Chronicles of Pharmacy, Vol. 1 (of 2)

by A. C. Wootton

It need hardly be added that offerings were made to the god, to the service of the temple, and to the priests personally by grateful patients who had obtained benefit. At one of the temples it is said it was the custom to throw pieces of gold or silver into a well for the god. At others pieces of carving representing the part which had been the seat of disease were sold to those who had been cured, and these were again presented to the temple, and, it may be surmised, sold again. That cures were effected is likely enough. The excitement, the anticipation, the deep impressions made by the novel surroundings had great influence on many minds, and through the minds on the bodies. Records of these cures were engraved on tablets and fixed on the walls of the temples.

Sprengel gives a translation of four of these inscriptions found at the Temple of Æsculapius which had been built on the Isle of the Tiber, near Rome. The first relates that a certain Gaius, a blind man, was told by the oracle to pray in the temple, then cross the floor from right to left, lay the five fingers of his right hand on the altar, and afterwards carry his hand to his eyes. He did so, and recovered his sight in the presence of a large crowd. The next record is also a cure of blindness. A soldier named Valerius Aper was told to mix the blood of a white cock with honey and apply the mixture to his eyes for three successive days. He, too, was cured, and thanked the god before all the people. Julian was cured of spitting of blood. His case had been considered hopeless. The treatment prescribed was mixing seeds of the fir apple with honey, and eating the compound for three days. The fourth cure was of a son of Lucius who was desperately ill with pleurisy. The god told him in a dream to take ashes from the altar, mix them with wine, and apply to his side.

The legend of the foundation of this Roman temple is curious. In the days of the republic on the occasion of an epidemic in the city the sibylline books were consulted, with the result that an embassy was sent to Epidaurus to ask for the help of Æsculapius. Quintus Ogulnius was appointed for this mission. On arriving at Epidaurus the Romans were astonished to see a large serpent depart from the temple, make its way to the shore, and leap on the vessel, where it proceeded at once to the cabin of Ogulnius. Some of the priests followed the serpent and accompanied the Romans on the return journey. The vessel stopped at Antium, and the serpent left the ship and proceeded to the Temple of Æsculapius in that city. After three days he returned, and the voyage was continued. Casting anchor at the mouth of the Tiber the serpent again left the vessel and settled itself on a small island. There it rolled itself up, thus indicating its intention of settling on that spot. The god, it was understood, had selected that island as the site for his temple, and there it was erected.

As might be expected, some of the less reverent of the Greek writers found subjects for satire in the worship of Æsculapius. Aristophanes in one of his comedies makes a servant relate how his master, Plautus, who was blind, was restored to sight at the Æsculapian temple. Having placed their offerings on the altar and performed other ceremonies, this servant says that Plautus and he laid down on beds of straw. When the lights were extinguished the priest came round and enjoined them to sleep and to keep silence if they should hear any noise. Later the god himself came and wiped the eyes of Plautus with a piece of white linen. Panacea followed him and covered the face of Plautus with a purple veil. Then on a signal from the deity two serpents glided under the veil, and having licked his eyes Plautus recovered his sight.

It cannot be doubted that in the course of the centuries a large amount of empiric knowledge was accumulated at these temples, and probably the pretence of supernatural aid was far more rare than we suppose. In an exhaustive study of the subject recently published by Dr. Aravintinos, of Athens, that authority expresses the opinion that the temples served as hospitals for all kinds of sufferers, and that arrangements were provided in them for prolonged treatment. He thinks that in special cases the treatment was carried out during the mysterious sleep, when it was desired to keep from the patient an exact knowledge of what was being done; but generally he supposes a course of normal medication or hygiene was followed. Forty-two inscriptions have been discovered, but on analysing these Dr. Aravintinos comes to the conclusion that they record in most cases only cures effected by rational means, and not by miracles. He finds massage, purgatives, emetics, diaphoresis, bleeding, baths, poulticing, and such like methods indicated, and though the sleeps, possibly hypnotic, are often mentioned, this is not by any means the case invariably.

About a century before Hippocrates wrote and practised, the Asclepiads began to reveal their secrets. The revolt against the mysteries and trickeries of the temples was incited by the infidelity to their oaths of certain of the Italian disciples of Pythagoras. The school of philosophy and medicine founded by that mystic aimed also to keep his doctrines secret, but when the colony he had established at Crotona, in South Italy, was dispersed by the attacks of the mob, a number of the initiates travelled about under the title of Periodeutes practising medicine often in close proximity to an Æsculapian temple. The first of the Asclepiads to yield to this competition were those of Cnidos, but the school of Cos was not long after them. The direct ancestors of Hippocrates were among the teachers of the temple who became eager to make known the accumulated science in their possession, and thus by the time when the famous teacher was born (460 B.C.) the world was ripe for his intellect to have free play.

Hippocrates.

Hippocrates was born in Cos, as far as can be ascertained, about the year 460 B.C., and is alleged to have lived to be 99, or, as some say, 109 years of age. It is claimed that his father, Heraclides, was a direct descendant of Æsculapius, and that his mother, Phenarita, was of the family of Hercules. His father and his paternal ancestors in a long line were all priests of the Æsculapian temples, and his sons and their sons after them also practised medicine in the same surroundings. The family, traceable for nearly 300 years, among whom were seven of the name of Hippocrates, were all, it would appear, singularly free from the charlatanism which the Greek dramatists attributed to the Æsculapian practitioners, from the superstition which overlaid the medical science of so many older and later centuries, and especially from the fantastic pharmacy which was to develop to such an absurd extent in the following five hundred years.

It is not possible to distinguish with any confidence the genuine from the spurious writings attributed to Hippocrates which have come down to us. But the note which even his imitators sought to copy was one of directness, lucidity, and candour. He tells of his failures as simply as of his successes. He does not seek to deduce a system from his experience, and though he is reputed to be the originator of the theory of the humours, he does not allow the doctrine to influence his treatment, which is based on experience.