Of the three foregoing explanations of the symbolic import of the serpent in medicine, it must be said that there is good reason to hold that they are largely, or entirely, mere after-thoughts. Any one of ingenious mind could suggest several others just as worthy of acceptance. But, of course, such a mode of interpretation is decidedly illegitimate.
The idea has been advanced that the commonest of the species of serpent, Elaphis Æsculapii, described above, at Epidaurus, where the myth of the Grecian god of medicine first took definite shape, affords an adequate explanation of the association of the reptile with medicine. This may have had a little to do with it. I cannot admit, however, that it did more than, perhaps, emphasize somewhat the association. If such were its origin, the association could not be viewed otherwise than as incidental, and hence the serpent might be without any special meaning.
After referring to some strange curative virtue attributed to serpents, Pliny says: “Hence it is that the snake is consecrated to Æsculapius.”[184] Here is a specimen of them given by the rather credulous old Roman: “It is a well-known fact that for all injuries inflicted by serpents, and those even of an otherwise incurable nature, it is an excellent remedy to apply the entrails of the serpent itself to the wound.”[185] The principle is obviously the same as that illustrated in the old custom of applying a hair of the dog to cure the wound caused by the bite of the animal. In many parts of the world, the serpent has been accorded great virtue as a medicine, and in China and elsewhere such is the case even to this day. In fact, apart from the preposterous and numerous uses to which it is put by homœopathic doctors, is not the venom of the most deadly species declared by leading members of the profession to be a capital cure for various serious ills? However, Dr. D. G. Brinton quotes the rather striking observation of Agassiz, that “the Maues Indians, who live between the Upper Tapajos and Madeira Rivers in Brazil, whenever they assign a form to any ‘remedio,’ give it that of a serpent.”[186] But, in spite of the wide belief in the virtue of the serpent as a medicine, I cannot accept the opinion of Pliny, that it affords a sufficient explanation of the matter in question. Its actual healing properties were assuredly too equivocal to merit such distinction. With all its virtues, soma itself received little or no more.
The fabled power of the serpent to discover herbs of curative virtues has been suggested as an explanation of the association of it with medicine. This is based on a traditional episode in the history of Æsculapius, which reminds one of the German story of the Snake Leaves, told by Grimm.[187] As regards the Æsculapian fable, it seems that on one occasion, while thinking what treatment to resort to in the case of a patient of his, Glaucus, a serpent appeared and twined itself around his staff; he killed it, whereupon another came bearing in its mouth an herb with which it restored the dead one to life. The god used the same herb with similar effect on the human subject.[188] The extremely miraculous feature of this explanation is an obstacle in the way of its acceptance.
It may be safely held that one must go back to a time long anterior to that of Æsculapius of the Greeks to acquire the true medical import of the serpent, which has been so closely associated with him. There is excellent reason for believing that we have in it a remnant of that ancient and wonderfully wide-spread cultus, serpent-worship, which is still kept up by the Nagas[189] of India and others. Epidaurus was favorably situated for communication with Egypt, a country in which the serpent played a great religious rôle “from the very earliest period,” as shown by both “written and monumental evidence,” to use the words of Cooper,[190] as well as in later times, even within the Christian era, when the special sect of Gnostics, who called themselves Ophitæ, were in their glory. But, in truth, serpent-worship in Greece did not begin in the time of Æsculapius. Bryant maintains that it was brought into Greece by Cadmus, who, under the name of Taautus, or Thoth, took it also to both Egypt and Phœnicia from Babylonia.[191]
One can advance sufficient evidence to indicate with considerable conclusiveness that the Egyptians were in the habit of looking to a serpentine divinity for the cure of disease. In his interesting little book,[192] Sharpe gives a figure of a serpent wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, on a pole or standard, a cut of which is reproduced ([Fig. 6]), which was carried in the periodical airing processions of the Egyptian divinities. Now, it is quite certain that Moses, and his people, too, were very familiar with this figure and its import; but, at any rate, we find him making an imitation of it, in his journey with the Israelites in the Wilderness; and for what purpose? The story is told in the Bible, and runs thus: “And Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole; and it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass he lived.”[193]
Verily, there is the Healer in essentially the same form in which he was sometimes embodied by the Greeks and Romans. Hence, it is sure that the serpent, as a medical symbol, took shape before the time of Æsculapius; long before, for Moses lived nearly four hundred years earlier than he, and, as we have just seen, it was likely far from new, far from being unfamiliar in his day. Fergusson has this to say of it: “It is the first record we have of actual worship being performed to the serpent; and it is also remarkable, as the cause of this adoration is said to have been its healing powers.”[194]
Fig. 6.—The Serpent-Healer.
The opinion has been widely entertained that the prototype of the brazen serpent of Moses, simply “Nehushtan”[195] in later times, was the bonus dæmon, the Agathodæmon[196] of the Greeks, Egyptians, and others. This “good genius” was regarded with great favor, and doubtless many were in the habit of according it power over disease. In the grove of Epidaurus, as in Indian temples and elsewhere among early peoples, the serpent was the genius loci, and hence the Agathodæmon, the bringer of health and good fortune, the teacher of wisdom, the oracle of future events. One was kept in the Erechtheum, close to the sacred olive-tree, and in each of many other temples. One was to be found, according to Ebers, “in every temple”[197] in Egypt.