Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine | Page 5

splendour of the cities, the beautiful face of the country, cultivated and adorned like an immense garden; and the long festival of peace, which was enjoyed by so many nations, forgetful of their ancient animosities, and delivered from the apprehension of future danger." Thus wrote the Roman historian, and Gibbon states that when we discount as much of this as we please as rhetorical and declamatory, the fact remains that the substance of this description is in accordance with the facts of history. Never until the Christian era was any thought given to the regular care of the helpless and the abject. Slaves were often treated like cattle, and the patricians had no bond of sympathy with the plebeians. Provisions were sometimes distributed to the poor, and taxes remitted, but for reasons of State and not from truly charitable motives. Authority was also given to parents to destroy new-born infants whom they could not support. The idea of establishing public institutions for the relief of the sick and the poor did not enter the minds of the ancient Romans.
Before considering the state of the healing art throughout the period of the Roman Empire, it is necessary to devote the next chapters to a consideration of the rise and progress of medical science in Greece, for it cannot be too strongly emphasized that Roman philosophy and Roman medicine were borrowed from the Greeks, and it is certain also that the Greeks were indebted to the Egyptians for part of their medical knowledge. The Romans were distinguished for their genius for law-giving and government, the Greeks for philosophy, art, and mental culture generally.
[Illustration: Plate I. BUST OF ?SCULAPIUS.]
CHAPTER II.
EARLY GREEK MEDICINE.
Apollo--?sculapius--Temples--Serpents--Gods of Health--Melampus--Homer--Machaon--Podalarius--Temples of ?sculapius--Methods of Treatment--Gymnasia--Classification of Renouard--Pythagoras--Democedes--Greek Philosophers.
The history of healing begins in the Hellenic mythology with Apollo, the god of light and the promoter of health. In the "Iliad" he is hailed as the disperser of epidemics, and, in this respect, the ancients were well informed in attributing destruction of infection to the sun's rays. Chiron, the Centaur, it was believed, was taught by Apollo and Artemis, and was the teacher, in turn, of ?sculapius, who probably lived in the thirteenth century before Christ and was ultimately deified as the Greek god of medicine. Pindar relates of him:--
"On some the force of charmèd strains he tried, To some the medicated draught applied; Some limbs he placed the amulets around, Some from the trunk he cut, and made the patient sound."[1]
?sculapius was too successful in his art, for his death was attributed to Zeus, who killed him by a flash of lightning, or to Pluto, both of whom were thought to have feared that ?sculapius might by his skill gain the mastery over death.
Amid much that is mythological in the history of ?sculapius, there is a groundwork of facts. Splendid temples were built to him in lovely and healthy places, usually on a hill or near a spring; they were visited by the sick, and the priests of the temples not only attended to the worship of ?sculapius, but took pains to acquire knowledge of the healing art. The chief temple was at Epidaurus, and here the patients were well provided with amusements, for close to the temple was a theatre capable of seating 12,000 people, and a stadium built to accommodate 20,000 spectators.
A serpent entwined round a knotted staff is the symbol of ?sculapius. A humorist of the present day has suggested that the knots on the staff indicate the numerous "knotty" questions which a doctor is asked to solve! Tradition states that when ?sculapius was in the house of his patient, Glaucus, and deep in thought, a serpent coiled itself around his staff. ?sculapius killed it, and then another serpent appeared with a herb leaf in its mouth, and restored the dead reptile to life. It seems probable that disease was looked upon as a poison. Serpents produced poison, and had a reputation in the most ancient times for wisdom, and for the power of renovation, and it was thought that a creature which could produce poison and disease might probably be capable of curing as well as killing. Serpents were kept in the Temples of ?sculapius, and were non-poisonous and harmless. They were given their liberty in the precincts of the temple, but were provided with a serpent-house or den near to the altar. They were worshipped as the incarnation of the god, and were fed by the sick at the altar with "popana," or sacrificial cakes.
[Illustration: From Wellcome's Medical Diary (Copyright) By permission of Burroughs Wellcome & Co.
Plate II.--HYGEIA
The Greek Deity of Health.]
Many of the Greek gods and goddesses were held to have power over disease. Hygeia, known as Salus to the Romans, was said to have been the daughter of ?sculapius, and to have taken