues of Plato, 3d ed., Gorgias, Vol. II, p.
407 (Stephanus, I, 514 D).
All that is known of these state physicians has been collected by Pohl,[8] who has traced their evolution into Roman times. That they were secular, independent of the AEsculapian temples, that they were well paid, that there was keen competition to get the most distinguished men, that they were paid by a special tax and that they were much esteemed-- are facts to be gleaned from Herodotus and from the inscriptions. The lapidary records, extending over 1000 years, collected by Professor Oehler[8a] of Reina, throw an important light on the state of medicine in Greece and Rome. Greek vases give representations of these state doctors at work. Dr. E. Pottier has published one showing the treatment of a patient in the clinic.[8b]
[8] R. Pohl: De Graecorum medicis publicis, Berolini, Reimer, 1905; also Janus, Harlem, 1905, X, 491-494.
[8a] J Oehler: Janus, Harlem, 1909, XIV, 4; 111.
[8b] E. Pottier: Une clinique grecque au Ve siecle, Monuments et Memoires, XIII, p. 149. Paris, 1906 (Fondation Eugene Piot).
That dissections were practiced by this group of nature philosophers is shown not only by the studies of Alcmaeon, but we have evidence that one of the latest of them, Diogenes of Apollonia, must have made elaborate dissections. In the "Historia Animalium"[9] of Aristotle occurs his account of the blood vessels, which is by far the most elaborate met with in the literature until the writings of Galen. It has, too, the great merit of accuracy (if we bear in mind the fact that it was not until after Aristotle that arteries and veins were differentiated), and indications are given as to the vessels from which blood may be drawn.
[9] The Works of Aristotle, Oxford, Clarendon Press, Vol. IV, 1910, Bk. III, Chaps. II-IV, pp. 511b-515b.
ASKLEPIOS
No god made with hands, to use the scriptural phrase, had a more successful "run" than Asklepios--for more than a thousand years the consoler and healer of the sons of men. Shorn of his divine attributes he remains our patron saint, our emblematic God of Healing, whose figure with the serpents appears in our seals and charters. He was originally a Thessalian chieftain, whose sons, Machaon and Podalirius, became famous physicians and fought in the Trojan War. Nestor, you may remember, carried off the former, declaring, in the oft-quoted phrase, that a doctor was better worth saving than many warriors unskilled in the treatment of wounds. Later genealogies trace his origin to Apollo,[10] as whose son he is usually regarded. "In the wake of northern tribes this god Aesculapius--a more majestic figure than the blameless leech of Homer's song--came by land to Epidaurus and was carried by sea to the east-ward island of Cos.... Aesculapius grew in importance with the growth of Greece, but may not have attained his greatest power until Greece and Rome were one."[11]
[10] W. H. Roscher: Lexikon der griechischen und romischen Mythologie, Leipzig, 1886, I, p. 624.
[11] Louis Dyer: Studies of the Gods in Greece, 1891, p. 221.
A word on the idea of the serpent as an emblem of the healing art which goes far back into antiquity. The mystical character of the snake, and the natural dread and awe inspired by it, early made it a symbol of supernatural power. There is a libation vase of Gudea, c. 2350 B.C., found at Telloh, now in the Louvre (probably the earliest representation of the symbol), with two serpents entwined round a staff (Jastrow, Pl. 4). From the earliest times the snake has been associated with mystic and magic power, and even today, among native races, it plays a part in the initiation of medicine men.
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.[12] 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.
[12] Lines 31, etc., and Scholia; cf. W. R. Halliday: Greek Divination, London, 1913, p. 88.
The exact date of the introduction of the cult into Greece is not known, but its great centres 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.
