“I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfil according to my ability and judgement this oath and this covenant.” So begins the Hippocratic oath. 

Dr Gillie Bolton at the University of Sheffield has written “Poetry and Medicine have gone hand in hand since Apollo was god of both.” These two imperatives of the human species extend far into prehistory, and have not been distinguishable until recent times. 

In modern India, for example, it has been estimated that there are 300,000 household deities, predominantly of the Hindu pantheon, to whom people each day offer prayers (sacred poetry) flowers and food, in order to secure health, wealth, or continuity of the family. In contemporary Australia too, it is a rare person indeed who when threatened with dying does not ask their ‘god’ for help. Clearly the gods of medicine are alive and well. 

Asclepius 

Consider this description of the Greek god of healing:

 

‘A gentle craftsman who drove pain away,

Soother of cruel pangs, a joy to men,

Bringing them golden health.’

 

The choice of words here is profound. Poetry is being used to define Medicine. Pain is driven away; health (which is golden) is brought back. Here there is motion, and separation. Diseases can be pulled from the body, and health reinserted, by a gentle craftsman. 

This is profound because other models of health do not use this metaphor. For examples, they might regard the body as a central embodiment of spirit, as a harmonic element of a vast cosmos, or as a place the soul is confined to as punishment. Thus the scientific model will inevitably generate conflict if it is applied unthinkingly.

Asclepius ( ‘unceasingly gentle’) was the bastard son of Apollo by a mortal woman Coronis (crow). He was hidden from his angry grandfather Zeus in the cave of Chiron the Centaur, who was a second cousin, and who taught him the art of healing, especially with herbs. Asclepius, according to Homer, had two sons who became the field surgeons at the siege of Troy. Eventually Zeus struck him dead with a thunderbolt for committing the crime of returning the mortal Hippolytus, son of Theseus, to life, because Hades, god of the underworld, was infuriated at having his subjects stolen in this way. 

The centre of Asclepius’ cult can be visited today at the famous site of Epidavros in the Peloponnese. His cult was associated with the snake in particular, and the god is often represented with a staff with an entwined snake: a symbol adopted by many medical institutions. This is the point of the steely serpents in the poem on the stethoscope I posted last week. Exactly why serpents have become associated with Asclepius is not known, though it may be because they shed their skin, appearing to regenerate each year. We do know they were kept in some temples.

Eventually Zeus relented and returned his immortality to Asclepius. He set his image, holding a curative serpent, in the starry heavens for all people to see. The cult of Asclepius was brought to Rome in 293 BC after a Sybilline prophecy on the pestilence in the city. Therefore the Latinised form of his name, Aesculapius, is often seen.

More on the Relatives 

Apollo has many attributes as a god, and there are many stories about him which can easily become confusing. For our purposes it is interesting to note that his cult probably suppressed pre-Hellenic cults of the oak, the moon-goddess, and the raven; and that there was much ‘ecclesiastic politics’ involved in the mythology of the ancient world.  

Thus Apollo’s seduction of the tree nymph Dryope may be a record of the absorption of the oak cult: Fraser speculates that he became a ‘personification of the curative power resident in the dismembered genitals of the sacrificial oak hero’. Similarly, Apollo kills Coronis, the raven, when she is unfaithful to him, but rescues Asclepius from her body as it burns on the funeral pyre. The willow tree had powerful moon magic, and a bitter drug was prepared from its bark. Do you know what it was? 

The case of Hygieia, goddess of health, daughter to Asclepius, and the root of our modern word hygiene, is also revealing. Her cure-all, (panacea in Greek), was mistletoe, which grew on the oak, and was called ixias. Ixion was the God who engendered Chiron and was condemned to revolve forever, tied to a giant wheel (Life). Hygieia has been found at prehistoric shrines entwined with snakes, and in ancient Greece was often depicted feeding snakes a saucer of milk.  

Imhotep 

Imhotep, ‘the one who comes in peace’, is considered the world’s first doctor, and was architect of one of the great pyramids. He lived around about 2600BC and seems to have become deified by the Greeks as well as his own people. His work came to be performed by priests in his temples, called Asklepion,  with a sleeping patient. Though there were many ways of divination, it seems dream interpretation supplanted them in his cult.

Sir William Osler, however, says that Imhotep was the:

"..first figure of a physician to stand out clearly from the mists of antiquity." Imhotep diagnosed and treated over 200 diseases, 15 diseases of the abdomen, 11 of the bladder, 10 of the rectum, 29 of the eyes, and 18 of the skin, hair, nails and tongue. Imhotep treated tuberculosis, gallstones, appendicitis, gout and arthritis. He also performed surgery and practiced some dentistry. Imhotep extracted medicine from plants. He also knew the position and function of the vital organs and circulation of the blood system.

It is interesting in this light to ponder what forces caused Imhotep’s followers to turn to temples and dream interpretation. 

Something to consider 

Pick a god, any god. What aspect of that god is manifest in health care today? 

References and Further Reading 

Graves R (1955) The Greek Myths  Pelican  chapters 21, 50, 63 

Fraser, Sir James (1914) The Golden Bough  Macmillan  v 88 n1 

Howaston MC and Chilvers I (1993) The Concise Oxford Companion to Classical Literature  Oxford University Press 

Carmichael AG and Ratzan RM (1991) Medicine in Literature and Art   Konemann  pp 31-36

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/imhotep.htm 

http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML 

Bolton G. Opening the Word Hoard  (this is a regular column) J Med Ethics: Medical Humanities  2000; 26; 55-57