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Title: Medical symbolism in connection with historical studies in the arts of healing and hygiene
Author: Sozinskey, Thomas S.
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Medical symbolism in connection with historical studies in the arts of healing and hygiene" ***
CONNECTION WITH HISTORICAL STUDIES IN THE ARTS OF HEALING AND
HYGIENE ***
[Illustration]
No. 9 IN THE PHYSICIANS’ AND STUDENTS’ READY
REFERENCE SERIES.
MEDICAL SYMBOLISM
IN CONNECTION WITH
HISTORICAL STUDIES IN THE ARTS OF
HEALING AND HYGIENE.
ILLUSTRATED.
BY
THOMAS S. SOZINSKEY, M.D., PH.D.,
AUTHOR OF “THE CULTURE OF BEAUTY,” “THE CARE AND CULTURE OF
CHILDREN,” ETC.
[Illustration]
PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON:
F. A. DAVIS, PUBLISHER.
1891.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1891, by
EDWARD S. POWER, M.D.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C., U. S. A.
Philadelphia:
The Medical Bulletin Printing House,
1231 Filbert Street.
DEDICATION.
The medical profession is often spoken of as non-progressive. As a
practical member of it, the author is of a different opinion. He knows
full-well not only that, to many, age does not tend to make anything
medical more worthy of attention, but that the old is apt to be wilfully
overlooked. He discovered some time ago that in the library of the
College of Physicians of Philadelphia—the centre, probably, of medical
learning in the United States—Adams’ edition of the works of Hippocrates
had rested with the leaves uncut for over twenty years. New things are
far too much in vogue. If Bacon were alive to-day he might still say,
with too much truth, as he said three hundred years ago: “Let a man look
into physicians’ prescripts and ministrations and he will find them but
inconstancies and every-day devices, without any settled providence or
project” (“Advancement of Learning”). The age is too much one of trial,
of incoherency, to be either eminently scientific or highly successful
in practice. Beyond question, the medicine of the past is harmfully
neglected; for its literature few have a desirable taste, and fewer yet
a sufficient knowledge. Deploring this state of things, the author would
gladly assist in bringing about a change. Hence, it affords him pleasure
to dedicate this essay to his professional brethren.
PREFACE.
In this essay I have treated, as the title indicates, of medical
symbolism in connection with studies, essentially historical, in the
arts of healing and hygiene. Some parts of it bear only indirectly on
the main subject; but they serve to render the whole more complete and
interesting. Doubtless the reader will not be inclined to find much fault
with any of the apparent digressions.
In the score of chapters into which the essay is divided, attention
is invited to numerous more or less remarkable matters pertaining to
medicine, most of them of very ancient date, and some of practical
importance. Medical mythology is treated of very fully; and, on this,
as indeed on all points, the results of the most recent archæological
and other investigations are given. All I have said is deserving, I
believe, of the consideration of educated physicians.[1] “The wise
man will seek out the wisdom of all the ancients,” says the author of
“Ecclesiasticus,”[2] one who had the tastes of a cultivated medical man.
Although the essay is mainly on old things, I venture to hold that it
contains much which a fairly well-read physician will find fresh. The
ground gone over has been little trodden before. It may be said, as
Pliny did, by way of suggestion of difficulties to be overcome, when
he sat down to write his sketch of the history of the art of medicine,
“that no one has hitherto treated of this subject.”[3] But just as Pliny
overlooked what Celsus had done, and done well, so in this case, some
worthy author may have been overlooked; still, this is improbable. What
is here presented, and in part coherently, is gathered from manifold
sources. I have limited my references as much as possible to works in the
English language, or translations. The statements of authors are given in
their own words; but quotations of wearisome length have been avoided.
The possibility of research in respect to the themes treated of, and
allied ones, not being limited, the essay cannot be expected to be either
perfect or complete. Whatever its merits or shortcomings may be, however,
it is an outcome of congenial studies pursued for their own sake. I
believe it contains a fund of information which deserves to be widely
known. The perusal of it may, at least, serve to excite an interest in
the ample literature and long and remarkable history of the benevolent
and learned profession of medicine.
T. S. S.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THOMAS S. SOZINSKEY, M.D., PH.D.
Thomas S. Sozinskey, M.D., Ph.D., the author of this interesting little
volume, was born in County Derry, Ireland, and died in the city of
Philadelphia, April 18, 1889, in the thirty-seventh year of his age.
He came to this country when seventeen years of age, and settled in
Philadelphia. Entering the University of Pennsylvania some years later,
he graduated from that institution, and afterward began the study of
medicine, receiving the degree of Doctor of Medicine in the year 1872. He
also received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the same faculty.
Dr. Sozinskey immediately entered upon his career as medical practitioner
in Philadelphia, where he remained until his marriage to Miss Abby W.
Johnson, a daughter of Luke Johnson, who was a descendant of one of the
founders of Germantown.
Shortly after his marriage Dr. Sozinskey decided to visit Kansas City,
partly with the idea of locating there; but after a sojourn of about
one year in the West he returned to Philadelphia, and began again the
practice of his chosen profession, succeeding in a few years in building
up a very extensive and lucrative practice in the northwestern section of
the city.
Dr. Sozinskey was a man highly intellectual, studious, and scholarly.
He was a frequent contributor to a number of leading medical journals,
as well as the author of several well-known works, among which may be
mentioned “The Care and Culture of Children.” Also, a little volume
entitled “Personal Appearance and the Culture of Beauty.”
His last literary effort, “Medical Symbolism,” which is a work showing
a vast amount of research, was completed just before his death. He was
induced to undertake “Medical Symbolism” after the appearance of an
article bearing this title in the _Medical and Surgical Reporter_, which
attracted considerable attention, both in this country and in Europe.
He received so many letters from men prominent in the medical profession,
suggesting that a book be written upon this subject, that the task was
undertaken.
By his untimely death three small children became orphans, the mother
having died one year earlier, after a short illness.
His readiness to attend the sick, regardless of compensation, greatly
endeared him to a large number of the poor.
Containing, as it does, so much that is unique, and in a field not
often touched by previous writers, “Medical Symbolism” is sure to
find appreciative readers, not only among the fraternity to which Dr.
Sozinskey belonged, but among the scientific and literary generally; and,
from the encouragement already received, the publishers feel confident of
a large and wide-spread demand for this little volume.
E. S. P.
PHILADELPHIA, October 27, 1890.
COMMENDATORY LETTERS.
PHILADELPHIA, Jan, 24, 1884.
DR. T. S. SOZINSKEY:
DEAR SIR:—Please accept my thanks for your paper on “Medical
Symbolism,” received this morning. I have read it with great
interest, more especially as it is in the direction of the
higher education of physicians. The preponderance of the
so-called practical (empirical) in medical literature, which
appeals strongly to the _trade_ element in the profession,
makes such a contribution all the more enjoyable.
Very truly yours,
FRANCES EMILY WHITE.
1427 N. SIXTEENTH ST.
DR. SOZINSKEY:
DEAR DOCTOR:—Many thanks. You ought to enlarge the article to
a little book. It interested me greatly. In a _bas-relief_ of
myself by St. Gaudens, New York, he has set beside the head the
caduceus and twin serpents as symbolical; at all events, they
will symbolize my relation to snakes.
Yours truly,
WEIR MITCHELL.
1524 WALNUT ST., PHILA.
PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 23, 1884.
DR. T. S. SOZINSKEY:
MY DEAR DOCTOR:—I write to thank you for a copy of your
interesting and instructive paper on “Medical Symbolism.” In
Fergusson, on “Tree and Serpent Worship,” which you quote,
you can readily trace the connection between the emblems
of religion and medicine. I recognize that, as priest and
physician were once the same person, medicine is yet justly
termed “the divine art.” It affords me much pleasure to see
your studious interest in your profession.
Yours truly,
HENRY H. SMITH.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
DEDICATION, iii
PREFACE, v
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF T. S. SOZINSKEY, M.D., PH.D., vii
COMMENDATORY LETTERS, ix
CHAPTER I.
REMARKS ON THE MEANING OF SYMBOLS, 1
CHAPTER II.
THE SERPENTINE GOD OF MEDICINE AT ROME, 5
CHAPTER III.
THE ÆSCULAPIAN SERPENT, 13
CHAPTER IV.
THE EPIDAURIAN ORACLE, 17
CHAPTER V.
ASCLEPIA AND THE ASCLEPIADES, 23
CHAPTER VI.
THE GRECIAN GOD OF MEDICINE, 31
CHAPTER VII.
THE IMAGE OF ÆSCULAPIUS, 45
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ÆSCULAPIAN STAFF AND SERPENT, 49
CHAPTER IX.
ÆSCULAPIUS AND THE SERPENT, 59
CHAPTER X.
VARIOUS ATTRIBUTES OF ÆSCULAPIUS, 83
CHAPTER XI.
GODS ANALOGOUS TO ÆSCULAPIUS, 89
CHAPTER XII.
THE PINE-CONE AS AN ATTRIBUTE OF ÆSCULAPIUS, 111
CHAPTER XIII.
DIBBARA, A GOD OF PESTILENCE, 119
CHAPTER XIV.
HYGEIA, THE GODDESS OF HEALTH, 123
CHAPTER XV.
MEDICAL TALISMANS, 129
CHAPTER XVI.
MEDICAL AMULETS, 137
CHAPTER XVII.
PHARMACISTS’ SYMBOLS, 149
CHAPTER XVIII.
MISCELLANEOUS MEDICAL SYMBOLS, 155
CHAPTER XIX.
MEDICAL SYMBOLISM IN PRACTICE, 161
CHAPTER XX.
THE PENTACLE, 165
MEDICAL SYMBOLISM.
CHAPTER I.
REMARKS ON THE MEANING OF SYMBOLS.
A symbol is an illustration of a thing which, to use a poetic phrase,
is “not what it seems.” When a familiar object, or figure of any kind,
from some cause or other, has attached to it a meaning different from
the obvious and ordinary one, it is symbolic. Thus, if one take a
poppy-head to convey the idea of sleep, it is a symbol; one may regard
it as symbolic of sleep, or, if he choose, of Hypnos (Somnus), the god
of sleep. The illustration on the next page will afford a still more apt
example. To the eye, it appears to be simply a partly coiled serpent
resting on a pedestal. That is, in truth, what it is. But, regarded from
the stand-point of the student of medical symbolism, it has another and
very different signification. Before such a figure many a human being,
diseased and suffering, has bowed in reverence and piously offered to it
petitions for relief; to many a noble Greek and haughty Roman, indeed, to
generations of such, it was a god, the great god of “the divine art,” as
medicine was often beautifully called in ancient times. The serpent is
the most important of medical symbols.
In any composite figure the elements of it are spoken of as _attributes_;
and of these some are _essential_ and some _conventional_. The essential
ones only are, strictly speaking, symbols. Thus, in a representation of
the Goddess of Liberty, the cap is not a symbol; it is a conventional
attribute. Says the learned and distinguished historian of ancient
art, C. O. Müller, “The essence of the symbol consists in the supposed
real connections of the sign with the thing signified.”[4] In some
authoritative works, as, for instance, that of Fairholt,[5] the serpent
in medical art is said not to be a symbol; but this is not true if it be
taken to represent the god of medicine, which, as I have already stated,
was done by both Greeks and Romans. Evidently, if taken as of this narrow
meaning, there are not many comprehensive medical symbols. But I will
take it in a wider sense; I will take it to mean any mystic figure or any
kind of attribute. In doing so I do no more than Fairholt holds should
be done. Referring to the words _symbol_, _image_, and _allegorical
figure_ as well as _attribute_, he says, “Their shades of difference
are so slight that it would be most convenient to regard them all under
the general term _symbol_.”[6] I may add these remarks of Tiele: “A
symbol is a simple or complex thought clothed in a sensuous form. A myth
is a phenomenon of nature represented as the act of a person. Usually
symbols originate in myths, and in every case mythology is antecedent to
symbolism.”[7] There are many symbols, however, which never had anything
to do with myths, as will become evident later.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.—A MEDICAL SYMBOL.]
In the wide sense in which I propose to use it, symbol is almost or quite
synonymous with _emblem_, as popularly used. Mackenzie[8] and other
authorities, however, state that the word emblem is properly applicable
only to a mystic object or figure of two or more parts. Thus, it is
more correct to speak of “a skull and cross-bones” as emblematic than
symbolic of a poison or of death. Again, while a serpent might properly
be called a symbol, one in connection with a staff is an emblem. In this
restricted sense, emblem is closely allied in meaning to _allegory_.
But in an allegorical representation most of the elements of it are apt
to be symbolic, and beauty of the whole is a consideration. The great
Epidaurian representation of Æsculapius is an example. A simple image or
_statue_ is essentially a symbol.
I need hardly say that any figure may or may not be a symbol; but a mere
_figure_ is simply a representation of any object regarded as void of any
other than its ordinary meaning. A conventional representation of any
idea may be nothing more than a figure. In this sense, it is sometimes
called an _ideograph_.
CHAPTER II.
THE SERPENTINE GOD OF MEDICINE AT ROME.
As I have already intimated, the god of medicine—that is,
Æsculapius[9]—was not only on familiar terms, so to speak, with the
serpent, but at times given a serpentine form. Pausanias expressly
informs us that he often appeared in such singular shape.[10] The visitor
to imperial Rome about two thousand years ago saw this divinity in
reptilian guise an object of high regard and worship. It is worth while
to enter into a short study of the matter.
Now, at the outset, I may observe that it is a noteworthy fact that in
their regard for medical men the early Greeks and others contrasted
remarkably with the Romans. The Greeks would seem to have duly prized
the class. One has but to turn to Homer to find evidence of the fact. A
passage suggested by Machaon’s splendid exercise of his beneficent art,
spoken by Idomeneus when the “offspring of the healing god” was wounded
by a dart fired by “the spouse of Helen” (Paris), and “trembling Greece
for her physician fear’d,” runs:—
“A wise physician skill’d our wounds to heal,
Is more than armies to the public weal.”[11]
Cowper translates this interesting couplet more literally than Pope:—
“One so skill’d in medicine and to free
The inherent barb is worth a multitude.”
This is a very noble tribute to the physician; in fact, I know of but few
as good, among them being the one in “Ecclesiasticus” which reads: “The
skill of the physician shall lift up his head and in the sight of great
men he shall be praised.”[12] The latter is Hebræo-Egyptian in origin,
and its date is about two hundred years before our era. The early Romans
did not look on doctors with any such favor.[13]
It is a well-known fact that the art of medicine was never very
enthusiastically or successfully cultivated by the Romans. It was not
until a comparatively late date that medical practitioners existed
among them at all. Pliny has left us some interesting notes on the
matter. After the statement that many nations have gotten along without
physicians, he says: “Such, for instance, was the Roman people for a
period of more than six hundred years; a people, too, which has never
shown itself slow to adopt all useful arts, and which even welcomed the
medical art with avidity until, after a fair experience of it, there was
found good reason to condemn it.”[14] He himself was not a great friend
of it.
Cato, who died in the year of the city of Rome 605, said,
authoritatively: “They (the Greeks) have conspired among themselves
to murder all barbarians with their medicine, a profession which they
exercise for lucre, in order that they may win our confidence and
despatch us all the more easily. I forbid you to have anything to do with
physicians.”[15] Notwithstanding this, the imperious old Roman had not
a personal dislike to taking medicine; “far from it, by Hercules,” says
Pliny, “for he subjoins an account of the medical prescriptions by the
aid of which he had ensured to himself and his wife a ripe old age.”[16]
It appears that the first physician who exercised his profession at Rome
was “Archagathus, the son of Lysanias, who came over from Peloponnessus
in the year of the city 335.” He was kindly welcomed, and, from his
special line of practice, was called “Vulnerarius;” but, from cruelty
displayed “in cutting and searing his patients, he brought the art and
physicians into disrepute.”[17] It is this experience to which Pliny
refers in the foregoing quotation.
There is reason to believe that the Romans never regarded medicine as
an art appreciatively. They have transmitted to posterity little that
is original and valuable. Besides what is found in Pliny’s work, the
production of Celsus[18] is about all that calls for special mention,
and it is possible that the latter, as well as the former, was only a
compiler. Pliny significantly says: “The art of medicine at the present
time even teaches us in numerous instances to have recourse to the
oracles for aid.”[19] He lived from 23 to 79 A.D.
The Roman people had no special god of medicine until the year 292
B.C. In the preceding year, the prevalence of a pestilence caused much
consternation. This led to a consultation of the Delphian Oracle, or,
according to Livy (see page 9), the Sibylline Books, as to what should be
done, and the command of “the Delphic Oracle, or of the Sibylline Books,”
to use the language of an authoritative work,[20] was given, to send an
embassy to procure the aid of the Grecian god of healing, Æsculapius.
The story of the bringing of Æsculapius to Rome, like that of the
bringing of Cybele from Pessinus in Galatia, is an interesting one, and
must be known if one would fully appreciate the fact of the god being
given the serpentine form, the serpent being generally regarded as only
an attribute of him at his chief seat, the great Epidaurian Asclepion, or
Temple of Health. It is graphically told by Ovid.
Ovid begins his poem[21] with an invocation to the “melodious maids of
Pindus;” and, addressing them, continues:—
“Say, whence the isle which Tiber flows around,
Its altars with a heavenly stranger grac’d,
And in our shrines the God of Physic plac’d?”
We are then told that—
“A wasting plague infected Latium’s skies.
...
In vain were human remedies apply’d.
Weary’d with death, they seek celestial aid,
And visit Phœbus in his Delphic shade.”
The reply of the Oracle is this:—
“Relief must be implor’d and succour won
Not from Apollo, but Apollo’s son.
My son to Latium borne shall bring redress;
Go with good omens, and expect success.”
The Senate appointed an embassy to carry out the order:—
“Who sail to Epidaurus’ neighbouring land.”
To it the god (Æsculapius) is represented as saying:—
“I come and leave my shrine.
This serpent view, that with ambitious play
My staff encircles, mark him every way;
His form, though larger, nobler, I’ll assume,
And, changed as gods should be, bring aid to Rome.”
In due time “the salutary serpent,[22] the god, reached the Island of the
Tiber and assumed again his form divine”:—
“And now no more the drooping city mourns;
Joy is again restor’d and health returns.”
There is little or no reason to doubt that there was really a formal
bringing of Æsculapius to Rome, a cosmopolitan city which, indeed, as
Gibbon states without much exaggeration, bestowed its freedom “on all
the gods of mankind.”[23] Livy, the historian, speaks of the matter as
follows:—
“The many prosperous events of the year (459) were scarcely sufficient to
afford consolation for one calamity, a pestilence, which afflicted both
the city and country and caused a prodigious mortality. To discover what
end or what remedy was appointed by the gods for that calamity, the Books
were consulted, and there it was found that Æsculapius must be brought
to Rome from Epidaurus. However, as the Consuls had full employment
in the wars, no farther steps were taken in that business during this
year, except the performing of a supplication to Æsculapius of one day’s
continence.”[24] Elsewhere[25] he says that the god was brought the
following year,—that is, A.U.C. 460, or 292 B.C.
The Island of the Tiber (_Insula Tiberina_, now _Isola Tiberina_), the
“_inter duos pontes_” of the early centuries of our era, where Æsculapius
was worshipped, and which was sometimes called by his name (_Insula
Æsculapii_), is within the limits of the city of Rome. According to
tradition, it originated from alluvial accumulations within the period
of Roman history.[26] It is rather remarkable that, excepting the one at
the mouth (_Insula Sacra_, now _Isola Sacra_), there is no other along
the whole course of the famous river. It is ship-shaped, and quite small
in size, being only about a quarter of a mile in length,[27] and has been
called “San Bartolomeo,” from the church which has long occupied the site
of the ancient Temple of Health.[28] Mr. Davies speaks of it at length in
his interesting book. After an account of the origin of the worship of
Æsculapius on it, he says:—
“It was in commemoration of this event that the island was fashioned in
the form of a ship. Huge blocks of travertine and peperino still remain
about the prow (pointing down the stream), imitating on a grand scale
the forms of the planks, upon which are chiseled the figure of a serpent
twined around a rod, and, farther down, the head of an ox. A temple was
raised to Æsculapius, in which his statue was placed, which probably
stood in the fore part of the simulated vessel, hospitals for the sick
occupying the sides, a tall column or obelisk rising in the midst to
represent a mast. Temples were also dedicated to Jupiter and Faunus.[29]
To these were added a prison in the days of Tiberius.”[30]
Whether the establishment of the worship of the healing divinity on the
island at Rome was brought about by chance, or deliberately, is not
very clear. Pliny would seem to think that it was elsewhere at first
when he says, “The Temple of Æsculapius, even after he was received as
a divinity, was built without the city and afterward on an island.”[31]
The abhorrence of the people for physicians is given as the reason for
isolating the institution. The noble Romans had no love for a class that
made a trade of curing the sick, enriching themselves off the misfortunes
of their fellow-men; they were shocked, says Pliny, “more particularly
that man should pay so dear for the enjoyment of life.”[32] There may
have been other and better reasons. The Greeks themselves placed their
asclepia in rural and often insular places. Thus, the great Epidaurian
Asclepion was in a secluded vale, and two very celebrated ones, those of
Cos and Rhodes, were, as the names indicate, on islands. It is needless
to say that there are excellent sanitary reasons for placing sanatory
institutions in the country, and especially on insular sites. It will be
a long step in the right direction when we somewhat unwise moderns cease
to have our medical institutions within the built-up parts of our cities
and towns, and treat the sick, especially those affected with contagious
diseases, at a distance from the well.
Devotion to the serpentine healer appears to have lingered long in
sunny Italy.[33] A bronze serpent in the basilica of St. Ambrose was
worshipped as late as the year 1001, but the precise import of it is not
known. Referring to it, De Gubernatis says: “Some say that it was the
serpent of Æsculapius, others that of Moses, others that it was an image
of Christ. For us it is enough to remark here that it was a mythical
serpent before which Milanese mothers brought their children when they
suffered from worms in order to relieve them, as we learn from the
depositions of the visit of San Carlo Borromeo to this basilica.”[34] San
Carlo suppressed the superstitious practice.[35]
CHAPTER III.
THE ÆSCULAPIAN SERPENT.
It is not to be presumed that many in our day would seriously believe
that Æsculapius assumed the form of a large serpent, in the famous
legendary voyage to Rome; but it is hardly to be doubted, as I have
already remarked, that there was actually a serpent brought from
Epidaurus on the occasion. It is very probable that the Roman embassy
deliberately brought one with them; still, the coming of the reptile on
board the ship may have been accidental.[36] The latter was the case,
according to one tradition. At any rate, there was sufficient ground
on which a superstitious people could easily construct a mythical
superstructure to please their fancy.
The assumption of the form of a serpent by the god of medicine was not an
extraordinary thing, according to ancient beliefs. Plenty of instances
might be cited. I may give one. Alexander the Great was believed by many
to have been not the son of Philip, but of Jupiter Ammon, who appeared to
Olympias in reptilian shape. Plutarch tells the story. It is amusingly
related of Philip that “he lost one of his eyes as he applied it to the
chink of the door, when he saw the god, in the form of a serpent, in
his wife’s embraces.”[37] The ability to take on at pleasure any animal
or other form was regarded as one of the distinguishing prerogatives of
divinity.
Taking it for granted, then, that there was really a serpent transferred
from Epidaurus to Rome, which was regarded as Æsculapius, the interesting
question arises, of what species was it? A very conclusive answer may be
given.
It is known that at the Epidaurian Asclepion a species of serpent existed
in considerable numbers by permission. After stating that all serpents,
“but particularly those of a more yellow color, are considered as sacred
to Æsculapius, and are gentle and harmless toward men,” Pausanias says:
“They are alone nourished in the land of the Epidaurians; and I find
that the same circumstance takes place in other regions.”[38] Here,
then, is proof that there was a species of serpent which deserved to be
characterized as Æsculapian.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.—THE ÆSCULAPIAN SERPENT.]
It being reasonably certain that only one kind of serpent “was nourished
in the land of the Epidaurians,” and regarded as sacred to Æsculapius,
the following passage from Pliny is interesting: “The Æsculapian snake
was first brought to Rome from Epidaurus, but at the present day it is
very commonly reared, in our houses even; so much so, indeed, that, if
the breed were not kept down by the frequent conflagrations, it would
be impossible to make head against the rapid increase of them.”[39]
It is evident from this statement that the serpent in question was
not venomous, that its presence was prized, and that people would not
wilfully kill it.
Now, a pretty species of oviparous, non-venomous serpent, still common
in Italy, is believed to be the “Æsculapian snake” of Pliny, called
_Paroas_ by Greek writers.[40] I have examined a number of specimens.
Several are to be seen in the museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences,
Philadelphia. It has been described by Shaw under the name of _Coluber
Æsculapii_, but it is now often called _Elaphis Æsculapii_. A cut of it
is given in Brehm’s great popular work,[41] which is very good, except
that it gives one the impression that the animal is decidedly large. The
Æsculapian serpent is comparatively small, being from three to four and
one-half feet in length, and about as thick as a stout walking-cane. It
is orange-brown above, or, as Shaw puts it, “rufous colour on the upper
parts, more or less deep in different individuals.”[42] Beneath it is of
a straw color. The scales of the back are oval and carinated, and those
of the sides are smooth. The tapering tail measures about nine inches.
Movement takes place through vertical waves or swellings. It is very
active and can climb trees with facility. When attacked it will defend
itself; but it is by nature gentle and is easily tamed.
In his brief description of it, Cuvier follows Shaw. He adds: “It is that
which the ancients have represented in their statues of Æsculapius; and
it is probable that the serpent of Epidaurus was of this species. (The
_Coluber Æsculapii_ of Linnæus[43] is of a totally different species, and
belongs to America.)”[44]
The Æsculapian serpent is closely related to the ringed snake (_Natrix
torquata_), the only British member of the family; and the common black
snake (_Coluber constrictor_) of America is of the same genus; but
it should not be classed, as was done by Linnæus, with the decidedly
venomous viperine serpent, the _Viper communis_, or _Pelias berus_, of
which Figuier says: “It is not improbable that it is the _echis_ (εχις)
of Aristotle and the _vipera_ of Virgil, as it is the _manasso_ of the
Italians, the _adder_ of the country-people of England and Scotland, and
the _vipère_ of France. It is found in all these countries and in Europe
generally.”[45]
In an article contributed to a medical journal[46] I have said, in
reference to the Æsculapian serpent, that it is the one “which should
always be shown in medical symbolism.” This would hardly be questioned by
many; yet I am disposed to think that the restriction is too exclusive.
Another species of coluber, the uræus, or asp, has played a significant
rôle, as a symbol of life and healing, especially in Egypt, as will be
seen later. Our medical traditions, however, being mainly derived from
the Greeks, it would therefore seem but right that we should confine
ourselves very exclusively to the symbolism in use by them.
CHAPTER IV.
THE EPIDAURIAN ORACLE.
In speaking of the god of medicine at Rome, mention was made of
Epidaurus, the original great seat of worship of Æsculapius. In the
Peloponnesian place of that name, in the district of Argolis, on the
western shore of the Saronic Gulf, I will now pause a while; for here is
a spot of earth of special interest, dearer than Salerno, or even Cos, to
every lover of the annals, historical and legendary, of the healing art.
Very different is Epidaurus now from what it was in other days; there
has been a change, and for the worse. Here was once the scene of teeming
life; the home of a people of culture and renown. It is not so at
present. As with many other parts of Greece, time has dealt harshly with
Epidaurus. But for the ruins and the imperishable records we have of
them, one could find very little there worthy of much attention.
It is chiefly in the work of Pausanias, before mentioned, that the
great medical institution of Epidaurus, the Æsculapian Temple, with its
auxiliaries, survives. This observing and inquisitive old Greek traveler
has left an interesting account of it. He lived in the second century of
our era.
The ruins have been carefully studied and described by Mr. Leake.[47]
Under a commission from the Archæological Society of Athens, Mr.
P. Kavvadias, in 1881 and forward to the present time (1885), has
been making exploratory excavations, for full accounts of which the
“Proceedings of the Society” must be consulted.[48]
Although the Asclepion was not within the town of Epidaurus, it was
generally spoken of as part and parcel of the latter. Thus, Strabo
says: “Epidaurus was a distinguished city, remarkable particularly on
account of the fame of Æsculapius, who was supposed to cure every kind of
disease, and whose temple is crowded constantly with sick persons, and
its walls covered with votive tablets, which are hung thereon and contain
accounts of the cures in the same manner as is practiced at Cos and at
Tricca.”[49] In the time of the Romans, the town was regarded as “little
more than the harbor”[50] of the Æsculapian Oracle. Still, at one time
it was of considerable importance. Pausanias speaks favorably of it. In
it there were statues of Æsculapius and his reputed wife, Epione, and of
Diana, Venus, and others. There were public accommodations for persons
dying and lying-in women. This was necessary, because births and deaths
were not allowed to occur within the Sacred Grove. The exclusion was,
according to Pausanias, “agreeable to a law which is established in the
island of Delos.”[51]
Epidaurus was open to intercourse with the Phœnicians and other peoples.
Its citizens were enterprising. It is interesting to note that they
colonized the island of Cos.
Under the name of Pidhavro the ancient town remains in existence; but it
is a mere hamlet of a few dozen families, most of which are engaged in
raising vegetables for the Athenian market.
Proceeding in a southwesterly direction from the site of Epidaurus, one
comes, after a journey of about five Roman miles, to the location of the
famous Epidaurian Oracle of Æsculapius. It is a little vale, bordered
almost all around with shrubbery-clad hills, notable among which are
Mounts Titthium, Cynortium, and Coryphæus, the first and second to the
north, and the third to the southeast. At a little distance down it,
flowing westerly and emptying into the river of Lessa, is a rivulet
formed by two main branches, one of which springs from about Mount
Coryphæus and traverses the sacred Ἀλσος, or Grove.
To the Sacred Grove, the name of Hierum, or, rather, Sto Hieron,[52] a
synonym, is applied. It is less than a mile in circumference. Within it
are found remains of most of the structures which it formerly contained.
In the centre stood the Temple, or Sanctuary, of Æsculapius; in the
southeast, at the foot of Mount Coryphæus, the theatre,[53] which
afforded accommodation for twelve thousand people, and which is one of
the finest ruins of ancient Grecian buildings; and southwest of the
temple was the place devoted to athletic games, the Stadium, to the
north of which were the Cistrum and the Tholus, or circular cell, about
thirty feet in circumference, which contained paintings and other works
of art, and probably served as a place of reunion of the officials of the
sanctuary, and for certain sacrifices and ceremonies. Water-pipes have
been unearthed; and there are remnants of the peribolus, or enclosure,
which, according to Leake, however, was present only on two sides, the
steep hills answering the purpose on the others. The somewhat remarkable
state of preservation of these ruins is largely due to the seclusion of
the place.
Of course, the most notable building within the sacred grounds was the
Temple.[54] This was the abode of the god; here was his oracle. His
statue was of great splendor and highly renowned. It was formed of ivory
and gold—chryselephantine—and was by Thrasymedes, of Parus. Æsculapius
was represented as a man somewhat advanced in life, but of attractive
presence, seated on a throne. His hair and beard were given long, perhaps
too long for an ideal physician.[55] In his left hand he held a staff,
and the other he held over the head of a serpent. At his feet was the
figure of a dog. On the throne were wrought illustrations of the works
of the Argive heroes. Bellerophon was shown in the act of slaying the
Chimæra, and Perseus cutting off the head of Medusa.
Besides the temple, the theatre, gymnasium, and other buildings mentioned
above, there were still others to meet the manifold needs of the numerous
visitors. As those who came to consult the oracle remained a night or
longer, there must have been an extensive dormitory. It is referred to
by Pausanias.[56] Those, however, who approached the god, always, I
believe, passed the night in the sanctuary.
When at the height of its glory the Hierum was surely a place full of
life. Being the most famous sanatory retreat, multitudes flocked to it
from all parts of Greece and beyond. Many who came were, doubtless,
invalids, but likely far more could not be classed as such. In fact,
this Æsculapian Grove, although mainly a medical institution, a sort of
hospital, might reasonably be taken as a prototype of modern popular
health resorts.
The glory of the Epidaurian Oracle was not short-lived. In the year 292
B.C., the time when the Roman embassy paid the historic visit, it was
very great; and five centuries later—that is, in the time of Pausanias—it
had not passed away; the worship of the serpentine divinity had not then
ceased.
With years the oracle accumulated riches, so that it became noted for
its treasures. When, in the year 167 B.C., it was visited by L. Æmilius
Paulus, after his conquest of Macedonia, it was rich in gifts presented
by those who had obtained relief there from their afflictions. A century
and a half later many of the valuable offerings had disappeared.
The visitors to the great oracle in search of health placed themselves
under the care of the asclepiades, or disciples of the god. A special
course of regimen (treatment) was followed. It is said that it was
directed by Æsculapius, through dreams,—not necessarily a truth. The plan
pursued was more or less scientific and free from superstition. Mr. Leake
rather ungraciously remarks that the advisors, being “equally dexterous
as priests and physicians, provided themselves with resources in either
capacity, which they could turn to the benefit of their patients’
infirmities and their own profit.”[57] The rules were decidedly strict.
Records of patients were preserved, and the tablets on which they were
placed were hung up in the temple and elsewhere. Some of those surviving
from the stelæ, mentioned by Pausanias,[58] have been unearthed recently
by Mr. Kavvadias. They are mostly statements of miraculous cures.[59]
Famous and immensely popular as the Epidaurian Oracle was, it cannot
be said to have had notable natural advantages in its favor. The site
was not one of the best, being low and hill-bounded,—conditions closely
related to unhealthy states of humidity and heat of the atmosphere. The
supply of water was not good, dependence having to be placed at times on
cisterns. The locations of many other, but less noted, asclepia, were
certainly far more sanatory. At Cos there was pure, mild sea-air; and,
of those in the mountains or by fountains, each had one or more special
natural attractions. Indeed, there could seemingly be few much worse
sites than this close little Epidaurian valley, without even a mineral
spring, or, in fact, a good spring of ordinary water to recommend it.
But, greater than any one, or all climatic or other influences in power
to attract the multitude, was the belief that at his birthplace and
primary seat and oracle the influence of the god of medicine could be
most effectively brought to bear to remove disease and restore health. As
in this case, a pleasing superstition may work wonders.
CHAPTER V.
ASCLEPIA AND THE ASCLEPIADES.
Many asclepia, or temples of health, were in time established throughout
Greece and her colonies and elsewhere. A recent writer states that at
least three hundred and twenty are known “to have existed in antiquity;
so that every town of importance must have had its sanctuary.”[60] In
success and length of existence they, of course, varied greatly. The
one at Epidaurus has been spoken of, and others of great celebrity were
those of Tricca, Cnidus, and Cos, to say nothing of some only a little
less deserving of mention, such as those at Rhodes, Pergamus, Carthage,
Athens,[61] and Rome.
The asclepion at Tricca, in Thessaly, was probably started by the sons of
Æsculapius, Machaon and Podalirius. At any rate, according to Homer, they
were attendants there. This was enough to bring it into repute, but its
situation in the mountains was much in its favor as a popular sanatory
resort.
The Coan and Cnidian asclepia were favorably located; the former on the
island of the name, which Pliny speaks of as “flourishing and powerful in
the highest degree and consecrated to Æsculapius,”[62] and the latter not
far distant, on a site decidedly maritime, in Asia Minor. These temples
were both very distinguished, and a degree of rivalry prevailed between
them. In them there was undoubtedly much highly creditable medical
knowledge in exercise. The same was probably the case in most, or perhaps
all, others, especially in later times; but it is in respect to those
only that we have indubitable evidence of the fact. Of the two schools,
the adherents of the Cnidian paid special attention to the symptoms of
individual cases, and avoided, as much as possible, powerful cathartics,
bleeding, and other active means of cure.
Whatever may have been the success of the various asclepia, institutions
which were finally blotted out in the early part of the fourth century by
Constantine, the first Christian emperor,[63] that of Cos was destined
to make the greatest impress on the medicine of the future. It was the
good fortune of this institution to have in connection with it, at the
acme of its career, a great author as well as physician. Hippocrates, a
native of the island, rendered the fame of the Coan school imperishable,
and gave to his fellow-men throughout the world, in all time to come, a
legacy of incalculable value. Through this early and great medical writer
his _alma mater_ has been made, in a manner, that of the medical man of
all ages. From Cos sprang forth at the touch of a humble man, afterward
called appreciatively “the divine old man,” a mass of medical knowledge,
wonderfully pure and good, which constitutes the main body of the real
medical science of our own day.
An asclepion[64] consisted essentially of a building with a more or
less hygienical site, usually in the country and near a fountain,[65]
sometimes a mineral one, in which the arts of healing were practiced
by priests or disciples of Æsculapius, called asclepiades. In all, the
influence of the god was generally believed to be an essential factor;
and hence in each an image of him was to be found. But the fully-equipped
institution had many appliances, as has been shown in the account given
of the one at Epidaurus. Arrangements for exercises, baths, and other
means which were brought to bear to restore people to health were duly
provided and were in many instances elaborate.
The asclepiades claimed that they were descended directly from the god of
whom they were the disciples. They were not, at any time, mere priests;
that is, ministers of religion. Indeed, it has been asserted that “there
is no sign in the Homeric poems of the subordination of medicine to
religion.”[66]
The asclepiades constituted a special class, and they were oath-bound
to preserve the mysteries of the art from the uninitiated. The oath is
preserved in the Hippocratic Collection,[67] and is usually called by his
name. It begins thus: “I swear by Apollo, the physician, and Æsculapius,
and Health, and All-Heal,[68] and all the gods and goddesses that,
according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this oath and this
stipulation.” In it occurs this passage: “I will follow that system of
regimen[69] which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for
the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and
mischievous.” Here is another: “With purity and with holiness I will pass
my life and practice my art.” Cutting for the stone is left to those who
make a special business of it. What is learned about patients, in the
exercise of the art, which should be kept secret is not to be divulged.
Mr. Adams well says that it is most honorable to the profession that
so ancient a document pertaining to it as this, “instead of displaying
narrow-minded and exclusive selfishness, inculcates a generous line of
conduct, and enjoins an observance of the rules of propriety and of the
laws of domestic morality.”[70]
It has been said, in a learned article[71] on ancient medicine, that “the
asclepiadæ of Greece were the true originators” of scientific medicine.
This claim might be questioned, but it is, doubtless, in the main just.
Certainly all physicians were not connected with asclepia; and in later
times the asclepiades proper were avoided by the more intelligent and
rational.
Unfortunately, the records of the practice of the asclepiades have been
almost entirely lost. This is to be regretted, and more especially
because what is preserved is of a decidedly high order of merit.[72]
However, it is probable that at least the _crême_ of the whole has been
handed down to us by Hippocrates.
It seems certain that in the first “Prorrhetics” and the “Prænotiones
Coacae,” which are transmitted to us in the Hippocratic Collection, we
have fragments and excerpts from the histories of diseases and cures
which were formerly found on the votive tablets of the Coan Temple. From
these records Hippocrates drew largely in composing his highly valuable
“Book of Prognostics.” In reference to the matter Adams says: “It is
as clear as the light of day that Hippocrates composed this work from
them.”[73]
It is more than probable that, except for a short time at first, the
system of treatment pursued by the asclepiades varied within wide limits;
and it is equally certain that the superstitious element lessened as time
passed. Between the principles of practice of Æsculapius and those of
Hippocrates[74] there is a very wide difference. Those of the former will
be given later; but of those of the latter I may say here that they were
essentially scientific.[75] To Hippocrates every disease had a natural
cause, and was to be cured by natural means. He was wont “to consult
Nature herself about Nature,” as Bacon has somewhere wisely advised.
He did not attribute any morbid condition to any spiritual power, good
or bad, and hence in his practice did not resort to conjuration or any
related means of cure. Even of epilepsy, the so-called “sacred disease,”
he said: “It is thus with regard to the disease called sacred: It appears
to me to be nowise more divine nor more sacred than other diseases, but
has a natural cause from which it originates like other affections.” And
again: “Men regard its nature and cause as divine, from ignorance and
wonder.”[76] As regards holding disease to be divinely inflicted, he very
properly remarks: “I do not count it a worthy opinion to hold that the
body of man is polluted by God.”[77]
Not only in the principles of medicine, but in its practice, Hippocrates
was wonderfully sound, even when judged from the stand-point of the art
in our day. In truth, for extent and profundity of medical knowledge and
philosophy, between him and what modern would one think of instituting
a comparison? Sydenham has been likened to him; but, although I am an
admirer of the English physician, I do not hesitate to say that he was
neither in breadth nor depth any such man as the Coan. As a writer on the
prevention and cure of disease, Hippocrates remains _facile princeps_.
Let it not be hastily supposed that my admiration for Hippocrates is
unreasonably great. His works are truly a surprise to even the well-read
modern. Very many of the so-called discoveries of recent times may be
learned by turning to them. I speak advisedly. I will cite instances:—
Thus, of the treatment of open sores, he says: “In these cases no part
is to be exposed to the air.” Dressings of “wine and oil” and “pitched
cerate[78]” are directed to be used.
Again, in treating fractures, in connection with certain splints, he
advises that “a soft, consistent, and clean cerate should be rubbed
into the folds of the bandage;”[79] and he says, “If you see that the
bones are properly adjusted by the first dressing, and that there is no
troublesome pruritus in the part, nor any reason to suspect ulceration,
you may allow the arm to remain bandaged in the splints until after the
lapse of more than twenty days.”[80]
Still again, in regard to the reduction of a dislocation at the
hip-joint, he says, “In some the thigh is reduced with no preparation,
with slight extension, directed by the hands, and with slight movement;
and in some the reduction is effected by bending the limb at the joint
and making rotation.”[81]
In the three preceding paragraphs we have the practical side of the germ
theory of disease, the permanent dressing of fractures, and the reduction
of dislocations by manipulation.
I might go on and recount numerous other matters alleged to be new, and
of which we hear much; but it is not necessary. I may add, however, a few
items of interest:—
“Bleed,” says the old Greek, “in the acute affections, if the disease
appears strong, and if the patients be in the vigor of life, and if they
have strength.” Has any modern spoken more wisely on the subject?[82]
Here is a statement worthy of the attention of unbalanced theorists
of our day: In fevers and pneumonia, heat “is not the sole cause of
mischief.”[83]
He gives directions for the use of effusions with “water of various
temperatures” in “cases of pneumonia,” of “ardent fevers,” and of
other diseases. This treatment, he thinks, “suits better with cases of
pneumonia than in ardent fevers.”[84]
In that inimitable book, his “Aphorisms,” it is said: “In general,
diseases are cured by their contraries.” There is no exclusive allopathy
or homœopathy, or dogma of any kind, in that statement; it is the
sentiment of a scientific physician.
Medicine was evidently far advanced in the days of Hippocrates;[85] and
he was certainly a learned and sensible practitioner of it, even the
“Prince of Physicians,” as Galen, I think, somewhere characterizes him,
as well as one who did much to make it what he pronounced it himself to
be, namely, “of all arts the most noble.”[86]
CHAPTER VI.
THE GRECIAN GOD OF MEDICINE.
During most of the earlier part of their history it is safe to say the
Greeks regarded Apollo as their main god of medicine. Being possessed
of the eminent qualities of a sun-god, replacing Helios as such, and
both mighty and popular, this was to be expected. Nothing could be more
natural than to accord to a deification of the orb of day a direct
concern with matters pertaining to life and death.[87] Who so blind and
stupid as not to see and know that all vital activity is intimately
connected with the presence and movements (apparent) of this great light-
and heat-producing heavenly body!
In an old Chaldean hymn the power of the sun over health and disease is
recognized. He is petitioned to relieve a patient. The petitioner, after
saying that “the great lord, Hea, had sent him,” continues:—
“Thou at thy coming, cure the race of man;
Cause a ray of health to shine upon him;
Cure his disease.”[88]
However, the reader of Homer is well aware that medical affairs were
regarded by the Greeks as subject to the will of Phœbus. The epidemic
which affected the Grecian forces, spoken of in the beginning of his
great work, was held to be caused by the god. Being moved to anger by the
words of his daughter-robbed priest—
“Latona’s son a dire contagion spread
And heap’d the camp with mountains of the dead.”[89]
Chryses, having received the maiden[90] back from her kingly
abductor,[91] then addressed Apollo again, saying, among other things:—
“If fir’d to vengeance at thy priest’s request,
Thy direful darts inflict the raging pest,
Once more attend! Avert the wasteful woe
And smile propitious and unbend thy bow.”[92]
The prayer was heard and answered as desired.
Surgical as well as purely medical aid was sought and received from
Apollo. Thus, when the Lycian chief, Sarpedon, was killed, Glaucus,
himself sorely wounded and unable to protect his friend’s remains,
petitioned the “god of health,” the “god of every healing art,” and
“Apollo heard; and suppliant as he stood,
His heavenly hand restrain’d the flux of blood;
He drew the dolours from the wounded part,
And breath’d a spirit in his rising heart.”[93]
One of the names often applied to Apollo,[94] and subsequently to his
son,[95] was distinctly medical, viz., Pæon, or Paieon.[96] Homer always
uses it in referring to the physician of the Olympian gods, as where he
speaks of the Pharian race as “from Pæon sprung.”[97] “Pæonian herbs”[98]
is the phrase used by Virgil in his account of the restoration to life
of Hippolytus. And this leads me to say that Apollo was believed to have
a special knowledge of medicinal plants. By Ovid he is represented as
saying:—
“What herbs and simples grow
In fields, in forests, all their power I know.”[99]
It may be further said that Apollo always continued to have healing
powers accorded him. No more proof of this is wanting than the first
clause of the Hippocratic oath—“I swear by Apollo, the physician.”
It would seem to have been about the time of the Trojan war that the
special god of medicine began to be viewed as such by the Greeks. Strong
reason for so believing is found in the fact that Homer refers to
Æsculapius as simply “a blameless doctor,”[100]—a mortal, the adjective
used never being applied to a god. A well-informed writer remarks that
“the kernel out of which the whole myth has grown is, perhaps, the
account we read in Homer.”[101] This opinion is open to question. Even
the title of Archegetes, or Primeval Divinity, was sometimes given to
Æsculapius, and, indeed, under that title he was worshipped by the
Phocians in a temple situated eighty stadia[102] from Tithorea. This name
was also given, it must be said, to Apollo, from whom probably it was
received by the son. I may add here the suggestion of the Abbé Banier,
that likely a distinguished physician, called Æsculapius,[103] of the age
of Hercules and Jason, being highly honored, was in time confounded with
the old Phœnician and Egyptian god, Esmun; “so that in process of time
the worship of the latter came to be quite forgotten, and the new god
substituted altogether in his room.”[104]
Galen expresses doubt whether the divinity of Æsculapius was the result
of a gradual development from a human basis; but Pausanias says: “That
Æsculapius was from the first considered as a god, and that his fame
was not owing to length of time, I find confirmed by various arguments,
and even by the authority of Homer, in the following verses, in which
Agamemnon thus speaks of Machaon:—
‘Talthibius, hither swift, Machaon bring,
Who from the blameless Æsculapius sprung;’[105]
which is just as much as if he had said, ‘Call a man who is a son of a
god.’”[106]
In the indulgence of their myth-forming fancies it was very reasonable,
very wise, on the part of the Greeks to make Æsculapius the offspring
of Apollo. If the god of medicine be viewed as a personification of the
healing powers of nature, what more rational, as has been observed,
than to take him to be “the son, the effects of Helios, Apollo, or the
sun.”[107]
The mythological history of the Grecian god of medicine is strange and
interesting. One must know it, or he will remain in the dark about many
things bearing on the symbolism and other features of the physician’s art.
Æsculapius was the result, so the story runs, of a criminal _liaison_
between Apollo and a young virgin, named Coronis, a native of
Thessaly—something which the myth-makers apparently did not regard as
discreditable. The morals of many of the gods were exceedingly bad. “Our
manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints,”[108]
is a candid remark of Thoreau. It would appear that the ancients were
corrupted by communication with the gods.
It is recorded of Coronis that she was, like too many of the sex, fickle,
and did not prove faithful to her divine paramour; she stealthily
cultivated a criminal intimacy with an Arcadian youth, named Ischys.
The fact of her infidelity becoming known to Apollo, either through a
message of a raven,[109] or his own divine powers, he, naturally enough,
was greatly displeased. And the wrath of the divinity was followed by a
series of remarkable events.
At this point it may be well to state that the parentage of Æsculapius
was a question which early excited attention. A belief existed that “he
was the offspring of Arsinoë” and “a citizen of the Messenians,” as
Pausanias informs us. Apollophanes, an Arcadian,[110] being interested in
the matter, went to Delos, and, putting the question of its truth to the
Pythian deity, received this reply:—
“O Æsculapius! source of mighty joy
To mortal natures; whom Coronis fair,
Daughter of Phlegyas, once with me conjoin’d,
In Epidauria’s barren region bore.”[111]
According to this dictum, he was, indeed, born in Epidaurus. Pausanias,
by way of proof of the truth of it, says: “I find that the most
illustrious rites of Æsculapius were derived from Epidaurus.”[112] From
that point the worship seems to have spread. It is said, however, by
Strabo,[113] that his birthplace was Tricca, in Thessaly.[114]
However, to return to our story: the time of the delivery of Coronis was
not far off, when the news of her perfidy reached Apollo. Notwithstanding
this, he, being seemingly under the influence of the “green-eyed
monster” to an ungodly degree, cruelly resolved on having revenge at
once. Artemis,[115] the goddess of chastity, was directed to slay the
unfaithful maid with a thunderbolt, and the order was duly executed. On
coins of Pergamus the unfortunate Thessalian appears entirely veiled.
After the fatal thunderbolt had descended on the _enceinte_ Coronis, and
her body was being consumed in the merciless pyre, Apollo’s paternal
feelings became stirred, and saying, as Pindar tells us,
“I may not bear to slay my child
With his sad mother, sin-defiled,”[116]
proceeded forthwith to save his unborn offspring.
To what manner of operation did he resort? I leave it to some all-knowing
specialist to find out; but, at any rate, by some method or other, the
child was rescued.[117] Another version of the affair, preserved by
Pausanias, robs the god of any possible skill as a gynæcologist—surgical,
I mean. According to it, when Coronis was undergoing cremation, after
being slain by Artemis, “the boy is said to have been snatched by
Hermes from the flames.”[118] And of this I may observe that it was
not inappropriate to have Hermes, the Grecian metamorphosis of the
thrice-great god of wisdom and knowledge of the Egyptians, present at the
unnatural _accouchement_, and in such close relation to Æsculapius at the
very beginning of his wonderful career.
It was, then, the unhappy fate of Æsculapius to be an orphan from his
birth, if birth he had, to speak correctly; and it is possible that his
advent was decidedly premature—in a medical sense. Apollo was puzzled
to know what to do with his tender son; nor did he do for him all that
could be expected, for baby Æsculapius was heartlessly exposed on
Mount Titthium. Here the little unfortunate fell into the keeping of
a friendly goat and dog. The goat gave the precious _enfant trouvé_
nourishment,[119] as Amalthea had done Zeus, and the dog kept guard over
him.[120] Splendid services, indeed, on the part of two humble animals,
in the interest of medicine and humanity!
On Epidaurian coins, the infantile god of medicine is appropriately
represented under a she-goat on Mount Titthium, with Aresthanas
approaching. This person was the shepherd of whom Pausanias says that,
coming to the rescue, “he beheld a splendor beaming from the infant, and,
thinking that it was something divine, as indeed it was, departed from
the place. But a report,” he continues, “was immediately spread through
every land and sea that such as were afflicted with any kind of disease
were healed by the boy, and that even the dead were raised to life.”[121]
The reader need hardly be informed that accounts parallel to this are
common enough in ancient records.
How it happened that the child of Coronis, a Thessalian, first saw the
light in Epidauria, a country which became particularly sacred to him, is
a question which should be answered. It appears that Coronis came there
with her warlike father, Phlegyas, who gave, as a reason for his visit,
a desire to see the country, but, “in reality,” Pausanias says, “that he
might inspect the multitude of the inhabitants, and learn whether there
was a great quantity of fighting men.”[122]
Pindar states that Apollo, on rescuing his child, bore him at once to
Chiron—
“To learn of human woes the healing lore,”[123]
which does away with the fabled discreditable exposure of him; but
whether this be so or not, in progress of time, he did put him under the
care and instruction of “the beneficent leech,”[124] Cheiron (to use the
archaic expression of the historian, Grote[125]), the Thessalian Centaur,
or fabulous monster, whose figure from the waist down was like the body
of a horse.[126] Under the direction of this strangely-formed creature,
Æsculapius proceeded to study the medical virtues of plants; for Chiron
was a great herbalist, being called by Homer, in the words of Pope, “the
sire of pharmacy.”[127] In time the pupil exceeded the teacher in his
knowledge of drugs.
Chiron was regarded, Pindar tells us,[128] as the son of Saturn and
the sea-nymph Philyra; and hence was a brother of Zeus. Saturn changed
himself into a horse to conceal his amour with the nymph from his wife,
Rhea. This would account for the form of the Centaur.
Chiron lived in a cave on Mount Pelion, in Thessaly. It will be
remembered that it was from there that he got the ashen spear[129] for
Peleus, which the son brought into use, a ponderous spear, which—
“Stern Achilles only wields,
The death of heroes and the dread of fields.”[130]
According to Homer,[131] Hercules received instruction in medicine from
Chiron; and it is stated, by Pindar,[132] that Jason was another pupil
of his. With these Æsculapius went, as physician, on the celebrated
Argonautic expedition.
At the end of his career, the Centaur became, it is said, the sign of the
zodiac, Sagittarius.[133]
In treating the sick, Æsculapius soon proved himself a master. His
patients did not die, and it appears that he recalled a few from “the
shades below.” But, sad to relate, the great success he had in curing the
sick, and especially his recalling some from the other world, led to his
destruction. Pluto, the god of the nether regions, not wishing a sparse
population,[134] became displeased with him and complained to Zeus, who,
probably believing that he was becoming too powerful, so much so as to
make man undying,[135] cut short his career with a thunderbolt,—a tragedy
which caused his father, Apollo, to wander away to the land of the
Hyperboreans and to shed tears of gold. At the request of Apollo he was
placed among the stars.[136] The eighth day of the Eleusinian Mysteries
was devoted to sacrifices to him, and was called Epidauria.
From what Virgil says, it would seem that it was not because of the
direct exercise of his power to restore life that Æsculapius was
destroyed, but because of the degree of perfection to which he had
brought the medical art. The event, “the fable,”[137] as Pliny designates
it, is connected with the restoration of Hippolytus or Virbius, and is
thus referred to by the Roman poet:—
“But chaste Diana who his death deplor’d
With Æsculapian herbs his life restor’d;
Then Jove, who saw from high with just disdain
The dead inspired with vital breath again,
Struck to the centre with his flaming dart
The unhappy founder of the god-like art.”[138]
The plan of treatment pursued by Æsculapius was variable. After speaking
of the sick, “a host forlorn” that flocked to him, Pindar says:—
“Some spells brought back to life;
These drank the potion plan’d; for these he bound
With drugs the aching wound;
Some leaped to strength beneath the helpful knife.”[139]
The lines just given certainly serve to disprove the statement of Pliny,
that in Homeric times “the healing art confined itself solely to the
treatment of wounds.”[140] It is doubtless true, however, that nothing is
said in Homer’s works about particular diseases.
It has been held that Æsculapius, like More’s Utopians, did not think
it wise to bring to bear the art of healing in the case of any one who
might not be restored to health and to usefulness to himself and others.
Says Plato: “He thought medical treatment ill bestowed upon one who could
not live in his regular round of duties, and so was of no use either to
himself or to the State.”[141] The great philosopher accordingly regarded
him as “a profound politician.” For, in his ideal state, this celebrated
theorizer would have physicians “bestow their services on those only of
the citizens whose bodily and mental constitutions are sound and good,
leaving those that are otherwise, as to the state of their body, to
die, and actually putting to death those who are naturally corrupt and
incurable in soul.”[142] Some excellent reasons might be advanced in
favor of such a harsh policy, but, while human love of life and human
sympathy remain as now, it will never be brought into play.[143] As
an ideal physician, Æsculapius could hardly have been an advocate of
it.[144]
I may say a word about the charge of Pindar, that the efforts of
Æsculapius to recall the dead to life were inspired by temptation with
gold. The poet says:—
“Alas! that filthy gain can blind the wise!
The glittering gold betrayed the noble leech,
From the dark prison-house to bid arrive
A captive thrall of death!
But Jove with wrathful hand refused to each
The hallowed breath.
Down came the bolt of fire.”[145]
Making such an ugly charge is probably unjust to the great healer. The
historian, Grote, thinks so, and expresses the opinion that Pindar was
disposed “to extenuate the cruelty of Zeus by imputing guilty and sordid
views to Æsculapius.”[146] Long ago the accusation was met by Plato.
Says he: “While they[147] assert that Æsculapius was the son of Apollo,
they declare that he was induced by a bribe of gold to raise to life a
rich man who was dead, which was the cause of his being smitten with
a thunderbolt. But we, with our principles, cannot believe both these
statements of theirs. We shall maintain that, if he was the son of a
god, he was not covetous; if he was covetous, he was not the son of
Apollo.”[148] He was the son of Apollo.
To conclude this imperfect sketch of the life of Æsculapius, I may add
that he was married, as every wise as well as respectable physician
should be,[149] and, as was desirable in an exemplar, the father of at
least six children,—two sons and four daughters. The two sons, Machaon
and Podalirius, taught by their “parent god,” as Homer informs us,
became “famed surgeons,” “divine professors of the healing art,”[150]
and were also distinguished warriors under Agamemnon. Of the daughters,
Hygeia, Panacea, Jaso, and Ægle, the first became the goddess of health,
of whom more anon.
CHAPTER VII.
THE IMAGE OF ÆSCULAPIUS.
A simple image of a god may be regarded as a symbol. When the image
has connected with it one or more figures to indicate the qualities
or functions of the divinity, we have then, strictly speaking, an
allegorical representation. Æsculapius was sometimes shown in the one way
and sometimes in the other. Thus, he was occasionally to be seen at Rome,
and elsewhere, in the form of a serpent; and, at the Epidaurian Grove,
for example, as a man having in connection with him a serpent, a dog, and
other things.
As is implied in what I have just said, there was no set, invariable mode
of portrayal of Æsculapius. This fact should be clearly understood. But
let it not be supposed that it is by any means singular. It will occur
to the well-informed reader that the same holds true in regard to Zeus,
Apollo, Venus, and, indeed, all other divinities. Says Müller: “The
so-called ideals of the Grecian gods are not types; they do not preclude
the freedom of the artist; they rather contain the strongest impulse to
new, genial creations.”[151] It is, perhaps, self-evident that a statue
of a god must necessarily be quite ideal; and, of course, an ideal is
without absolute permanency. Still, it remains true that in the case of
Æsculapius, as well as that of every other deity, there was a more or
less definite conventional way of representing him. This, however, was
largely dependent on the presence of attributes. Thus, it would be not
only inconsistent with custom, but almost futile, to attempt to delineate
him without the presence of a serpent.
The most magnificent representation of Æsculapius was the one at
Epidaurus. A description of it has already been given. This fine work of
art disappeared at an early day. The vandals could not be expected to
spare it; the gold in its composition was fatal to its permanency. It was
borne on coins of Epidaurus. According to Strabo,[152] a copy of it was
taken to the Galatian town, Pessinus, not Rome, as is often said. Several
other places were similarly favored.
There was a very celebrated statue of Æsculapius at the renowned
Asclepion of Pergamus, the production of the artist Pyromachus, as well
as one similar to that of Epidaurus. It became the prevailing type
in art. In it the god was represented as a mature man of benevolent
expression, with his rather long hair bound with a fillet, and in
his right hand he held a staff enwreathed with a serpent. He wore a
himation[153] drawn tight over the left arm and breast. The whole right
side from the waist up was uncovered. His attitude was that of a person
ready to render assistance. “We can recognize,” says Müller, “the figure
with tolerable certainty as the most usual representation of the god on
numerous coins of Pergamus.”[154]
The well-known statue of Æsculapius at Berlin resembles that at Pergamus;
and the same is true of one at Florence, and others. That of Berlin has
the serpent-wreathed staff, or support, placed on the left side. This
appears to have been frequently done. An instance of it I have observed
in a gem bearing Æsculapius and Hygeia, taken from a tomb at Thron,—a
piece of work of the Roman period. It is shown in General Di Cesnola’s
interesting work.[155]
While Æsculapius was made to appear aged in some instances, as in the
Epidaurian representation, he was sometimes presented in youthful form,
and beardless, like his father, Apollo. And this reminds me of the story
told of Dyonysius, King of Sicily, that, on conquering the Morea, he
ordered the beard to be taken off the Epidaurian statue of the god, for
the reason that it was unbecoming and unjust for the son to have a beard
when the father had none. Possibly if it had not been a golden one it
would not have been molested.
I may venture to say that both aged and youthful representations of
Æsculapius are open to criticism. An ideal physician should be, as in
the statue at Pergamus, a man in his prime, or, in other words, mature,
but neither young nor old. The immature man is apt to be defective in
judgment, and the superannuated one is nearly always of excessively
routine practice and ignorant of recent advances in his profession.
By way of conclusion, I will say a few words about the famous
colossal head of Æsculapius, originally colored and decorated with
a bronze wreath, now in the British Museum, where it has been since
1866. It represents, with marked freedom and breadth of execution, a
finely-developed man of middle age, with a cast of countenance similar to
that of the Phidian Zeus. The beard is of moderate length and is waved
like the somewhat long hair. This is really one of the noblest remnants
of Grecian art. Nichols, in whose work[156] an engraving of it is given
as a frontispiece, just as it is in this one, regards it “as scarcely
less remarkable” than the celebrated “Venus of Milo” in the Louvre, both
of which were found, the former in 1828, on the island of Melos. It is
considered to be the work of an artist of the Macedonian period, about
B.C. 300,—a time when the Greek sculptor had attained perfect mastery of
his art.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ÆSCULAPIAN STAFF AND SERPENT.
The staff[157] and serpent of Æsculapius being of special emblematic
significance, I deem it proper to speak of it at some length. The
confusion of ideas which appears to prevail extensively in regard to it
implies that a definite, explicit account of it is much needed.
Although, as will be remembered, Ovid makes Æsculapius refer to his
serpent-enwreathed staff when addressing the commission which came from
Rome to Epidaurus, in the famous representation of him given there, none
was present. The poet may possibly have been misled by what had become
familiar to him at home; for one was to be seen in connection with the
statue of the god at Rome. It is probable, however, that it was a common
occurrence for a living serpent, one of the species kept and viewed as
sacred in the Hierum, to climb the staff in the hand of the Epidaurian
statue.
It is very likely that the staff bearing a serpent became a
characteristic emblem of the god of medicine through the great work of
the sculptor, Pyromachus, at the Asclepion of Pergamus, which I have
already described. The appropriateness of it was widely recognized, but
it was not always adopted, as is attested by the remains of ancient art.
Apart from the serpent, the import of which will be fully treated of in
the succeeding chapter, the staff as an attribute of Æsculapius merits
study. Like many other apparently simple things in art, it may stand for
a great deal more than one would suppose on first view.
The object encircled by a serpent held in the hand of the Æsculapian
statue by Pyromachus, at Pergamus, is evidently a walking-stick. The
Epidaurian statue has a similar object in one of the hands, and the same
is the case in many others. Hence, as the representations of the gods
of the ancients had rarely or never anything but significant attributes
attached to them, it is pertinent to ask an explanation of its presence.
Was there an historical basis for it? In other words, was Æsculapius
notoriously in the habit of carrying a staff? If so, it is possible that
this was why Pyromachus, Thrasymedes, and other artists connected one
with figures of him. But there is no special reason for believing that
such was the case.[158]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.—CLUB OR STAFF OF ÆSCULAPIUS. (_From Maffei._)]
Then, did the artists place a staff in the hand of Æsculapius of their
own accord to indicate the perambulatory character of the physician’s
calling? Such an attribute was doubtless deemed appropriate by them;
but, before one could believe that they gave it on the score of apparent
appropriateness, it would have to be shown that it was in the power of
artists to design gods at pleasure,—something which could not be done.
They evolved it, I may venture to say, from something allied in form.
There is little or no ground for believing that the staff of Æsculapius
was a wonder-working object. I am not aware that such a thing was
placed intentionally in his hand by any artist. Hence, the references
often made to the mystic wand of the god spring from misapprehension, a
walking-staff being something very different.
One can obtain, I believe, from an examination of the Berlin statue and
others,—in which Æsculapius is represented leaning on, or standing by, a
post of variable thickness and more or less regular in shape,—a clue to
an explanation of the origin of the staff. Between the two objects the
difference is not great, certainly not radical; and as attributes they
might be expressive of the same thing. The club shown in the picture
(Fig. 3), from Maffei, might be viewed as intermediate.
Of course, I do not say that the prototype of the staff was the post
present in some representations of Æsculapius, although the idea would
not be entirely unreasonable. There is more ground for the opinion that
both were, so to speak, the offspring of something else.
Any one familiar with the antique representations of Æsculapius, and who
has also seen different ones of Apollo, might well be inclined to believe
that both gods have essentially the same thing by their side, namely, a
post with a clinging serpent. And when it is recalled that Æsculapius
was the son of Apollo, the opinion might be advanced with some degree of
reasonableness, that the emblem of the former was, in reality, that of
the latter, somewhat modified.
Tracing thus the origin of the staff of Æsculapius to the related symbol
possessed by his father, Apollo, it would not be satisfactory to rest
here; one naturally wants to know something about the latter. A few
words, however, on the subject must suffice.
Although it was not an uncommon thing for artists to give posts by
the side of statues, the one bearing the serpent in, say, the Apollo
Belvedere, was, it is thought, meant to represent the Omphalos, to which
the Grecians attached much significance.
The Omphalos,[159] in the form of a conical stone, was kept, and was
present within historical times, as Strabo explicitly states, at Delphi,
a place which, he says, “was supposed to be the centre of the habitable
earth, and was called the navel of the earth.”[160] Plato refers to
Apollo as “the god whose seat is the middle point of the earth, its very
navel.”[161] According to a legend,[162] Delphi was esteemed the centre
of the earth, because two eagles sent out by Zeus, one from the east and
the other from the west, met at that point. Says Strabo: “In the temple
is seen a sort of navel, wrapped in bands and surmounted by figures
representing the birds of the fable.”[163]
The etymology of the word _Omphalos_ casts light on its meaning. Olympos,
the mount of the gods, is a corruption of it. _Omphi-el_[164] is the
oracle of the sun-god. _Al-omphi_ was used to designate hills, or
mountains. Holwell says that the word came from Egypt, and was originally
_Ompha-el_, and related to the oracle of Ham, or the sun.[165] The idea
of a sacred mount or elevation is thus the original meaning of the word.
And here I may say that in Hindu mythology considerable is said of a
mountain encircled by a great serpent.[166]
Let it not be supposed that the reasons in favor of the idea that the
Omphalos became the staff of Æsculapius are entirely insubstantial.
Remains of ancient art furnish excellent proof of it. Müller says: “In
a Pompeian picture, Æsculapius has beside him the Omphalos, which is
entwisted with the well-known net, composed of στέμµατα. We see from this
that this symbol of Apollo was also transferred to his son. On the coins
of the gens Rubria, likewise, it is not an egg, as is usually asserted,
but _the Omphalos placed on a circular altar that is encircled by the
Æsculapian serpent_.”[167]
To one versed in the history of Phœnicia and other Oriental countries,
the Omphalos is very certain to be viewed in another light than as a
symbol of a “high place,” or mount[168] of worship. In the great Tyrian
Temple of Baal Melkarth, which Herodotus went to see and admired much,
and of which that of Solomon, or, rather, of Jehovah on Mount Moriah
was almost a copy, even to the two pillars in front,—symbols of the
sun-god,—were certain similar stones, carefully preserved and duly
reverenced. These, it is well known, were of procreative import; they
were phallic in character.[169] Was the Omphalos of similar significance?
There is little reason to doubt that it was often regarded in that light.
“In the earliest times,” says Müller, “a conical pillar, placed in the
street and called Apollo Agyicus, sufficed to keep in remembrance the
protecting and health-bringing power of the god.”[170]
The staff, then, in the hand of Æsculapius may have had its prototype
in the Phallus,—truly both an expressive and sublime symbol, when
contemplated by pure, enlightened minds.
But, notwithstanding what I have said, one might present some arguments
in favor of the view that the staff of Æsculapius had its true prototype
in a magic wand or symbol of office. As will be pointed out later, the
Accadio-sumerian, Silik-mulu-khi, the beneficent son of Hea, subsequently
Marodach or Marduk of the Babylonians and Assyrians, a healing divinity,
from whom the conception of Æsculapius may have partly sprung, carried a
reed when attending to his duties.
I may say, too, that some hold the staff in the hand of the Egyptian
Thoth to have been the original of the one accorded Æsculapius. Thus,
in an excellent and finely illustrated essay, W. R. Cooper says: “When
once the uræus had been associated with the idea of divinity, the
Theban priests, rightly desiring to ascribe the gift of life and the
power of healing to the Deity alone, significantly enough twined the
serpent around the trident of Jupiter Ammon and the staff of Thoth or
Hermes Trismegistus, the author of medicine, to imply the source from
which that subordinate demigod’s virtues were derived. From this, in
the later periods of her history, Egypt remitted to Greece, along with
the so-called forty-six hermetic treatises, the traditional _caduceus_
or serpent-sceptre of Cyllenius[171] and Æsculapius, and, by subsequent
transformation of the same deities into a feminine form, the snake and
bowl of Hygeia, the goddess of health.”[172] The “serpent-sceptre” which
Egypt “remitted” to Cyllenius and to Æsculapius must have changed greatly
in the passage, for it is anything but alike as seen in the hands of the
two, and in neither case is it very similar to the asserted original. As
well or better to take the staff and serpent to be the serpent-bearing
tree,—the tree of life in miniature.
However, the fact remains, as already stated, that Æsculapius had no
wand; that is, a rod of magic power. The very different personage,
Hermes, as also Iris, the female messenger of the goddesses, had a
wand or, rather, _caduceus_, which, strange to say, is taken by many
to be a symbol of medicine; that is, the caduceus of Hermes, which is
not of medical import at all, is accorded to Æsculapius, who really
had none. I repeat: there is no such thing as an Æsculapian wand, if
wand be taken to mean a rod possessed of wonder-working power. But, of
course, the serpent-bearing staff of Æsculapius is an expressive medical
emblem.[173] I give an example after one in a plate in De Wilde’s rare
old book.[174] One might take the serpent to be a symbol of the god and
the staff as symbolic of the moving of the physician from house to house
in the exercise of his profession. Regarding the knots as expressive
of difficulties in the art and practice of medicine is very fanciful,
but not infrequently done. It is proper to observe, however, that the
physician’s staff in modern times is smooth, as will be pointed out later.
I deem it not amiss to give a cut of the caduceus of Hermes, in the
hope of better removing misapprehension in regard to it. I give it as
shown on the seal of the United States Marine-Hospital Service. It is
an appropriate trade symbol, Hermes being the god of commerce[175] as
well as the messenger of the gods; but it is more especially a symbol of
peace, the god being the great peace-maker. (See Fig. 5.)
[Illustration: FIG. 4.—STAFF AND SERPENT OF ÆSCULAPIUS.]
Traditional history relates that, in his rambles one day, Hermes saw
two snakes fighting, and, laying his wand—which was originally an
olive-branch received from Apollo—between them, was delighted to discover
that it had the power of putting an end to the encounter, and of turning
the two into friends. Hence the presence of the two serpents on the wand,
the _virga_ of the Romans. The tradition was likely in the nature of an
after-thought. If the two serpents be taken to represent two contending
persons, or nations, the mission of the ambassador with his wand or mace,
the symbol of authority, is well indicated.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.—THE CADUCEUS OF HERMES.]
The two serpents on the caduceus have been taken to be male and female,
and in an amatory mood.[176] Thus, says Aubrey, “The caduceus of Mercurie
is adorned with two serpents in the posture of generation.”[177] Pliny
expressed an opinion similar to that of Aubrey.[178] This view was
adopted by the London medical publishers, the Churchills, as will be seen
on looking at the title-page of their books issued until recently. For
instance, on the title-page of Pettigrew’s “Superstitions Connected with
Medicine and Surgery,” issued in 1844, between two concentric circles
surrounding the caduceus, are the words, _Irrupta tenet copula_, with
_Literis medicina_ on the serpents. Later, the first phrase was dropped
and the other put in its place. For some years caduceus and all have very
properly been left out.
Hermes was accorded some functions by the Greeks which may well cause the
physician to feel that it is not very complimentary to associate either
him or the caduceus with his art, even if he be one who regards it
chiefly as a trade. Thus, Hermes, being an adept thief, was classed as
the god of rogues. And this brings to mind the remark of some one, that,
if medicine be a trade, it is the trade of all others the most exactly
cut out for a rogue. Again, it was the function of Hermes, very like that
of the archangel Michael, “to draw the souls from hollow graves,” and
“drive them down the Stygian waves,” with his caduceus, as we are told by
Virgil.[179] It is hardly a part of the physician’s function, I submit,
to drive souls “down the Stygian waves;” certainly, no one professes to
do it.
CHAPTER IX.
ÆSCULAPIUS AND THE SERPENT.
The serpent is undoubtedly the most significant of all medical symbols.
Even Æsculapius assumed such a form, and was sometimes so represented by
sculptors. It was to him the most sacred of all animals. Down through the
ages this remarkable fact has been kept in view, and to-day it is almost
as patent as ever.
Now, what is the explanation of the serpent as a symbol in medicine? How
many medical men can say? Several explanations have currency; but I may
candidly state that none of these are quite satisfactory; and I could not
refer to an acceptable one in all the volumes in which such information
might be expected to be found, with which I am familiar. Here, then, is
a highly interesting and obvious fact to physicians, which few or none
completely understand. Can I cast any light on it? Some, certainly; but
just how much I must leave to the intelligent reader to judge, after
perusing this brief but comprehensive chapter.
The serpent in medicine is meant to symbolize prudence, something very
requisite in the physician. This opinion is one often expressed. It is
not necessarily baseless. To be “as wise as a serpent,” and to have “the
subtlety of the serpent,” are every-day phrases. The reptile has been
accorded such qualities from a very early date. De Gubernatis remarks
that in India it is still “revered as a symbol of every species of
learning.”[180]
It is often said that the serpent in medicine is meant to symbolize
the power of the art to produce renovation or rejuvenescence. This is
not an absurd notion. The basis of it is believed to be the periodical
renewal of the skin of the animal. This has long attracted attention.
In a precious extant fragment of the very ancient Phœnician book of
Sanchoniathon it is said of the serpent, “It is very long lived, and
has the quality not only of putting off its age and assuming a second
youth, but it receives a greater increase. And when it has fulfilled the
appointed measure of its existence it consumes itself.”[181] Referring
to its reputed longevity, one intelligent writer says: “This quality was
no doubt the cause why this animal entwined round a staff was the symbol
of health and the distinctive attribute of the classical Æsculapius and
Hygeia.”[182] At any rate, to restore people to health and renew their
age would be worthy employment for any one.
Another prevalent idea is, that the serpent in medicine is meant to
symbolize convalescence. The remarkable change from a state of lethargy
to one of active life, which the reptile undergoes every spring,
affords some ground for it. It is taken advantage of in the device of
the Rinovati Academy, as will be seen by turning to Mrs. Pelliser’s
interesting book.[183] Three serpents are represented on a bank
gathering vigor in the sunshine, in the strengthening rays of Apollo.
The educational interpretation is evidently quite as reasonable as the
medical.
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]
[Illustration: 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.
Evidence has recently been brought forward which goes to show that
the serpent called the “good genius” in Egypt, in general, was in the
part familiar to the Israelites, in the district of Suket, called also
the dwelling-place of Ankh, “the Living One,” whose chief city was
Piton,[198] regarded as the simulacrum of the sun-god Ra, or, rather,
Atum, Tum, or Tom, the sun as he sets.[199] Brugsch, who has studied
the matter carefully, says: “The god Tom represents solely the Egyptian
type, corresponding to the divinity of Piton, who is called by the name
of Ankh, and surnamed ‘the great god.’... A serpent to which the Egyptian
texts give the epithet of ‘the Magnificent,’ ‘the Splendid,’ was regarded
as the living symbol of the god of Piton. It bore the name of Kereh;
that is, ‘the Smooth.’ And this serpent again transports us into the
camp of the Children of Israel in the Wilderness; it recalls to us the
brazen serpent of Moses, to which the Hebrews offered the perfumes of
incense, until the time when King Hezekiah[200] decreed the abolition
of this ancient serpent-worship.”[201] He further says: “I will not
venture to decide the question whether the god, ‘He who lives,’ of the
Egyptian text is identical with the Jehovah of the Hebrews, but, at all
events, everything tends to this belief when we remember that the name
of Jehovah[202] contains the same meaning as the Egyptian word Ankh, ‘He
who lives.’”[203] These are highly interesting statements of this learned
Egyptologist.
Bearing in mind what has just been said, it is interesting to turn to
what Solomon (?) says about the “brazen serpent,” and the cures wrought
by it. In the “Book of Wisdom,” it is spoken of as a symbol, “a sign of
salvation;”[204] and, it is said: “For it was neither herb nor molifying
plaster that healed them, but thy word, O Lord, which healeth all
things.”[205] And to this it is added: “For it was thou, O Lord, that
hath power of life and death and leadest down to the gates of death and
bringest back again.”[206]
Christian writers have generally explained the brazen serpent to be a
symbol of God, or the Savior. The writer of the article on medicine,
in Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible,” says that even in the Talmud it
is acknowledged “that the healing power lay not in the brazen serpent
itself, but as soon as they feared the Most High and uplifted their
hearts to the heavenly father they were healed, and in default of this
they were brought to nought.” Thus the brazen serpent was symbolical
only. A serpent clinging to a cross was formerly much used as an emblem
of Christ. In fact, a sort of Christian serpent-worship was for a long
period greatly in vogue among many besides the professed Ophitæ.
In this connection it is well to say, that the _naja_ _haje_, _naia_,
or _asp_, the serpent shown in the cut of the brazen serpent, was the
species always, or nearly always, taken to represent the spirit pervading
nature, the Agathodæmon, or Cnuphis, whom the Egyptians were wont to
adore as the creator of the world. It was the Uræus or Basiliskos of
the Pharaohs. It is from three to five feet in length. It is extremely
venomous. In appearance, it resembles the Indian cobra de capello,[207]
but has no spectacle-marking on its head. In hieroglyphics it signifies
“goddess.”
As to “the serpent of the burning bite which destroyed the Children of
Israel,” I may say, in the words of an authoritative work, “Either the
cerastes or the naja haje or any other venomous species frequenting
Arabia may denote it.”[208] The _Vipera cerastes_ is small, horned,
burrows in sand, and is very venomous. Herodotus was led to believe
that it was “perfectly harmless,”[209]—a great mistake. It was used to
represent the letter f. Says Sir Gardner Wilkinson: “As Herodotus does
not notice the asp, it is possible that he may have attributed to the
cerastes the honor that really belonged to that sacred snake.”[210] This
mistake is still frequently made.
But the association of the serpent with Æsculapius, as a remnant of
serpent-worship, can be explained without going to the Egyptian Tum, or
any other foreign sun-god. One has but to turn to Apollo, to whom, as in
the case of, perhaps, all sun-gods, the reptile was sacred.[211]
The question now is, then, what was the reason for the association of
the serpent with Apollo? The usual reply is: the destruction by him of
the Python, which is essentially the same as the Aub or Ob, or, as it is
often given, Typhon, of the Egyptians, an evil monster which was probably
taken primarily to represent harm resulting from the periodical overflow
of the Nile. Homer says:—
“With his shining shaft Apollo slew
That ugly dragon, hideous to the view,
Which grew, long nourished in its slimy den,
A monster horrible, the dread of men.”[212]
Admitting, however, that Apollo overcame a mythical serpent, like many
related divinities, from the Vedic sun-god, Indra, the destroyer of
Ahis down, does not afford a satisfactory solution of the matter under
discussion. The Agathodæmon is infinitely preferable to Typhon as the
prototype of the serpent of Æsculapius. It, indeed, was the reptile
sacred to Apollo as well as Tum.
A study of the origin of the association of the good serpent with Apollo
and Ra-Tum and other sun-gods is interesting. In the search for it one
may get a clue to it in comparative mythology. The close resemblance to
one another of Apollo, Ra, Baal-Samen of the Phœnicians, Shamas of the
Assyrians, and other sun-gods, would lead one to think that there was an
archetypal one; and to find this original one the intelligent mind would
naturally look to the East, to the region about the lower waters of the
Tigris and Euphrates, and with a reasonable expectation of discovering
it there.[213] For among the Turanians, in that locality, the worship
of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly first acquired prominence; and in
the same locality, too, among the same people, the worship of serpents,
according to Bryant,[214] who has written learnedly on the subject,
began, and, as Fergusson says, not only originated but “spread thence,
as from a centre, to every country or land of the old world in which a
Turanian people settled,”[215] becoming adopted to some extent also by
Semites and Aryans. From Hea, one of the three great gods (Ana, Hea, and
Bel) of the Accadio-Sumerians, and, later, of the people of Babylonia,
doubtless sprang some features of the Apollo myth, and possibly in
part through Horus of the Egyptians. To Baal-Samen, the baal of the
heavens, of the Phœnicians, Apollo had many points of resemblance. It
has been maintained, however, that Apollo was “a pure growth of the Greek
mind.”[216] He was so in part.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.—A SYMBOL OF HEA.]
Speaking of Hea, Lenormant says that it was he “that animated matter
and rendered it fertile, that penetrated the universe and directed and
inspired it with life.”[217] As water was believed to be the vehicle
of all life and the source of generation, he sprung from the ocean and
was regarded as amphibious. Oannes[218] was the name by which he was
known by the Greeks. Like Dagon, of the Philistines, whose prototype he
was, it was usual to give him the combined form of a fish and a man.
One of the symbols of him, according to Rawlinson,[219] was a serpent,
an illustration of which is reproduced here. He was the god of life,
and, significantly enough, the literal meaning of his name is serpent
as well as life. Here, then, we have the serpent signifying life. This
is a very noteworthy fact. In an interesting paper read in 1872 before
the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain, by Mr. C. S. Wake, it is
very properly said: “It is probable that the association with the serpent
of the idea of healing arose from the still earlier recognition of that
animal as a symbol of life.”[220]
It is not amiss to remark, in this connection, that it is curious fact
that the American Indians associated a serpent with the great sun-god,
or, rather, the god of light, Manabozho,[221] a healing divinity, the
one that instituted the sacred Medicine-Feast. It is observed by Miss
Emerson that “Apollo, as a god of medicine, was originally worshipped
under the form of a serpent,[222] and men worshipped him as a helper; and
we trace a similar idea among the Indians relative to Manabozho. And a
further association of ideas suggests the mystic god, Unk-ta-he, the god
of waters, pictured as a serpent, who was believed to have power over
diseases.”[223] To this I may add that Hea sprang from the Persian Gulf,
and was regarded as the god of waters as well as of life.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.—MANABOZHO.]
A great deal has been written on serpent-worship, “the first variation,”
says Bryant, “from the purer Sabaism;”[224] and the number of suggested
explanations of the curious cultus is almost legion. I hesitate about
touching on the subject; but some statements on it are called for, to
render the treatment of the matter on hand reasonably complete.
In a recent able work, Mr. C. F. Keary, of the British Museum, presents
some interesting facts and inferences on the origin of the worship.
He maintains that the tree, mountain, and river were the three great
primitive fetich-gods, and forcibly argues that a serpent was the symbol
of the last, which, it may be noted, is nearly always a life-giving
power, an early and substantial type of the _fontaine de jouvence_.
Without pretending to account for their original worship, he “takes it
for certain that, at a very early time, rivers became through symbolism
confounded with serpents.”[225]
Remnants of the three fetich-gods of Mr. Keary are preserved in later
and more abstract cults, and may be largely found in Indo-European
mythologies. The Greeks and Romans appear to have regarded rivers and
mountains with particular favor, while the Celts and Teutons were more
especially devoted to trees. The wells of knowledge and of magic and
the fountains of youth which are met with in myth and legend are simply
the narrowing to particular instances of the magic, the sacredness, and
the healing gifts which were once universally attributed to streams.
The monstrous python which Apollo encountered and destroyed at Delphi
was, according to Mr. Keary, a river, and a harmful one,—the river of
death. “The reptile was, we know,” says he, “before all things, sacred
to Æsculapius, and was kept in his house, as, for example, in the great
temple at Epidaurus. It would seem that the sun-god has the special
mission of overcoming and absorbing unto himself this form of fetich.
This is why Apollo slays the python, and why the snake is sacred to
Æsculapius.”[226]
Mr. Keary was by no means the first, I may say, to emphasize the
association of serpents with rivers. The fact has been dwelt on by Dr.
Brinton. Says this distinguished student of American archæology: “The
sinuous course of the serpent is like nothing so much as that of a
winding river; which, therefore, we often call serpentine. So did the
Indians. Kennebec, a stream in Maine, in the Algonkin, means snake,
and Antietam, the creek in Maryland of tragic celebrity, in an Iroquois
dialect, has the same significance. How easily could savages, construing
the figure literally, make the serpent a river- or water-god.”[227]
I believe, however, that it would be a mistake to hold that the serpent
was at any time exclusively a symbol of the river. Both Mr. Keary and
Dr. Brinton say as much. In the old world, as well as in the new, it was
widely recognized as a symbol of lightning, and believed to have power
over wind and rain.
Some have turned to the heavens for an explanation of serpent-worship.
Thus, Mr. Arthur Lillie, in an interesting little work, says: “Like
all old religious ideas, the serpent-symbol was, probably, in the
first instance, astronomical.[228] Two thousand eight hundred and
thirty-six years before Christ, a large star was within one degree of
the celestial pole. This was the _A_ of Draco.”[229] Much interest was
taken in this star of Draco, formerly, as Mr. Proctor says, “the polar
constellation”[230] in different countries,[231] as, for instance, in
Egypt. In their studies of the great pyramid Jizeh, both Proctor and
Piazzi Smyth[232] dwell on the subject at length.[233] The passage from
the north, which slants downward at an angle of 26° 17´ into the immense
structure, would seem to have been constructed so that _A_ of Draco shone
down it. When this was the case, the star was 3° 42´ from the pole,
which was its position both about 2170 and 3350 B.C. “We conclude,” says
Proctor, “with considerable confidence, that it was about one of the two
dates, 3350 and 2170 B.C., that the erection of the great pyramid began,
and from the researches of Egyptologists it has become all but certain
that the earlier of these dates is very near the correct epoch.”[234]
Smyth takes 2170 B.C. as the correct date, but his unscientific method
of study renders him an unreliable authority. The question is highly
interesting and important.
However, the constellation of Draco was represented in ancient astronomy
by a tortuous serpent, either alone or in connection with a tree. Those
familiar with the description of the shield of Hercules,[235] attributed
to Hesiod, and which, it is believed, was suggested by a Zodiac
temple[236] of the Chaldeans, imitations of which were to be found in
Egypt and elsewhere, will recall the reference to Draco,[237] as follows:—
“The scaly terror of a dragon coil’d
Full in the central field; unspeakable;
With eyes oblique, retorted, that aslant
Shot gleaming flame; his hollow jaw was fill’d
Dispersedly with jagged fangs of white,
Grim, unapproachable.”[238]
It is hardly to be inferred from this description, I may remark, that
the worship of Draco would be one of love. Yet, Rawlinson says: “The
stellar name of Hea was Kimmut; and it is suspected that in this aspect
he was identified with the constellation Draco, which is perhaps the
Kimmah[239] of Scripture.”[240] This is an interesting statement when
taken in connection with what has been already said about Hea. To the
Accadians and others the north was a favorable point, being the source of
cool, vivifying breezes.
But, whether from fear or not, Draco inspired wide-spread attention and
worship. Lillie remarks that the serpent of the “three precious gems” of
the Buddhist, the serpent, sun, and tree, the A. U. M., is Draco at the
pole. The Tria Ratna, or three precious symbols of the faith, have, in
the representation given, their earliest emblem, except, perhaps, the
swastika,[241] or cross, which was doubtless formed at one time of two
serpents.[242]
[Illustration: FIG. 9.—THE BUDDHIST TRIA RATNA.]
In the illustration, the serpent represents the male and the staff the
female or negative principle. It has been asserted that we have in it the
prototype of the caduceus of Hermes.
The assumption of the serpent as a totem,[243] or symbol, of a family
or tribe has been held—as, for example, by Mr. McLennan[244] and Sir
John Lubbock[245]—to afford an explanation of the origin and practice of
serpent-worship. This honor was no doubt accorded the reptile at a very
early period and in different parts of the world; and it is still done
by the Nagas of India and others. In speaking of Parium, a city of the
Troad, Strabo says: “It is here the story is related that the Ophiogeneis
have some affinity with the serpent tribe.... According to fable the
founder of the race of Ophiogeneis, a hero, was transformed from a
serpent into a man. He was, perhaps, one of the African Psylli.” The
power of curing by touch persons bitten by serpents[246] was claimed by
this tribe. David would seem to have belonged to the serpent family, as
appears from the name of his ancestor, Naasson; and it has been suggested
that the brazen serpent found by Hezekiah, in the Temple of Solomon, was
a symbol of it. The friendliness of David to the king of Ammon is thus
explained.[247] Speaking of rattlesnakes, it is said, in Miss Emerson’s
work, “These creatures were so highly esteemed that to have a serpent as
his totem elevated an Indian chief above his brothers.”[248]
The fact of the same word meaning both serpent and life has been believed
to cast light on the origin of the worship of serpents. After stating
that the reptile was always a symbol of life and health in Egypt and
other countries, the Abbé Pluche gives as the reason, “because among
most of the Eastern nations, as the Phœnicians, Hebrews, Arabians,
and others, with the language of which that of Egypt had an affinity,
the word _heve_ or _hava_ equally signifies the life and the serpent.
The name of _Him who is_, the great name of God, _Jov_ or _Jehova_,
thence draws its etymology. _Heve_, or the name of the common mother of
mankind, comes likewise from the same word. Life could not be painted,
but it might be marked out by the figure of the animal which bears its
name.”[249] According to Lenormant,[250] one of the generic names in
the Assyrian-Semitic tongue is _havon_, like the Arabian _hiyah_, both
derived from the root _hâvah_, to live. From the same root came the Latin
_ave_, a wish of good health, and also _ævum_, the life. The asp still
bears the name of _naja haje_.
It is interesting to observe that the American Indians, as well as
Eastern peoples, made use of the serpent as a symbol of life. The
belief that the animal had power over the fertilizing summer showers
was probably at the bottom of it, as well as its title to god of
fruitfulness. Says Dr. Brinton: “Because the rattlesnake, the lightning
symbol, is thus connected with the food of man, and itself seems
never to die, but annually to renew its youth, the Algonkins called
it ‘grandfather,’ and king of snakes. They feared to injure it. They
believed it could grant prosperous breezes or raise disastrous tempests.
Crowned with the lunar crescent, it was the constant symbol of life in
their picture-writing.”[251] In the language of the Algonkins and of the
Dakotas, the words _manito_ and _waken_, which express divinity in its
widest sense, also signify serpent.
Mr. Wake entertains the opinion that the mainspring of serpent-worship
was a belief that the animal was really the embodiment of a deceased
human being; or, in other words, that the worship was ancestral in
character. He says: “The serpent has been viewed with awe or veneration
from primeval times and almost universally as a re-embodiment of
a deceased human being; and as such there were ascribed to it the
attributes of life and wisdom and the power of healing.”[252]
But little, however, in what has been said throws much light on the main
point at issue, namely, why the serpent should be yielded worship. The
cause must be sought for, to some extent, in peculiarities of the animal
itself. And it has peculiarities enough. Remarkable in form and in mode
of locomotion, and in some species possessed of deadly venom, one might
well regard it with admiration and awe. Then, its longevity and apparent
power of renewing its age serve to make it a very extraordinary creature.
The opinion has been expressed[253] that its power to glide along without
limbs, like the heavenly bodies, was the reason why it was held to be
sacred. No doubt its remarkable power of motion in the absence of limbs
forcibly impressed the ancients.[254] Solomon himself said that one of
the four things he could not understand was “the way of a serpent upon a
rock.”[255]
Herbert Spencer maintains that the first step toward the worship of
serpents and other animals was the naming or, rather, nicknaming of men
after creatures to which they bore some points of resemblance. Thus, from
having apparently, like Holmes’s Elsie Venner, some of the qualities of a
snake, one might be compared with the animal, and so named after it. Then
the descendants, out of regard for their ancestor,[256] might take the
name, or, in other words, accept the snake as their totem.
Although the Æsculapian serpent was innocent, it was mostly a harmful
species which received worship. The asp of the Egyptians and the cobra
of the East Indians are decidedly venomous. Under the name of _uræus_
the asp was a symbol of royalty in ancient Egypt. Ebers makes Rameses
say: “My predecessors chose the poisonous _uræus_ as the emblem of
their authority, for we can cause death as quickly and as certainly
as the venomous snake.”[257] The American Indians were devoted to the
rattlesnake, which is extremely venomous. Thus, says Dr. Brinton: “The
rattlesnake was the species almost exclusively honored by the red race.
It is slow to attack, but venomous in the extreme, and possesses the
power of the basilisk to attract within its spring small birds and
squirrels.”[258] Evidently the worship of such reptiles must have been
inspired, in a measure at least, by fear. Still, it appears certain,
as the author just quoted believes, that, as employed to express the
divine element in atmospheric and other natural phenomena, it far more
frequently typified what was favorable and agreeable than the reverse.
Ebers gives it as his opinion that “mythological figures of snakes have
quite as often a benevolent as a malevolent signification.”[259]
A word must be said about the phallic explanation of the origin of
serpent-worship. Mr. Cox, an excellent writer on mythology, is friendly
to this theory. After speaking of the phallus as a symbol, he says:
“When we add that from its physical characteristics the Ashêrah, which
the Greeks called the phallus, suggested the emblem of the serpent, we
have the key to the tree- and serpent-worship.”[260] Beyond question, a
phallus-serpent comes frequently into view in studying mythology, but it
would be very hard to prove that every serpent met with had its prototype
in the phallus. It is to be regarded as beneficent, a life-giving power.
The Agathodæmon is frequently so represented.
Probably the possibility of charming serpents has had something to
do with the remarkable uses to which these animals have been put. A
person who could handle without danger a venomous reptile, and control
its actions at pleasure, might easily lead many to believe him to be
possessed of some miraculous power. Aaron resorted to this artifice when
he appeared before Pharaoh with his cataleptic serpent, in the form of a
rod.[261]
The reason just given seems better than the one Plutarch gives for the
association of the serpent with certain great men, when he says, in
his “Life of Cleomanes,” that it was from a belief that after death
evaporation of “the marrow”[262] produces serpents;[263] that the
ancients appropriated the serpent, rather than any other animal, to
heroes.
I believe it is vain to attempt to trace the origin of serpent-worship to
one and the same source. This appears plain when it is remembered that
some serpents represented good, while others stood for the opposite,
evil. The Bible furnishes a marked instance of contrasts: in one place
a serpent was used, as has been pointed out, as a symbol of God, or
Christ, while elsewhere one represents cunning, envy, lying, and even
“the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.”[264] In the
nature of things, one would expect the same species of reptile to
produce a very similar impression on primitive peoples everywhere. This,
probably, accounts largely for the resemblance to one another of most
serpent-legends. The different impressions produced by different species
would, to some extent, explain the unlike significance of serpent-symbols
among different peoples. The signification, however, was often of very
fanciful origin, as, for example, where a serpent in the form of a circle
symbolized eternity, or, rather, endless life.
CHAPTER X.
VARIOUS ATTRIBUTES OF ÆSCULAPIUS.
In this chapter I will speak briefly of various attributes, more or less
generally accorded to Æsculapius. Some of them are decidedly significant,
but none so much so as the staff and serpent of which I have fully
treated.
In many, indeed most, of the representations of Æsculapius, he is
crowned with A WREATH OF LAUREL. This mark of merit, like rays of light
which were given in some instances, has been commonly held to have been
accorded him because he was the son of Apollo, to whom the tree was
sacred. According to this view, one has in it a remnant of the oracular
laurel at Delphi. Another way of accounting for it is, to use the words
of Tooke, “because that tree is powerful in curing many diseases,”[265]
an exaggerated claim. The ancients regarded it as effective against evil
spirits.[266]
A BUNCH OF HERBS was at times represented in one of the hands of the
god. This was very appropriate. The district of Greece[267] in which,
according to the legend, he studied under Chiron, was famous for its
medicinal plants.
A BOWL was occasionally shown in connection with figures of Æsculapius.
It was indicative of the administration by him of medicinal potions.
A SCROLL was an attribute of some Æsculapian figures. It is an admirable
one for an ideal physician. In modern times it should certainly be
regarded as an indispensable one. Medicine has been evolved from recorded
experience, and its progress is dependent on the same.
An unpublished discovery of any kind is, in a manner, none at all.
Curiously enough the name of the Egyptian god of medicine, Imhotep,
means, “I bring the offering,” the ideograph for _hotep_, or offering,
being a papyrus roll.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.—TELESPHORUS.]
I will now say a few words about a remarkable attribute of some
representations of the god of medicine. I refer to TELESPHORUS,
EUEMERION, or ACESIUS,[268] a small figure, a boy, but not a son, as is
sometimes stated. As will be seen in the cut of him given, and which is
copied from one given by Tooke,[269] as seen in a statue in the Louvre,
he is wrapped in a mantle and is barefooted. Figures of him, however,
vary considerably in appearance. In him we have, according to some, a
sort of dæmon or familiar spirit, such as that which Socrates is said to
have had. It is better, I think, to regard him as a genius,[270] meant to
symbolize the hidden sustaining vital force, the _vis medicatrix naturæ_,
or _anima medica_, upon which greatly depends the recovery of the sick.
It has been suggested that the careful wrapping may be intended to
indicate the need of such protection during convalescence.
The DOG was prominent in connection with the Epidaurian and other statues
of Æsculapius. The fidelity and watchfulness of this friendly animal
render it a very fit attribute of the god. The part played with the goat,
according to the legend, has been taken by some to afford an explanation
of the connection. Another is furnished by the name, which, as will be
pointed out in the next chapter, apparently means man-dog.
The Parsis believed that dogs with four eyes could drive away the
death-fiend; but such not being procurable, one “with two spots above
the eyes” was used for the purpose. In their great sacred book,[271] the
animal is represented to be the special one of Ormazd. Herodotus states
that the Magi do not hesitate to kill all animals, “excepting dogs and
men.”[272]
The Oriental Mardux, in whom was assimilated the more ancient
Silik-mulu-khi, a healing divinity, was attended by dogs, as was Nimrod,
the hunter, with whom he may have been identical.[273]
The COCK, as well as the dog, was a prominent attribute in many
representations of Æsculapius. This alert bird, a bird watchful of the
returning light, was very properly associated with a sun-god. It was a
common object of sacrifice to the god, by patients who were grateful
for relief or cure. Socrates has, through Plato, made this memorable.
Said the dying sage, as he felt his limbs growing cold: “When the poison
reaches the heart, that will be the end.” Feeling his body gradually
losing its vital heat, and realizing that relief from his troubles was at
hand, he said, as he passed away, “Crito, I owe a cock to Æsculapius;
will you remember to pay the debt?” “The debt shall be paid,” responded
his friend.[274]
The practice of sacrificing[275] a cock for the restoration of health
was not exclusively practiced by the votaries of Æsculapius. In his
“Life of Pyrrhus, King of Epirus,” Plutarch says that “a white cock” was
sacrificed generally by each of the patients he touched “for swelling
of the spleen.” The full quotation will be given in a succeeding
chapter. The bird is still sacrificed in some parts of Scotland and
other countries, for the removal of at least one disease,—epilepsy. Dr.
Mitchell, of Edinburgh, states that the practice is very familiar to
him. In the northern part of his native country, “on the spot,” says he,
“where the epileptic first falls, a black cock is buried alive, along
with a lock of the patient’s hair and some parings of his nails.”[276]
There is yet another animal associated with the god of medicine,—the
GOAT. It was especially by the Cyrenians that the connection was much
emphasized. Pausanias remarks that “the Cyrenians sacrifice goats,
although this rite was not delivered by the Epidaurians.”[277] Still,
as already pointed out, on Epidaurian coins, Æsculapius was represented
sucking a goat,—an illustration of the legend.
Why the goat was connected in sacrifice with the god is explained by
Tooke thus: “A goat is always in a fever, and, therefore, a goat’s
constitution is very contrary to health.”[278] Shakespeare, in “King
Lear,” uses the phrase “goatish disposition” in reference to a
“whoremaster man.” The fabled satyrs were in part goats in form. I am not
aware that there was anything of the Biblical scape-goat principle[279]
about the sacrifice, a superstition similar to the one which prevailed
“all over Egypt,” as we are told by Herodotus,[280] of praying that evils
impending over the people might fall on the head of the sacrificial
victim, and then casting it into the Nile, if there was no Greek at hand
to whom it could be sold.
The great prominence of the goat in the Æsculapian rites in Cyrene may
have been due, to some extent at least, to the proximity of Egypt, a
country in which the animal played a prominent part. In the goat of
Mendes,[281] the incarnation of Khem or Min, was personified, says
Lenormant, “in the most brutish manner the reproductive power.”[282] Both
the goat and the cock were often associated with the Egyptian Hermes.
I may add that the cause of the association of the goat with Æsculapius
has been referred to the name. The Abbé Banier states the case thus:
“_Es_ or _ex_, which begins the name of the god, signifies a goat in the
language of the Phœnicians,[283] and, with a little variation, the same
thing in Greek;[284] and this had given rise to the fable of Æsculapius
being nursed by that animal.”[285]
CHAPTER XI.
GODS ANALOGOUS TO ÆSCULAPIUS.
The great eminence acquired by the Æsculapian myth among the Grecians
might reasonably lead to the belief that it was one entirely special to
that imaginative people. Like many other gods, however, of both high
and low degree, this one was only in part “to the manor born.” There is
good ground for believing that there was what might justly be called a
prototype of the divinity of much repute in both Phœnicia and Egypt.
Dr. Mayo does not hesitate to say that “Æsculapius was actually known
in the Oriental countries before he was in Greece, whither his worship
was brought from Phœnicia by the colony of Cadmus and from Egypt by that
of Danaus.”[286] It is not improbable that the main conception of the
healing god did really long antedate not only the Grecian but both the
Phœnician and Egyptian embodiments of it. Evidence of this will be found
later in the chapter.
The ESMUN “the Eighth” of the Phœnicians, especially worshipped at
Berytus,[287] has been regarded[288] as essentially the same as the
Grecian Æsculapius. He was probably that and something more. Little
definite is known of this personage, of whom the serpent was a symbol,
save what we are told of him in the fragment of an historical work by
Sanchoniathon, preserved by Eusebius, an early Christian writer. “To
Sydyk, called the Just,” it is said, “one of the Titanides[289] bore
Esmun.”[290] He is represented to have been the eighth and chief of those
spared by the deluge, and also of the Cabiri, or Cabeiri,[291] “the seven
sons of Sydyk,”[292] the mighty ones, named, it has been said,[293] after
mountains in Phrygia, and divinities widely, but in general secretly,
adored, in Phœnicia, Carthage,[294] Egypt,[295] and elsewhere.
The belief has been expressed that Noah and his family and the Cabiri
were originally the same.[296] Mr. Faber entertained this view, and
it is fully set forth by him in an interesting work,—one, by the way,
in which is ably presented the so-called Arkite symbolism,[297] which
has excited considerable attention, but which Mr. Tylor, as well as
many others, declares to be “arrant nonsense.”[298] In reference to
Æsculapius he says: “This deity connects the first and second tables of
the Phœnician genealogies, his father, Sydyk, occupying a conspicuous
place in the one, while his mother, Titanis, is enumerated among the
daughters of Cronus, in the other. I am much inclined to think that the
imaginary god of health is in reality the very same person as his reputed
father, Sydyk, both of them being equally the patriarch, Noah, worshipped
in connection with the sun. Macrobius, accordingly, informs us that
Æsculapius was one of the many names of the solar deity, and that he was
usually adored along with Salus, or the Moon.[299] Salus, however, was
no less a personification of the ark than of the moon, those two objects
of idolatrous veneration being allied to each other in consequence of
the union of the Arkite and Sabian superstitions. Thus, while Noah
was revered as the god of health and as one of the eight Cabiri, the
vessel in which he was preserved was honored with the title of Salus, or
Safety.”[300]
Lenormant regards the Cabiri as the seven planets of the ancients; that
is, the Sun, Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus, and Mercury. “Esmun,”
says he, “invisible to mortal eyes, was supposed to be the connecting
link of the seven others and the one approaching nearest to the
primordial Baal.[301] He presided over the whole sideral system, and was
supposed to preside over the laws and harmonies of the universe, and in
this respect was the same as Taaut.”[302]
Although secret, the worship of the Cabiri was participated in by persons
of either sex and of all ages. In Lemnos and other places the fires were
put out, sacrifices to the dead were made, and fire was brought from
Delos in a sacred vessel and given to the people, who, with it, began a
new and regenerated existence. Phallic rites formed an inseparable part
of the worship, which was indulged in at stated periods.
As showing that Æsculapius was of Phœnician origin, Mr. Faber lays
emphasis on the fact that in the edition of Virgil by Servius the line
telling of the destruction of the god makes him a Phœnician:—
“_Fulmine Pœnigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas._”[303]
The usual and, doubtless, the right reading makes _Pœnigenam_,
_Phœbigenam_.
The opinion that Æsculapius was essentially the same as ANUBIS among the
early Egyptians has been advanced. Both were viewed as simply divine
personifications of Sirius, or Sothis, the dog-star.[304] This view is
well presented by M. Pluche.
A study of the name[305] Æsculapius may or may not afford evidence in
favor of the idea that there was originally a connection between the god
and the dog-star. Although decidedly a Grecian god, Asklepios does not
appear to be a Greek word. Keightly goes so far as to say, “Of his name
no satisfactory derivation has as yet been offered.”[306] He ventures,
however, to suggest that it may be from the root σχάλλω, the original
meaning of which may have been to cut, whence the Latin _scalpo_ and our
own word _scalpel_. Mr. Keightly forgot that the name was not necessarily
Greek; for that, like nearly all others, was largely a derivative
language. In the Greek as well as the Latin form, it may be Hebrew, or,
what was essentially the same, Phœnician. Taking it to be compounded of
_esh_, _aish_, _isch_, or _ish_,[307] a man, and _caleb_,[308] _caleph_,
or _culap_, a dog, the literal meaning of it is _vir-canis_, or man-dog.
But, as some remarks already made indicate, it may be interpreted to mean
_goat-dog_.[309]
ANUBIS, ANUP, or ANUPU, who in very early times was possibly the same as
Thoth, was regarded as symbolic of that brightest of the fixed stars,
Sirius, “the burning,” whose first appearance in the morning was the
signal of the advent of the warm season, and the Etesian or periodic wind
from the north, as well as the beginning of the year.[310] The rising
of this notable star heliacally—that is, with the sun[311]—told the
Egyptians to prepare at once for the overflow of the waters of the Nile.
By many it was believed to be the cause of the flood. The watch-dog was
evidently a very appropriate symbol for this star of warning. Then, from
the fact that Sirius gave warning of danger, and thus saved the lives
of the people, to the symbols of it the serpent, the life-symbol, was
often and very properly attached. “On this account it was,” says Pluche,
“that Anubis and Æsculapius passed for the inventors of physic and the
preservers of life.”[312]
Others besides the Egyptians regarded Sirius with favor;[313] as, for
example, the Parsis, to whom it was “Tystria, the bright and glorious
star.”[314] In Greece, however, it was not regarded as propitious. To it
were attributed certain diseases. Thus, Homer, who calls it Orion’s dog,
says:—
“His burning breath
Taints the red air with fevers, plagues, and death.”[315]
Remembering the medical history of Sirius, it is worth while recalling
that the “dog-days,” those extending from about the 22d of July to the
23d of August, are often spoken of as the physician’s holiday.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.—ANUBIS.]
One very often hears that THOTH was to the Egyptians the god of medicine,
just as Æsculapius was to the Greeks and Romans. Even the late Dr. Aitken
Meigs, a scholarly physician, accepted this idea. In an address, to be
referred to later, he says: “Æsculapius is, doubtless, the Egyptian
Thoth, or Hermes Trismegistus, whose symbols, the staff and twining
serpent, surmounted with the mystic hawk of Horus-Ra and the solar
uræus,[316] appear in the ancient temple Pselcis, near Dakkeh, in Nubia.”
The Doctor is about as wide of the mark as Forbes Winslow, when he says
that the Grecian “Apollo and Minerva answered to the Isis and Osiris of
the Egyptians; and Orpheus, the priest, poet, and physician, usurped the
place of Thoth.”[317]
HERMES, THOTH, or THOT, the TET or TAAUTES of the Phœnicians, was not the
god of medicine among the Egyptians, any more than he was the god of any
other special branch of knowledge. He was the patron god of all kinds of
learning.
Says Ebers: “The discovery of nearly every science is attributed to the
ibis-headed god, Thoth, the writer or clerk of heaven, whom the Greeks
compared to their god, Hermes.”[318]
It is no doubt true, however, that Hermes was credited with taking
considerable interest in medical matters. He was said to have been the
author of six books on the healing art, in which anatomy, pathology, and
therapeutics were treated of, together with diseases of the eye,—a part
of the body which has always suffered much in Egypt. Ebers remarks that
“the book on the use of medicine has been preserved to the present day in
the ‘Papyrus-Ebers.’”[319]
Having referred to the “Papyrus-Ebers,” it may be well to say a few
words about it. It was discovered a few years ago by the learned and
versatile Egyptologist, Herr Ebers, and is the best preserved of all the
ancient Egyptian manuscripts extant. It was written at Sais during the
eighteenth dynasty; that is, in the sixteenth century before our era. It
consists of 110 pages. In it we have the hermetic medical work of the
ancient Egyptians, with the contents of which the Alexandrian Greeks
were familiar. The god Thoth is called in it “the Guide” of physicians,
and the composition of it is attributed to him. This venerable document
treats of many internal and external diseases of most parts of the body.
Special attention is given to the visual organs. Drugs belonging to all
the kingdoms of nature are used, and with those prescribed are numbers
according to which they are weighed with weights and measured with hollow
vessels. Accompanying the prescriptions are noted the pious axioms to
be repeated by the physician while compounding and giving them to the
patient. The German government has published the work in _fac-simile_,
a copy of which I have examined. There is a copy of it, I think, in the
Astor Library, New York.
Medicine certainly consisted of more than charms and the like, at a very
early period, in Egypt. Indeed, in the remains of Manetho’s history of
the country, it is said of the successor of Menes, the first king of
the first dynasty, which dates back to about 4000 years before our era:
“Athothis, his son, reigned 57 years; he built the palaces at Memphis,
and left the anatomical books, for he was a physician.”[320] The custom
of embalming the dead necessarily led to at least a rough knowledge of
the anatomy of the body.
SESOSTRIS, or SESORTOSIS, the second king of the third dynasty, sometimes
gets credit for being “the actual founder of medicine.”[321] Manetho
says of him: “He is called Asclepius by the Egyptians, for his medical
knowledge.”[322]
According to Herodotus and Diodorus, medical practice was carried on in
a highly rational way at an early period in Egypt. Mr. Sayce ventures
to say that in the period of the eighteenth dynasty medicine was “in
almost as advanced a state as in the age of Galen; the various diseases
known were carefully distinguished from one another, and their symptoms
were minutely described, as well as their treatment. The prescriptions
recommended in each case are made out in precisely the same way as the
prescriptions of a modern doctor.”[323] Mr. Sayce bases these statements
on the “Papyrus-Ebers.” However, we are informed by Herodotus that
specialists were common when he visited the country, which was about
450 years before our era; but this must not be accepted as proof that
medicine was necessarily in a very advanced state. Here is what the
Grecian historian says: “Medicine is practiced among them on a plan of
separation; each physician treats a single disorder, and no more. Thus,
the country swarms with medical practitioners, some undertaking to cure
diseases of the eye; others, of the head; others, again, of the teeth;
others, of the intestines; and some, those which are not local.”[324]
As to their philosophy of morbid conditions, he says: “They have a
persuasion that every disease to which men are liable is occasioned by
substances whereon they feed.” This doctrine led them “to purge the body
by means of emetics and clysters” for “three successive days in each
month.”[325]
In respect to medical specialism in Egypt, I may further say that,
according to Ebers,[326] as early as 1500 before our era, any one
requiring a physician sent for him, not to his house, but to the
temple. There a statement was obtained from the messenger concerning
the complaint from which the sick person was suffering; and then it was
left to the principal of the medical staff of the sanctuary to select
that master of the healing art whose special knowledge and experience
qualified him to be best suited for the treatment of the case. No
honorarium was expected from the patient. The fee was paid by the State.
According to Canon Rawlinson, it is an open question whether, as is often
said, the physicians of ancient Egypt formed a special division of the
sacerdotal order; “though, no doubt, some of the priests were required
to study medicine.”[327] It is interesting to connect with this the
following statement from an authoritative work: “There is no sign in the
Homeric poems of the subordination of medicine to religion, which is seen
in ancient Egypt and India.”[328]
It has been asserted that “medicine in Egypt was a mere art, or
profession.”[329] That this assertion is ridiculously untrue any one
knows who is competent to form an opinion on medical subjects, and who
has read the Pentateuch. Moses, whose learning was Egyptian, had a
wonderful knowledge of hygiene,—the most important part of medicine. The
manner of dealing with contagious diseases described in the thirteenth
and fourteenth chapters of Leviticus is far in advance of our practice
to-day. So intent were the Egyptians on knowing the nature of diseases
that _post-mortem_ examinations were, it is said by Pliny, resorted to
for the purpose. Unlike the religion of the Hebrews, theirs did not teach
them to dread touching the dead. But one has the authority of Celsus
for saying that the latter physicians, those of the Alexandrian school,
were not satisfied with the dissection of the dead; they went so far as
to make _ante-mortem_ examinations of criminals. In truth, Mr. Sayce
properly observes that it was “in medicine that Egypt attained any real
scientific eminence.”[330]
Jeremiah, speaking of “the daughter of Egypt,” says: “In vain shalt
thou use many medicines; for thou shalt not be cured.”[331] This remark
indicates that the skillful use of medicines by the Egyptians was widely
noised abroad over five centuries before our era. Both Cyrus and Darius
sent to Egypt for physicians.[332] Hippocrates, however, who lived nearly
two centuries later than the prophet, gives no prominence to Egyptian
medicine. But much earlier, indeed, than this time, it is evident from
the works of Homer that it was in repute among the Greeks. Thus, to
remove the grief and rage caused by the death of brave Antilochus, we are
told that the famous Helen of Sparta, who takes on the occasion the rôle
of _une femme médecin_,—
“Mix’d a mirth-inspiring bowl,
Temper’d with drugs of sovereign power t’ assuage
The boiling bosom of tumultuous rage.
...
These drugs so friendly to the joys of life
Bright Helen learn’d from Thone’s imperial wife,[333]
Who sway’d the sceptre, where prolific Nile
With various simples clothes the fatten’d soil.”[334]
Again, it is said of the Pharian or Egyptian race:—
“From Pæon sprung, their patron god imparts
To all the Pharian race his healing arts.”[335]
Such statements as those just made would seem to render it more than
probable that not a little of Grecian medicine was of Egyptian origin.
Pliny, indeed, says that it was claimed that the study of medicine was
begun in Egypt.[336] Blakie, however, ventures to affirm that “the
knowledge of medicine came to the Greeks originally from Thessaly, one
of the earliest seats of Hellenic civilization, as is evident from the
pedigree of Coronis.”[337] At any rate, it is certain that, for some time
before and after the beginning of the Christian era, Alexandria was a
great medical centre. There it was that Herophilus and Erasistratus lived
and imperishably distinguished themselves two centuries or so B.C.
But I must return to Hermes, from whom I have been wandering, perhaps,
too far and too long. Although I am not disposed to give the medical
position to him that some have questionably done, I deem it wise to
say a few words especially about him. Lenormant believes that he was
originally the angel of Baal, Malâk-Baal, who, like him, assimilated with
the Agathodæmon.[338] It is generally believed that he came to Egypt from
Phœnicia.[339] He was usually represented[340] with the head of, not a
hawk, but an ibis, a heart-shaped bird with the plumage white, except
the pinions and tail, which are black, and with long legs and beak, the
latter crooked. This bird was the symbol of him made use of in writing.
Both it[341] and a species[342] black in color are well described by
Herodotus. Mummified specimens of it are to be seen in an excellent state
of preservation in museums, as, for instance, in that of the Academy of
Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
I may observe in this connection that an Ibis Society would be the same
as a Hermes Society. Neither title is very suitable for a medical one. I
have heard of an Ibex Society; but, of course, the ibis and the ibex are
entirely different creatures.
Horus himself, whose “face is in the shape of the divine hawk,”[343] and
who, in some respects, resembles Apollo, was believed to possess medical
power.[344] Murray even says, “Horus was reputed to have been deeply
versed in the practice of medicine, and, accordingly, was compared with
Æsculapius.”[345]
CHONSU, or CHONSU-NEFER-HOTEP,[346] the son of Amun and Mut, the third of
the great Theban triad, was regarded as a healing divinity. Says Tiele:
“He was resorted to for the cure of all diseases, or for the exorcism of
all the evil spirits who inflict them.”[347] He resembled Thoth somewhat.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.—THOTH.]
From the third century before our era forward SERAPIS was highly esteemed
for his healing power.[348] He was in part a Grecian conception, being
first prominent in Pontus, and his worship became popular in many
sections of Greece and Rome; but Alexandria was his chief seat, and
his serapeum there was of great magnificence and renown.[349] He was
represented in various ways, often as a man encircled by a serpent.
The special personage corresponding to Æsculapius, among the Egyptians,
would seem to have been IMHOTEP, EIMOPTH, IMOTHPH, EIMOTHPH, or EMEPH,
a god whose shrine was first discovered by Salt,[350] the Egyptologist,
at Philæ. A Greek inscription on the shrine reads: “Æsculapius, who is
Imuthes, son of Vulcan.” In accordance with the inscription, Sir Erasmus
Wilson says: “Imhotep, the IMUTHES of the Greeks, corresponded with their
Æsculapius.”[351] Ebers, probably the best of authorities on the subject,
says of Imhotep: “He was the son of Ptah, and named Asklepios by the
Greeks. Memphis[352] was the chief city of his worship. He is usually
represented with a cap on his head and a book on his knee. There are
fine statues of him at Berlin, the Louvre, and other museums.”[353] It
is said by Tiele that “he is a personification of the sacrificial fire,”
that “the texts designate him as the first of the Cher-hib,” a class of
priests who were at the same time choristers and physicians, for the
sacred hymns were believed to have a magical power as remedies, and that
his worship, although of ancient date, “does not seem ever to have taken
a prominent place.”[354]
Of Imhotep I may further say, in the way of biography, that he was the
son of Ptah and Sekhet, and was possibly a king of the sixth dynasty. In
the Egyptian system of mythology, Ptah, “he who forms,” the god of fire,
was regarded as the father of the gods and the great artificer of the
world. He bore a resemblance to Hephæstus,[355] a god, indeed, who had
the gift of healing.
After all, it is necessary to say that there is but little evidence
to establish the claim of Imhotep to the title of god of medicine. As
Kenrick says, “He has no attribute which specially refers to the art
of healing, and it may be an arbitrary interpretation of the Greeks
which gave him the name of Æsculapius, as some applied the same to
Serapis.”[356] Whether he was a medical worthy or not, it appears from
quotations from his teachings given in a song, recently translated from a
papyrus in the British Museum, that he was of decidedly epicurean views.
“Fulfill,” says he, “thy desire whilst thou livest;” and again: “Feast in
tranquility, seeing that there is no one who carries away his good things
with him.”[357]
However, as a matter of interest, I will give the name of the god in
the Egyptian characters.[358] The double reed stands for a long _i_, or
_ei_, the owl for _m_, and the other three figures—the table, semicircle,
and square—for _h_ _t_ _p_. As will be observed, the _o_ and _e_ of the
ideographic combination, _hotep_,[359] are not given. The reason of this
is, that in writing, the Egyptians, like the Hebrews and others, commonly
omitted the vowels, except at the beginning and end of words. The meaning
of the name is rendered by Bunsen, “I come with the offering.”[360]
An early Aryan divinity has been stated to be an analogue or even the
prototype of Æsculapius. Mr. Faber refers to Captain Wilford as holding
that the classical health and life restorer “is the Hindoo ASWICULAPA,
or the chief of the race of the horse, and he further intimates that
Aswiculapa was very nearly related to the two hero-gods who are evidently
the same as Castor and Pollux. These were believed to be the children of
the sun and the goddess Devi, the sun at the time of their intercourse
having assumed the form of a horse and Devi that of a mare.”[361] He
hardly presents the real opinion expressed by the Captain, but, at any
rate, what he has to say is not extremely important.[362]
[Illustration: FIG. 13.—IMHOTEP.]
The ASWI, ASVI, or ASVINS were two, and were possibly the prototypes of
the Dioscuri,[363] Castor and Pollux. They were connected with the sun as
horses. Taking them to be forms of the Dioscuri, they might be related to
the two sons of Æsculapius, Machaon and Podalirius, for these have been
regarded as such,—“nothing more than a specific form of the Dioscuri,” to
use the words of De Gubernatis.[364] The conception of Chiron may have
been in part derived from the Asvins.
The Asvins were worshipped from an early period by the Hindus, reference
to them being made in the oldest hymns. Cox says of them, “As ushering
in the healthful light[365] of the sun, they are like Asclepios and his
children, healers and physicians; and their power of restoring the aged
to youth re-appears in Medeia, the daughter of the sun.”[366] In the
“Rig-Veda” they are characterized as “givers of happiness,”[367] and are
said “to be most ready to come to the aid of the destitute.”[368] They
were believed to be conversant with all medicaments.
THRITA of the Parsis, the TRITA of the Hindus, is a remarkable healing,
semi-divine personage, of whom a great deal is said in the “Zend Avesta”
and other sacred books of Aryan peoples of the east. According to the
“Zend Avesta,” which is from a common source with the “Vedas,” he is the
curer of the diseases caused by the great evil spirit, Ahriman. In the
“Vedas” he is said to extinguish illness in men as the gods extinguished
it in him, and he can grant long life. He drinks Sôma, as did Indra, to
acquire strength to kill the demon Vritra.
In the Parsi system of religion, Thrita received from the supreme god,
Ahura-Mazda,[369] ten thousand healing-plants, which had been growing
around the tree of life, the white Hôm,[370] the Sôma of the Hindus.
Thrita appears to have been one of the first priests of the personified
source of life and health,—“the enlivening, healing, fair, lordly,
golden-eyed Hâoma.”[371] The destruction of a great serpent, Azi Dahâka,
the most dreadful Drug,[372] created by Angra-Mainyu, himself a serpent,
to which diseases were attributed, was one of his fabled feats.
There is much that is interesting to the physician in the “Zend Avesta,”
but I cannot present it here. One interesting passage I may quote.
Ahura-Mazda is addressed thus: “O Maker of the material world, thou Holy
One! If a worshipper of Mazda want to practice the art of healing, on
whom shall he first prove his skill? On the worshippers of Mazda, or on
the worshippers of the Dævas?”[373] The reply is: “On the worshippers of
the Dævas he shall first prove himself.” If on these the surgeon use the
knife three times with success, “then is he fit to practice the art of
healing for ever and ever.”[374]
[Illustration: FIG. 14.—SILIK-MULU-KHI.[375]]
SILIK-MULU-KHI, the son of Hea, was a remarkable divinity, of whom I
feel it desirable to speak. In him we have one kindly disposed toward
man, a special friend of humanity, largely medical in character. What
he was has been unveiled, mainly of late, through the decipherment of
cuneiform inscriptions. The Babylonians prized him highly.[376] He became
assimilated with Mardux,[377] or Marodach, of the Babylono-Assyrians,
and Bel, of later times.[378] Space forbids me to give a long account of
him. Much can be learned about him _passim_ in the admirable works of M.
François Lenormant,[379] and in the “Records of the Past.”[380]
Silik-mulu-khi—that is, “He who distributes good among men”[381]—was, as
already stated, the son of Hea, to whom he remained subject. He overcame
the dragon of the deep, and is spoken of as the Redeemer of mankind, the
Restorer of life, and the Raiser from the dead. He took shape among the
Accadio-Sumerians.
Hea, or Ea,[382] “the master of the eternal secrets,” “the god who
presides over theurgical action,” revealed to Silik-mulu-khi “the
mysterious rite, the formula, or the all-powerful hidden name which shall
thwart the efforts of the most formidable powers of the Abyss.”[383] Like
Apollo, he had special medical functions; indeed, Mr. Sayce observes that
“he was emphatically the god of healing, who had revealed medicine to
mankind.”[384]
As the symbol of his office, Silik-mulu-khi carried a reed, which took
the place of both the royal sceptre and magic wand, and which was
transmitted to the Assyrian Mardux.[385] In a hymn it is said:—
“Golden reed, great reed, tall reed of the marshes, sacred bed of
the gods,
...
I am the messenger of Silik-mulu-khi, who causes all to grow young
again.”[386]
Although Silik-mulu-khi’s functions were largely medical, it is not to be
supposed that he resorted much to the use of medicaments. For it has not
yet been made very apparent that medicine, properly so called, was much
esteemed by the early Babylono-Assyrian peoples. Not long ago Mr. H. F.
Talbot, in an interesting article on Assyrian talismans and exorcisms,
said: “Diseases were attributed to the influence of spirits. Exorcisms
were used to drive away those tormentors; and this seems to have been the
sole remedy employed, for I believe that no mention has yet been found of
medicine.”[387] This statement does not hold good now, as will be shown
later.[388]
In the cure of diseases the Babylono-Assyrian practitioners first duly
guarded the entrance to the patient’s chamber. Images or guardian statues
of Hea and Silik-mulu-khi were placed one to the right and the other to
the left. Texts were put on the threshold and on the statues, after the
manner spoken of in Deuteronomy.[389] These were also placed on the brow
of the patient and about the room. In bad cases recourse was had to the
“mamit,” something which the evil spirits could not resist. Talbot gives
the following prescription from an Accadian tablet:—
“Take a white cloth. In it place the mamit in the sick man’s right
hand;
And take a black cloth and wrap it round his left hand.
Then all the evil spirits, and the sins which he has committed,
Shall quit their hold of him and shall never return.”[390]
M. Lenormant gives a translation of an interesting magic tablet. Here is
a passage from it which the conjurer, the Shaman, is supposed to speak,
ending with the usual adjuration:—
“Disease of the bowels, the disease of the heart,
The palpitation of the heart,
Disease of the vision, disease of the head,
Malignant dysentery
The humor which swells,
Ulceration of the veins, the micturition which wastes,[391]
Cruel agony which never ceases,
Nightmare,—
Spirit of the Heavens,[392] conjure it;
Spirit of the Earth,[393] conjure it.”[394]
What follows is part of an incantation against “the diseases of the
head”:—
“The diseases of the head, like doves to their dove-cots, like
grasshoppers into the sky,
Like birds into space,—
May they fly away!
May the invalid be replaced in the protecting hands of his
god.”[395]
Here is the remedy for “diseases of the head,” as given by Hea to
Silik-mulu-khi:—
“Come my son, Silik-mulu-khi,
Take a sieve: draw some water from the surface of the river,
Place thy sublime lip upon the water;
Make it shine with purity from thy sublime breath, ...
Help the man, son of his god....
Let the disease of his head depart;
May the disease of his head be dispersed like a nocturnal dew.”[396]
I have already stated that Silik-mulu-khi became in time assimilated with
the god possessing beauty or splendor, Mardux.[397] Here are extracts
from a hymn addressed to him after the change:—
“Merciful one among the gods,
Generator who brought back the dead to life,
Silik-mulu-khi, king of heaven and of earth.
...
To thee is the lip of life!
To thee are death and life!
I have invoked thy name, I have invoked thy sublimity.
...
May the invalid be delivered from his disease;
Cure the plague, the fever, the ulcer.”[398]
CHAPTER XII.
THE PINE-CONE AS AN ATTRIBUTE OF ÆSCULAPIUS.
The fruitful results of studies in oriental history, industriously and
intelligently pursued by able and learned men in recent times, are making
more and more apparent the borrowed character of many features of the
civilization of Greece and other western nations. Greek, Latin, German,
Irish, and other languages of the Indo-European races, have been shown
to be largely derived from Sanskrit, or a source similar to it, and the
various mythologies have also been proved to be more or less evolutions.
Of late, the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Accadio-Sumerians, but
especially the last, who were, as is said in the Bible, both “a mighty”
and “an ancient nation,”[399] have been accorded a greater influence
than formerly on other peoples. There is little or no ground for doubt
that the first forms of belief, as well as art, came from the East. It
is certain that in the fertile region, about the lower waters of the
Euphrates and Tigris, there was, at very early period, a remarkable
unfoldment of intellectual, social, and other elements of progress, from
the savage state. The ideas brought with them three thousand years or
more before our era, to the rich plains southward of Mesopotamia, and
gathered there by the early inhabitants of the hills of Elam and their
kin, the earlier inhabitants of Sumer,[400] have been potent everywhere
to the westward.
These Turanians, a dark-complexioned people, were conquered by the
Semites settled in parts to the west of Babylonia, by whom their culture
and civilization were appropriated.[401]
The Accadio-Sumerians undoubtedly gave direction and shape to the
religions of Babylonia, Assyria, Phœnicia, and other countries, including
Egypt. This means a great deal, for in the earlier stages of civilization
the religion, such as it may be, is a matter of the greatest possible
significance, both in itself and its influence on everything else. The
language of the Accadio-Sumerians long served as the sacred one in
Babylonia and Assyria,[402] and has been characterized by Mr. Sayce as
“the Sanskrit of the Turanian family.”[403] In it are the important early
cuneiform inscriptions, all the originals of which were written eighteen
hundred years or so before our era.
The medical ideas of the Accadio-Sumerian were closely related to his
religion; to him the cause and cure of disease were, to a great extent,
in fact essentially, supernatural affairs. And thus, indeed, it has been
among all early peoples. Nor is it probable that it will ever be entirely
otherwise anywhere. The same feelings which prompted the dweller in
Elam, or in the plains to the westward, to formulate his religion and
philosophy are still experienced by humanity. Even the myth-formers are
not all dead. The spirit of all the mythologies is yet alive. There are
gods of fancy to-day, as there were when Ana and Hea and Bel were in the
ascendant. And they are not very different. The _nomen_, the name, may
vary much, but the _numen_, the thing, for the most part, does not.
The science of the nineteenth century has not cleared away from the
minds of a large majority, in even the most highly civilized nations,
the belief that health and sickness are largely subject to mysterious
spiritual powers. They are matters of which the populace are still apt to
entertain preposterous notions. Cullen well remarks somewhere that he had
found even men with trained logical faculties, such as lawyers, satisfied
with reasons of any kind, advanced to explain medical phenomena. And in
truth the physician deals with matters not readily understood. In the
very first paragraph of his book of books, has not Hippocrates himself
said: “Experience is fallacious and judgment difficult”?
However, it is not to be denied that there are many who sincerely and
firmly believe that both health and disease are entirely dependent on the
will of spiritual powers. Doubtless every physician has seen instances
of perfect resignation, on the death of even a near relative, brought
about by the notion that the bereavement was “the will of God.” An
innocent child, cut off by diphtheria, or scarlet fever, or some other
pestilential disease, which exists only by tolerance, with a tearless
mother bending over it, calm and full of the idea that it was the will
of the Almighty to destroy it in the bud, as it were, is not an uncommon
sight, and one which cannot fail to impress both deeply and sadly the
intelligent observer. Impious and erroneous doctrine, to be sure; but,
nevertheless, part and parcel of many, nay, most of the creeds of the
day.
My statements are not rashly made and baseless. I might almost ask in
vain for a creed in which an absolute declaration of the life and death
of mortals being entirely in the hands of supra-mundane powers is not
made. For example, in the chapter of the “Book of Common Prayer,” on
“the order for the visitation of the sick,” it is said: “Dearly beloved,
know this, that Almighty God is the Lord of life and death, and of all
things to them pertaining, as youth, strength, health, age, weakness,
and sickness. Wherefore, whatsoever your sickness be, know you certainly
that it is God’s visitation.” For relief, the means is indicated in this
petition: “O Lord! look down from heaven, behold, visit, and relieve this
thy servant.” There is no doubt about the meaning of these passages; and
it is certain that the ideas contained in them are essentially those
which were current among various peoples of remote antiquity. Of course,
to one who sincerely entertains such ideas there can be no such thing
as a science and art of medicine. But we know that they rarely or never
stand in the way of a due resort to rational medical treatment. Truly,
the human mind is, in many instances, “many-sided.”
What has just been said will indicate that it is very improbable that
the so-called religious literature of early times fairly represents the
state of medical practice. Assuredly, one could form no idea of the state
of the healing art at present from the perusal of a manual of orthodox
religious literature.
However, as I have intimated above, the prevalence of an ostensible
belief in the cause and cure of diseases by supernatural powers does not
stand in the way of the existence and practice of a more or less rational
art of healing.
The Chaldean[404] looked to the gods for the removal of the evils which
afflicted him; and he had his set earthly ways by which to bring about
the result desired. Supplication, sacrifice, and the like were practiced,
but material means were not entirely neglected. In the sacred book of the
Parsis it is said: “If several healers offer themselves together, namely,
one who heals with the knife, one who heals with herbs, and one who heals
with the Holy Word, it is this one who will _best_ drive away sickness
from the body of the faithful.”[405] In another place the “Holy Word” is
pronounced “the best healing of all remedies.”[406] Evidently, one might
resort to other means, if he chose. And here I may remark, that in the
practices of Æsculapius there was precisely the same threefold means of
cure, as will be seen by referring to the chapter on the god.
It may be affirmed with confidence that no people in either ancient or
modern times has relied exclusively on the good offices of supernatural
powers for the cure of diseases. According to Catlin, the Indian doctors
first prescribed “roots and herbs, of which they have a great variety
of species; and when these have all failed, their last resort is to
medicine.”[407] A reverse plan was the more common. In that interesting
book, “Ecclesiasticus,” written by one well informed, and even at a time
when medicine was far advanced, the sick man is curiously advised to pray
and sacrifice to God first, and then to give place to the physician.[408]
The old Hebrew conveys the idea that, when nothing else could be done,
resort should be had to medical men. He thoughtfully remarks that “there
is a time when thou must fall into their hands.”[409]
Now, as was to be expected, the Grecian god of medicine was viewed by
some through a veil of superstition brought from the East. In connection
with statues of him were things the meaning of which would be entirely
unintelligible without a previous knowledge of ideas entertained in
Assyria and other countries. One of these, the special theme of this
chapter, is very interesting because of its historical connections. A
study of it brings to light much exceedingly interesting information.
The pine- or cedar-cone, or, as some have spoken of it, the pine-apple,
was figured in the hand of the cryselephantine statue of Æsculapius, made
by Calamis for the temple at Sicyon, in Arcadia, as in representations
of Mardux. What was the meaning of this peculiar object? Some have taken
it to have been a phallic symbol. The presence of it on the thyrsus of
Dionysus,[410] brought by him from the East, would seem to support that
view. It has also been regarded as a flame.[411]
[Illustration: FIG. 15.—THE PINE- OR CEDAR-CONE AS SEEN IN THE HAND OF A
WINGED FIGURE FROM NIMROUD.]
Whether the cedar-cone of the Sicyonian statue of Æsculapius was
representative of the reproductive organ or of fire or not, it is certain
that it was largely in use by the Babylonians, Assyrians, and others,
to restore health as well as to overcome witchcraft and the like. One
sees it in the hand of the winged, eagle-headed figure from Nimroud,
now in the British Museum, and a cut of the same is given here. Two
similar genii or figures, very like the gryphon of Greek mythology
connected with Apollo, are represented watching, like the cherubim at
the gate of Eden, over the priests who attend about the sacred tree of
life,—that apple-, fig-, palm-, or somo-tree, serpent-guarded, which
yields fruit or ambrosia, in which, as De Gubernatis says, “the life, the
fortune, the glory, the strength, and the riches of the hero have their
beginning,”[412] and which is so prominent in the sculptures and records
of Oriental peoples. The object is often seen extended under the king’s
nose, apparently that he may inhale the vitalizing emanations from it,
after the manner of the ancients’ notion of the mode of reception of the
“breath of life.”[413] It even appears on the tree of life in some of
its conventional forms. Thus, Layard says: “The flowers at the end of
the branches are frequently replaced in later Assyrian monuments and on
cylinders by the fir- or pine-cone, and sometimes by a fruit or ornament
resembling the pomegranate.”[414]
In connection with what he has to say about the cones on the tree of
life, George Smith expresses the opinion that “the Accadians brought the
tradition of the fir-cones with them from their original seat in the
colder, mountainous land of Media, where the fir[415] was plentiful.”
[Illustration: FIG. 16.—THE TREE OF LIFE.]
The use of the fir-cone in the cure of disease has been made evident
by recent translations of cuneiform inscriptions.[416] It is said by
Lenormant that in a magic fragment as yet inedited the god Hea, the
_averruncus par excellence_, the vivifier and preserver of the human
race which he has created, prescribes to his son Marduk, the mediator, a
mysterious rite which will cure a man whose malady is caused by an attack
of demons. “Take,” says he, “to him the fruit of the cedar, and hold it
in front of the sick person; the cedar is the tree which gives the pure
charm and repels the inimical demons, who lay snares.”[417]
In the cedar-cone, then, in the hand of the figure of Æsculapius we have
the symbol and instrument of “the life charm,” of which the god Hea was
the master and the son the dispenser; and I may add (as Lenormant has
suggested) that when fruits of this nature adorn the sacred plant they
characterize it more emphatically than ever as the tree of life.
CHAPTER XIII.
DIBBARA,[418] A GOD OF PESTILENCE.
There does not appear to be an exception to the rule, that every people
has, to a greater or less extent, referred the causation of epidemic
and other diseases to supernatural powers.[419] In Oriental countries
evil spirits were believed to be accountable for it; and, indeed, in the
West, the Red Indians entertained the same notion, as the reader of Mr.
Dorman’s interesting book[420] is well aware. The uncultured mind cannot,
it would seem, grasp the idea that things which the senses cannot readily
perceive may, nevertheless, be entirely natural.
The Babylono-Assyrians, like the American Indians, believed in the
existence of innumerable bad as well as good spirits; in fact, to them
every object and force in nature was believed to have a _zi_, or spirit,
more or less subject to control.[421] The bad ones, of whom there were
seven emphatically such, delighted in injuring man and afflicting him
with diseases, often taking possession of him. Evidently this doctrine,
when fully developed,—that is, when the bad spirits were almost or quite
as free to act as the good ones, as among the Parsis,—afforded a simple
and very satisfactory explanation of the existence of apparent good and
evil in the world. The practice of medicine, based on such views, could,
at best, be little better than mere Shamanism.
I may here observe that the Chaldeans and others regarded imprecations
as effective in causing diseases, as well as other evils. In a quotation
from a tablet, given by Lenormant, it is said:—
“The malevolent imprecation acts on man like a wicked demon;
The voice which curses has power over him.”[422]
I need hardly say that a very similar belief is still all but universal.
It appears to be instructive. At any rate, it is practiced enormously.
From the “damn you” of the street-urchin to the formal and solemn
“anathema” of the Pope of Rome, we are familiar with all grades of it.
There has always and everywhere been a tendency to accord great
divinities power to dispense both evil and good. Men have made their
chief gods like themselves, anthropomorphic, variable in their feelings
and actions. Apollo could cause disease and he could remove it.[423]
Of the Hebrews’ God the same is true. Offense at the “sins” of men in
both cases inspires the infliction of pestilential and other diseases.
The numbering of the people by David, although forbidden, leads to the
occurrence of a destructive epidemic.[424] In “Ecclesiasticus” it is
explicitly said, “He that sinneth in the sight of his Maker shall fall
into the hands of the physician.”[425]
Among those who clothed one evil spirit with imperial power, so to speak,
that spirit has been mainly held accountable for the occurrence of
disease. The Iranian, Angra-Mainyu, furnishes an example. And since the
notion of the “devil” (our devil) began,[426] he has been often charged
with the offense. Thus, we are told in the Bible that it was he that
“smote Job with sores, from the sole of his foot unto his crown.”[427]
Still, in this case he was subject to orders, so to speak.
Now, it would be strange if, among the evil spirits the exuberant fancy
of uncultured man has called into existence, there were not a leading
one with the special function of causing, at least, pestilential
diseases. Such a one is not met with in the mythology of the Romans,
Greeks, or even the Egyptians;[428] but a remarkable one is found in the
Accadio-Sumerian, Dibbara, the leader of the plague-demons.[429] He was
subject to the orders of Ana and Hea. In the Izdhubar legend of the flood
it is said: “Let Dibbara appear, and let men be mown down.”
Our knowledge of Dibbara, or Lubara, is largely of modern date. Until
the recent translations of cuneiform inscriptions were made, the records
of him had almost faded out of sight. On his exploits there is an
interesting chapter in George Smith’s “Chaldean Account of Genesis.”[430]
His history promises to throw considerable light on passages in the Bible
and elsewhere. Thus, his title of “the darkening one” appears to have
suggested to the Psalmist the phrase, “The pestilence that walketh in
darkness.”[431] He was, probably, the prototype of the destroying “angel”
spoken of in the Bible.[432]
Dibbara, like many other personifications of evil, partook of the
serpentine form. Not unlikely he was originally, to a great degree,
similar to, if not identical with, the fabulous dragon combated by
Marduk. This was an embodiment of the chaos of the deep, the principle of
chaos and darkness. He was the serpent of the night, and may have been
primarily the darkness overcome by the sun.
CHAPTER XIV.
HYGEIA, THE GODDESS OF HEALTH.
The need of a special divinity to preserve people in a state of health
was widely felt, even in very early times. In Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and
elsewhere, this need found pronounced expression. Isis and Istar[433] and
Athene were each, in one way or another, accorded great power over bodily
or mental health. But the Greeks, in their Hygeia, markedly emphasized
and entirely specialized the conception. Here we have an exclusively
health divinity, who had more or less of a counterpart in the SALUS of
the Romans,—a goddess highly esteemed, worshipped on set days, and to
whom a fine temple was devoted at the Eternal City, situated near the
gate called from it Porta Salutaris.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.—SERPENT AND BOWL OF HYGEIA.[434]]
From the preceding statements, the reader will observe that the
divinities who were specially interested in the preservation of health
were all females. This is an exceedingly interesting fact. It is not an
incongruous one, either. The ancients were keenly alive to the sense of
fitness in things; and hence it is hardly likely that they made a mistake
in Hygeia, the health goddess. From the exercise of the great function of
nurturing and caring for the young of the species, woman has sufficient
claim to the distinction of being, _par excellence_, the guardian of
health. Why the goddess should be a maid rather than a matron is not
extremely clear. Likely the idea was to present in her a woman just
mature and free from blemish, in a typically perfect state.
However, we have in Hygeia, “daughter of Pæon, queen of every joy,”
to use the appropriate words with which Armstrong starts off in the
invocation to her, at the beginning of his fine poem,[435] a very
interesting and beautiful conception. It is easy to understand why this
divinity became very popular. O Goddess! if—
“But for thee,
Nature would sicken, nature soon would die,”
as the author just quoted declares, thy worship might well have become
universal, for without health life is burdensome, a gift of doubtful
value! Health and long life are things mortals have always craved and
always prized. In that interesting Hebræo-Chaldean history, “Tobias,”
Sara, with her husband, gives utterance to a truly human prayer: “Have
mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us, and let us grow old both together
in health.”[436] “At heart,” says Dr. Brinton, “all prayers are for
preservation; the burden of all litanies is a begging for life.”[437]
The symbolic representation of the myth of Hygeia afforded a fine subject
for the sculptors and other artists. Extremely attractive figures of
her were produced. One of them, at least, is doubtless familiar to the
reader. I have reference to the one in which she is represented as a
blooming girl with a serpent twined around her left arm[438] and feeding
out of a _patera_ or chalice held in her right hand. With this ideal
in his mind, the late Dr. Aitken Meigs, in a remarkable address[439]
delivered in 1879, pronounces “the high-born maid” to be “of beauty’s
types, the highest, best idea,” and continues:—
“Nor fragile she, nor pale, but ruddy, strong,
And gladsome as a tuneful, joyous song;
Her comely form, in swelling curves designed,
Is perfect grace, with glowing strength combined;
Crimson and white in her fair face contend,
Upon her cheeks in sweet confusion blend;
Her rosy lips excel the coral’s brightness,
Brow, nose, and chin are fleecy ways of whiteness;
Loose, flowing, falls her hair, a golden spray;
Forth from her lustrous eyes she scatters day.
...
In one small hand a cup she deftly holds,
Whilst round her soft, white arm, in many folds
A serpent twines and from the chalice drinks.
Low crouches sometimes, at her feet, a sphinx.
From these strange emblems learn her character:
How very cunning she, and how exact her
Knowledge and profound; how with wondrous skill
Her youth renews, and is discreet and still.”
As will be observed, Dr. Meigs gives an explanation of the symbols
usually connected with figures of Hygeia, whom he regarded as to the
physician what the chosen maid was to the knight of old,—the patron
saint. The view taken of the serpent is not satisfactory, although better
than that held by Cuvier, namely, that it is “to show that temperance
is the source of lengthened life.”[440] And if one take the reptile to
be symbolic of the art of healing, why it should be connected with the
goddess of health is not clear. In this connection its presence might
imply that it is only through medicine that health can be preserved.
Taking it as symbolic of life, one has little difficulty in understanding
its appropriateness. Closely attached to her, and drawing nourishment
from a chalice held in her hand, the meaning might be, that health and
life are intimately related to each other, the former sustaining the
latter. Regarding it, however, as simply a _bonus genius_ is not out
of the way. The mode of representing it at Rome and elsewhere strongly
supports this view, namely, encircling the altar of the goddess, with the
head extending over it.[441] In Teutonic mythology, “the white lady with
the snake” was associated with medicinal springs.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.—HYGEIA. (As given in Murray’s Mythology.)]
According to the mythological record, Hygeia[442] was the daughter of the
god of medicine, Æsculapius. Of her personal history one might almost
say that it is a blank.
Numerous representations of Hygeia were to be found in Greece, and later
in Rome. One was usually placed by the side of each of Æsculapius.
The worship of Hygeia began soon after that of Æsculapius and became
wide-spread and popular. The Romans were quite as devoted in their
attentions to her as the Greeks.
I have said sufficient already to indicate that there was no divinity
precisely similar to Hygeia in Egypt, or any eastern country. Some of the
great goddesses were believed to exercise functions akin to hers.[443]
Indeed, many of the prominent divinities, from the spouse of Hea down,
had accorded to them more or less control over affairs of health and
life. Dr. Meigs conveys a wrong impression when he says:—
“Hygeia, daughter of Asclepios,
Descended from Apollo Delios,
Adored as Maut[444] beside the mystic Nile,
With Amen-Ra in Theban peristyle.”[445]
There is about as much reason to say that Athene was Hygeia, as that Maut
was, or Isis, although, as Ebers says, she was the divinity “to be called
on to destroy the germs of disease.”[446] Arguments could be advanced in
favor of the idea that Hygeia sprang into existence as a personification
of the great serpent-accompanied virgin, river-mist, or cloud-goddess,
Pallas Athene, in her capacity of health-preserver. The claim in regard
to Isis is little or no better; and, in fact, one form of Isis, called
Neith, or Neit, the great mother of the sun-god, Ra, and the titular
goddess of Sais, has always[447] been believed to correspond closely with
Athene. The former was not only usually accompanied by a serpent, like
the latter, but was often represented by one; still, the same might be
said of, perhaps, all the Egyptian goddesses.
CHAPTER XV.
MEDICAL TALISMANS.
It is well at the start to form a definite conception of what a
talisman means. It is a species of charm; it differs from an amulet.
Both are of the character of fetiches; that is, objects in nature, or
of art, believed to possess magical power. If the object be ascribed
consciousness and other mental attributes, it is, properly speaking, an
idol. Unlike the amulet, the talisman, to be effective, need not be kept
about the person. But the main characteristic feature of the talisman is
astronomical, or, rather, astrological; it is accorded virtue principally
because made when two planets are in conjunction, or when a star has
reached its culminating point. As one would expect, it has been customary
to have something about the talisman to indicate that it is such; but
many engravings found on them have no astronomical import at all.
The talisman[448] has a long history. To know when it came into use
one must go back to the time when the study of the stars and their
influence, real or supposed, on mundane affairs began. Although it has
been asserted[449] that Adam acquired a knowledge of astrology through
inspiration, it is safe to hold that the Accadian[450] star-gazers,
inhabitants of the hills of Elam, first gave shape to this, in great
part, pseudo-philosophy of nature, which was widely believed in by many
peoples, and still has numerous sincere adherents everywhere. Mr. Proctor
ventures to declare that “the idea that the stars in their course rule
the fate of men and nations”[451] is a predominant one of the race.[452]
In Babylonia, Assyria, Phœnicia, Egypt, and elsewhere, it received much
attention; indeed, it was part and parcel of the prevailing religions,
most of the Oriental systems being largely astronomical in origin. And
the Chaldean or, rather, Accadian astrologer’s work is obvious enough to
this day;[453] it is seen in the division of time into the week of seven
days, with the seventh one of rest, the Sabbath,[454] and the mode of
regulation of religious times and seasons,[455] to say nothing of the
signs of the zodiac, and so on.
It is stated by Vitruvius[456] that astrology[457] was brought from the
East to Greece[458] by the Chaldeans, of whom Berosus, the historian,
“the first of them,” settled at Cos and opened a school there. However
this may be, it is stated in Ptolemy’s remarkable book[459] that medical
astrology originated in Egypt.
Hippocrates, who lived a century or so before Berosus, had certainly a
knowledge of astrology. Galen wrote a book on it, and, like Hippocrates,
gives special prominence to the influence of the moon, dwelling
particularly on its production of critical changes in diseases. Many
another physician thought it necessary to master it,[460] including
Chaucer’s “Doctor of Physick,” who was “grounded in astronomie.”[461]
From the fact that astrology and religion were closely connected, it
almost necessarily followed that medical talismans possessed more or less
of a religious significance.
Among the talismanic gems pictured in De Wilde’s book[462] is one
which has on one side the Greek letters ΙΑΩ, signifying the Creator
of the world, or Jehovah; and on the other a representation of an
extremely _erotic_ and rather misshapen lion rampant. This, worn in a
ring, was said to prevent renal and other diseases. De Wilde observes,
in accordance with a belief of ancient date, that in this figure one
has health symbolized. Says he: “_Leo erectus verum signum sanitatis
protendit._”
What has just been said leads me to remark that the phallus, which was a
common form of the _genius loci_, or Agathodæmon, was widely believed
to have great power to protect against harm. In it was a sovereign
preventive of malign fascination, or the influence of the evil eye. The
Roman god, Fascinus,[463] had it as his chief symbol. It is well known
that this charm was sometimes placed on houses[464] in Pompeii, with the
inscription, _hic habitat felicitas_. Aubrey says: “In the digging of the
ruins and foundations of London, after the great conflagration, there
were found several little Priapusses of copper, about an inch long, wᶜʰ
the Romans did weare about their necks.”[465]
[Illustration: FIG. 19.—THE DIVINE NAME. (As seen on a talismanic gem,
copied from De Wilde’s book.)]
In regard to the ΙΑΩ, JΑΩ, or JAO, a variation of JAH,[466] the name
of the Deity, the demiurge, the Sabaoth of the Phœnicians and others,
I may say that it was regarded as possessing in itself irresistible
talismanic power. Fort remarks that “as a talisman of medical properties
it was carried about the person in tubes, or, more generally, on
parchment.”[467] Let me add that the Tetragrammaton—that is, J H V H,
or, as it is commonly rendered, Jehovah—was the same thing as the ΙΑΩ.
Much could be said about it, as those familiar with Masonic legends and
occult literature are aware. Lenormant states, of the wide belief in the
power of the hidden “name of the Lord,” that “we now see clearly that it
came from Chaldea.”[468] Elsewhere, reference is made to the potent word
which Hea bore in his heart.
In this connection I may say a word on the “triliteral monosyllable” of
the Brahmin and Buddhist, AUM, to which still, as in the past, great
potency is attached. Being a symbol of the Supreme, it is characterized
as “that which passes not away.” Dr. Birdwood remarks that it is “the
identical formula of every Hindu god. The letter A is the _vija-mantra_
of the male Buddha, the generative power; U, the ditto of the female
_dharma_ (law), the type of productive power; and M, the _sanga_
(congregation) or union of the essences of both.”[469]
[Illustration: FIG. 20.—FORMS OF THE PRESCRIPTION SYMBOL.]
The symbol placed at the head of medical prescriptions, and which is
usually believed to stand for _recipe_, may be regarded as a sort of
obsolete talisman. The original form of it appears to have been a figure
like a Z, with the lower horizontal part crossed with a sceptre-shaped
line. This, or a modification of it, has been from time immemorial the
symbol of the planet Jupiter. Hence the reason, it has been asserted,
for placing it at the head of prescriptions; for the great planet, the
bearer of the name of the father of life, was believed in other days to
have a favorable influence over diseases. And here I may observe that in
another chapter I have spoken of the interesting fact that Marduk[470]
of the Babylono-Assyrians stood for Jupiter, and that in him was
assimilated the benignant mediator and healer of the Accadio-Sumerians,
Silik-mulu-khi.
The symbol is generally described as being simply the initial letter
of Zeus, the Greek name of Jupiter. But this leaves part of it out of
account, a part which might be taken to be a sceptre, an object which,
accompanied by a serpent, as the symbol of life, was prominent in
representations of Jupiter. But one might with some reason regard it as
made up of the initial and terminal letters of Zadykiel, or Zadakiel,
the angel and the spirit of the great planet, according to astrologers
and others. And again, by taking it to be composed of an R and an l, one
might hold it to be derived from the name of Raphael, the angel of the
sun. But, as already stated, it is probable that the body of the original
figure was not an R. I may add that Mr. Taylor says that this ideogram
“resolves itself into an arm grasping a thunderbolt.”
If the prescription-mark be a thing of astrological origin, it is a
remnant of an extensive body of facts and theories, long highly prized.
Shakspere makes _King Lear_, in an interesting passage, characterize
the reference of man’s destiny “to the sun, the moon, and the stars,”
as “the excellent foppery of the world;”[471] but no doubt innumerable
hosts of believers in the system were thoroughly sincere. From the days
when the Accadians became distinguished for their observations of the
heavens, down to very recent times, medical astrology occupied a position
in popular thought and esteem which almost exceeds the power of credence
of the modern scientific physician. Not only in administering medicines,
but in gathering medicinal herbs, the position of the planets had to be
considered; for it was believed that the herbs got their virtues from
them. Without the benign influence of the “host of heaven,” no good could
be expected from the physician, or his remedies.
The belief in the power of the different constellations of the zodiac
over special parts of the body and their diseases is still indicated by
the curious figure often seen in almanacs.
ABRAXAS-STONES are largely medical in character—medical talismans.[472]
Much might be said of them. Fort remarks: “These gems, endowed with
omnipotent curative and talismanic power, quickly acquired a celebrity
undiminished for ages, and whose possible interpretation even yet
attracts erudite attention.”[473]
Each of these remarkable objects consisted of a piece of glass, paste,
or other mineral substance, occasionally a metallic one, on which was
usually some figure, often a serpent, or inscription, together with the
word “abraxas,” which constituted their distinctive feature.
The Greek letters of the mystical word, “abraxas,” equaled in numerical
value 365,[474] the number of days in the year. After speaking of the
serpent of evil on one, Sharpe says: “Underneath it is written the
magical word Abrasa, _hurt me not_, an Egyptian word, which the Greeks
made use of, as believing that the evil spirits were better acquainted
with the Egyptian language than with the Greek.”[475] Not a few, however,
believe that the word is not such at all.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.—ABRAXAS-STONE. (From De Wilde.)]
The abraxas-stones are believed to have originated with the Basilidian
Gnostics, a sect which Basilides, a Syrian by birth, who lived under
Trajan and his successor, in the latter half of the first century, was
instrumental in originating. Whether they were intended at first to be
simply a means of recognition is an undecided question. Those given to
magic adopted them largely. The opinion has been expressed that doubtless
the greater part of the stones were made in the middle ages.[476]
CHAPTER XVI.
MEDICAL AMULETS.
Any object believed to be possessed of a mysterious power of warding off
or removing evil of any kind may be regarded as an amulet. A medical
amulet is one capable of warding off or of removing a disease or
diseases. The prevention of disease, or, what is much the same thing, the
preservation of health, is the use to which it has been chiefly put. This
is quite as true of its use to-day as formerly.
In speaking of medical amulets one has no reason to use only the past
tense. They are still much used, as the reader of Brande, or of the
publications of the Folk-Lore Society, or of _Notes and Queries_, well
knows. Nor are the patrons of them of the illiterate class only. Every
physician has, doubtless, met with instances of their use by persons of
intelligence. Here is a clergyman who carries a chestnut in his pocket to
keep off rheumatism; and there is an attorney-at-law who keeps a stolen
potato about him for the same purpose. In ancient times, however, their
use was extremely common, all but universal.
Of the practical value of amulets I may say, without hesitancy, that it
is very great. Of course it would be irrational to hold that they act, to
any extent, otherwise than through impressions made by them on the mind.
Such impressions may undoubtedly be powerful for good. That this is the
case few competent to form an opinion on the subject will question. The
intelligent reader of history, as well as the scientific psychologist
and physician, has abundant reason to know that it is true. I repeat what
I have deliberately said elsewhere: “Amulets do serve, in a measure, to
prevent disease. Anything which inspires confidence and hope is sanative
in its effects. Faith is a powerful healer.”[477]
A gem with a symbol of one kind or another engraved on it was, from an
early period, an ordinary medical amulet. A common symbol was a figure of
Hygeia; and one of Serapis was long quite as common. The name of Raphael
(literally healer of God), the patron angel of the early Christians, was
often shown on both amulets and talismans. This angel had a reputation
as a healer,[478] as the reader familiar with “Tobias” is aware. In that
historical book, it is said that when Tobias and Sara were afflicted “the
holy angel of the Lord, Raphael, was sent to heal them both.”[479] Tobias
was told by him that if he put a little piece of a fish’s heart upon
coals the smoke thereof would drive away all kinds of devils, either from
man or woman, and that they would not return.[480]
A serpent was a very familiar object on gems used as amulets. The later
Egyptians, who were great believers in such things, were very partial
to it. Among the objects found by General Di Cesnola, in Cypress, was
a scarabæoid of banded agate, on which are engraved two asps with a
cartouche between, inscribed with the word εχις. In reference to this
word he says: “It can be no other than έχις, the old form of εχιδνα, and
may possibly be a proper name after the analogy of Draco, not uncommon
in Greece; and Echidna, whose amour with Hercules Herodotus relates. Or,
if taken in its primary sense the word may constitute an amulet against
the asps, still so plentiful in Cyprus, and to be of the nature of those
prophylactic rings against snake-bites alluded to by Aristophanes.[481]
Arab amulets, at the present day, bear the figure of the thing against
which they exert their virtue, and all Oriental practices in this line
come down from immemorial antiquity.”[482]
I may remark that the use of images of things feared to save from them
has, indeed, been extensively practiced. The cause and the effect, in
many afflictions, might be so used. The golden emerods and mice, spoken
of in the Bible, are instances.[483] The same idea may have had something
to do with the use of the brazen serpent of Moses. The Chaldeans, in
resorting to this peculiar plan of dealing with their evil spirits,
represented them, says Lenormant, “under such hideous forms that they
believed that it was sufficient for them to be shown their own image to
cause them to flee away alarmed.”[484] And this leads me to say that
great medical virtues have been held to spring from things repulsive.
Thus, water drank from the skull of a suicide has received credit for the
cure of many a case of epilepsy. Tasting the blood of a murderer has been
resorted to successfully in cases of the same disease.
A word in this connection about ADDER-STONES may not be amiss. These
objects have long been regarded by many as charms or amulets of great
power. They are simply the whorls or rude fly-wheels put on spindles
of spinning-wheels. Dr. A. Mitchell discusses them at length in his
interesting archæological work.[485]
Under the head of medical amulets are to be classed many things, such
as BLESSED OBJECTS and RELICS of various kinds. The extent to which
these were used, century after century, down even to our own day, is
surprising. The interested reader may advantageously turn to Fort’s
learned work.[486] The sprinkling of “holy water”[487] over patients by
pious Catholics is familiar to every physician. I have seen a few drops
of water from Lourdes given by a priest to his mother, sinking from
lung disease. A few weeks ago I saw a cup of water in which a little
earth from Knock, in the south of Ireland, was mixed, given with great
confidence in its power for good, in a case of difficult labor. In the
“Zend Avesta” wonderful virtue is ascribed to _gomez_;[488] and the same
thing is equally lauded in the sacred books of the Hindus. What strange
beliefs mortals may have!
Certain NUMERALS have had remarkable properties accorded them by
philosophical and other speculators. SEVEN has occupied a prominent
position. The primitive Chaldeans, in their study of the heavens, became
acquainted with seven planets, including the sun and moon, and their week
consisted of seven days. With the Egyptians and others the same was the
case. Pythagoras saw in this number the three of the triangle and the
four of the square,—the two perfect figures. It was considered sacred
to Helios and also Apollo. The Hebrew _sheba_ means seven, and was the
symbol of a deity[489] before it came to signify an oath. As a charm or
amulet, the number was believed to be possessed of great potency. Health
was assured by carrying it about the person on a gem or the like. Ebers
illustrates this superstition in one of his splendid historical novels;
he makes Boges, in giving a ring to Crœsus, speak thus:—
“Take this ring. It has never left my finger since I quitted Egypt,
and it has a significance far beyond its outward worth. Pythagoras,
the noblest of the Greeks, gave it to my mother when he was tarrying
in Egypt to learn the wisdom of our priests, and it was her parting
gift to me. The number seven is engraved upon the simple stone. This
indivisible number represents perfect health, both to soul and body,
for health is likewise one and indivisible. The sickness of one member
is the sickness of all; one evil thought allowed to take up its abode
within our heart destroys the entire harmony of the soul. When you see
this seven, therefore, let it recall my heart’s wish that you may ever
enjoy undisturbed bodily health and long retain that loving gentleness
which has made you the most virtuous and, therefore, the healthiest of
men.”[490]
As already intimated, the Chaldeans attributed special virtues to
certain numbers, of which seven would seem to have been the most highly
esteemed. Unfortunately, none of their numerical formulæ have as yet
been discovered. The “mamit” or “number” has been referred to before.
Lenormant remarks: “More powerful than the incantations were conjurations
wrought by the power of numbers. In this way the supreme secret which
Hea taught to his son, Silik-mulu-khi, when he consulted him in his
distress, was always called ‘the number.’”[491]
A remnant of the old belief in the relation of seven to health is the
wide-spread superstitious notion that the seventh son of the seventh son
is possessed of special healing powers. Curiously enough, I had a visit
from such a person, just before writing this; and he as firmly believes
that he can cure “the evil” and other ills with certainty as any king
that ever exercised the royal gift.
The color RED has long served the purpose of an amulet. To this day a red
string is occasionally seen around the necks of children to protect them
against scarlet fever and other pestilential diseases; and the belief
in the special virtue of red flannel is almost universal. Says Aubrey:
“Johannes Medicus, who lived and wrote in the time of Edward II, and was
Physition to that king, gives an account of his curing the prince of ye
small-pox, a disease but then lately known in England, by ordering his
bed, his room, and his attendants to be all in scarlet, and imputes ye
cure in great measure to the virtue of ye colour.”[492] The same was done
in the case of the Emperor Francis I, in 1765.
Of red it is certainly true that it is a warm color; and the impression
of it on the mind is stimulating. Experiments have shown that different
colors exert various influences over living forms, including man.
But, although medical virtues have been ascribed to red, it has been
looked on as anything but good. Says Ebers: “In the ‘Papyrus-Ebers’ all
injurious and evil things are called red.”[493] The scorching sands of
the desert, likely, gave the Egyptian his dislike to the color. In the
Hindu book of the law,[494] a man is forbidden to marry a girl with
reddish hair, but why is not stated. Satan is usually given a suit of
fiery hue.
The ANKH was a symbol of the Egyptians signifying life. It received the
Latin name of _crux ansata_, or handled cross, from its shape. Sometimes
it is spoken of as the key of life. Each of the great divinities carries
one. “We do not know,” says Kenrick, “the reason why life was represented
by the _crux ansata_.”[495] It seems, however, that the object was at
first simply a crossed pole, used to measure the degree of rise in the
waters of the Nile during the period of flood, an annual occurrence of
vital importance to the inhabitants of the historic region. From this
originated, according to Pluche and others, the meaning of life attached
to it. In the hand of Thoth, a serpent was sometimes twined around it.
From it has sprung, according to Gerald Massey, many modern symbols and
words. “It is extant,” says he, “in the great seals of England, in a
reversed position, as the token of power and authority;”[496] and he
ventures to affirm that “to be anxious is to be very much alive.”[497]
[Illustration: FIG. 22.—ANKH, OR CRUX ANSATA.]
Regarded as a TAU or T[498] with a link attached, it was often
interpreted as Typhon chained. As such it was customary to suspend it
as an amulet from the necks of children and sick people; and it was
connected with the wrappings of mummies. M. Pluche, who has gone at
length into this interesting subject, says: “This custom of bridling the
powers of the enemy, and of hanging a captive Typhon about the necks of
children, of sick persons, and of the dead, appeared so beneficial and
so important that it was adopted by other nations. The children and the
sick most commonly wore a ticket, whereon was a T, which they looked
upon as a powerful preventive. In process of time, other characters were
substituted in the room of the letter T, which was at first engraved
on this ticket, but of which the other nations understood neither the
meaning nor intention. They often put a serpent on it, an Harpocrates, or
the object of the devotions in vogue; nay, sometimes ridiculous figures,
or even some that were of the utmost indecency. But the name of _amulet_
that was given to the ticket, and which signifies the removal of evil,
most naturally represents the intention of the Egyptians, from whom this
practice came.”[499]
[Illustration: FIG. 23.—HEALTH, IN HIEROGLYPHICS.]
A SCEPTRE (Tem), which, alone, may signify strong, in connection with the
ankh stands for strong life, or health. This combination is seen on one
of the faces of the obelisk now in London.
TOUCH-PIECES, or golden eagles, were special coins first issued by King
Henry VII to persons “touched for the evil.” One side of the piece bore
an angel standing on a dragon, with the inscription, _Soli Deo gloria_,
and the other a ship in full sail. Some had other designs. A hand
extending from above was often given,—an old symbol of healing, being
in use in Egypt, and generally having in connection with it a serpent,
or a figure of Serapis.[500] The hand of the Lord so frequently spoken
of in the Bible may have suggested it. Specimens of those issued by
Charles II and James II are to be seen in the collection of coins now
in the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, Memorial Hall,
Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. There are cuts of several in Pettigrew’s
work.[501]
The touch-pieces were carefully preserved and used as amulets.
The practice of touching for the evil by English sovereigns, from
Edward the Conqueror down to Queen Anne, did not originate with them.
Tacitus[502] gives an interesting account of the cure of a case of
blindness and of one of paralysis, in the same way, by Vespasian. Every
Bible-reader knows that it was resorted to in Palestine. But it was in
vogue in Greece three centuries before our era. In his “Life of Pyrrhus,”
Plutarch says: “It was believed that he cured the swelling of the spleen
by sacrificing a white cock, and with his right foot gently pressing the
part affected, the patients lying upon their backs for the purpose. There
was no person, however poor or mean, to whom this relief, if requested,
was refused. He received no reward except the cock for sacrifice, and
this present was very agreeable to him.”
[Illustration: FIG. 24.—A MEDICINE-BAG.]
The MEDICINE-BAG of the North American Indians has been almost
universally regarded by that race as of wonderful virtue in warding off
harmful influences of all kinds. It has served them as a preventive, and
also, like Prince Ahmed’s apple, as a cure for every disease. Catlin says
he found that “every [male] Indian, in his primitive state, carries his
medicine-bag in some form or other, to which he pays the greatest homage
and to which he looks for safety and protection through life.”[503]
The same writer, who, I may remark, had a very wide acquaintance
among Indians, pronounces it to be “the key to Indian life and Indian
character.”[504]
The contents of this mysterious bag, this “bag of wonders,” are preserved
a secret, one which none wishes to discover. These consist of a medicinal
herb, or the like, with some packing-material, such as dried grass or
moss.
The medicine-bag is formed from the skin of a human being or some
reptile, bird, or other creature. The suggestion of the substance to be
used was left to a dream, inspired by the “great spirit,” and experienced
during the fast indulged in about puberty, the time when the Indian
“makes his medicine;” that is, learns what animal is to be his guardian,
as it were. Various ornaments are attached to it.
The medicine-bag is attached to the belt or carried in the hand. No other
possession could be compared with it in value, and money could not buy
one. It is buried with its owner.
As already hinted, the medicine-bag is not considered of medical import
only; it is believed to have a power over all injurious influences. By
“medicine” the Indian has reference to everything he cannot understand.
Catlin and others are doubtless right in their opinion that it came from
the French word for doctor, _médecin_. It is the _manito_ or _manitou_
of the Algonkin, the _oki_ of the Iroquois, and the _teotl_ of the Aztec.
And, curious to observe, these words also mean serpent.
I may also explain here that the “medicine-man” is not alone the
physician; he deals with the mysterious generally. There were three
kinds: the Jossakeeds, or seers or prophets; the Medas, or medical
practitioners; and the Wabenos, a class that indulged in night orgies.
In Miss Emerson’s book it is said that “the dress of the Medas of the
celebrated Mandan Indians, whose tribe is now extinct, was a medley of
the animal and vegetable kingdom. All anomalies in nature were used as
of great medical effect in the construction of this professional guard.
The skin of the yellow bear usually formed the most important feature of
the dress, and to this was sometimes attached the skins of snakes and
the hoofs of deer, goats, and antelopes.”[505] The appearance of such a
“doctor” was surely sufficient to frighten away most of the evil spirits
which were the source of human ills.
CHAPTER XVII.
PHARMACISTS’ SYMBOLS.
The art of the pharmacist is old; it is assuredly of prehistoric origin.
The reader of Dioscorides or of Pliny is astonished at the number of
herbs and other things used as medicines and the complexness of many
popular prescriptions. Referring to the pharmacist, it is curiously
observed, in “Ecclesiasticus,” that “of his works there shall be no
end.”[506] In other days than ours there was evidently a morbid taste for
the multiplication of remedies of doubtful worth,—a deplorable infirmity
of many physicians.
It is stated by Ebers, in his “Egyptian Princess,” that each of the
Egyptian temples had its laboratory and apothecary. There is a list of
two hundred drugs which were kept in the temple of Edfu. But just when
the preparation and sale of medicines became a special business cannot
be stated. In early times it was customary for the physician to compound
his own prescriptions, as is done in rural places yet. Mr. Fort remarks
that “toward the conclusion of the third century the first indications
present themselves of the existence of a class of [Roman] citizens to
whose vigilant care was confided the preparation of medicaments ordered
by attendant physicians.”[507] The same writer says: “The storage of
medicinal supplies seems to have approximated the pharmacy in the twelfth
century, although even earlier the word _apothecary_ appears to have
been interchangeable with the booth where assorted wares were offered at
public sale.”[508] At the end of the twelfth century the Bishop of London
was named _apothecarius_, or pharmacist, to King Henry,—a fact which
proves that the art of Bolus was then, at least, highly esteemed.
Now, although the establishment of the pharmacist has mysteries in
abundance connected with it, the special symbols pertaining to the
business are but few. The chief and most characteristic one is the MORTAR
AND PESTLE. In Larwood and Hotten’s interesting book it is said: “One
of the signs originally used exclusively by apothecaries was the mortar
and pestle, their well-known implements for pounding drugs.”[509] In an
attractive form and generally gilded, it is to be seen at nearly all
pharmacies in this country. Only occasionally is it pictured. I know an
instance in Philadelphia where Cupid is represented in connection with
it; but this is as absurd an addition as the negro youth who is using the
pestle in another. An eagle—the national bird—is sometimes represented
hovering over it. The pestle used for grinding corn was deified by the
Romans under the name of Pilumnus. In connection with the mortar it is
highly spoken of in the sacred books of the Hindus.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.—MORTAR AND PESTLE.]
The skull and cross-bones has come to be of pharmaceutical significance.
Placed on the label of a vial, it implies that the contents are
poisonous, and should be used with intelligence and care. It has been
in use from an early date as an emblem of death. Formerly, it was often
placed on tombstones.
BOTTLES or VASES, colored or containing colored liquids, are of
pharmaceutic import. The question of the origin of their use as signs is
often asked. It cannot be definitely answered. But, as to how the custom
originated one may confidently say that it arose from the common-sense
desire of the dealer in medicinal wares to make the fact obvious to the
passer-by. The confectioner does essentially the same thing, and so,
indeed, do the grocer and many others.
By turning to Larwood and Hotten’s book it will be seen that a golden
bottle has been used as a banker’s and a goldsmith’s sign; also, that
bottles of various kinds have in other days, as now, decorated many a
tavern-front.
Hence, a bottle or vase can hardly be regarded as a symbol, and much less
the exclusive symbol of a dealer in medicines. If it were similar in
every instance, and had something special in its form or color, or both,
it might be so regarded.
As it is, one cannot very well regard it in any other light than as a
part of the dealer’s ordinary stock. Still, it must be said that there
is something decidedly distinct and special about it, as seen in the
pharmacist’s window.
In this country, at least, the shape of the vase or vases (for there are
generally three or four) and their color are not subject to any rule;
and, in fact, there are a few stores in Philadelphia in which there are
none. The favorite colors seem to be light green, claret, light blue, and
amber.
It is very probable that the presence of special colored liquids in
show-bottles does not date back much farther than, if as far as,
1617,—the time when the apothecaries became a distinct class from
grocers, in England. Certainly, some of the beautiful shades of color
are very modern.
Exhibiting bottles containing actual medicines is doubtless a much more
ancient practice than that of exhibiting them for the sake of their own
showiness or that of the solutions placed therein. That has, in all
probability, been customary from the time when dealing in drugs began.
When was that?
It is known that the art of the pharmacist and trading in drugs were
practiced at an early period in Egypt. Thus, in the “Papyrus-Ebers,”
which was written 1600 years before our era, we learn that for most
diseases remedies were prescribed, drawn from all three kingdoms of
nature, and in some instances were brought from distant lands. The
prescriptions, I may add, were compounded according to exact weights and
measures. Two recipes for pills are given: one with honey for women, and
one without it for men. One for the preparation of a hair-dye, ascribed
to the mother-in-law[510] of the first king of Egypt is given, which
Ebers states[511] to be the earliest of all recipes preserved to us, the
date of its origin being about 4000 B.C.
I could give many Egyptian and other ancient references to fancy vessels
of glass and other materials used in the pursuit of ministering to the
sick. One extremely interesting direct reference to the use of medicinal
vases at a very early date has recently been brought to the attention of
the public. I refer to a translation of an Assyrian fragment made by Mr.
J. Halevy, given in “The Records of the Past.”[512] It is so interesting
from several points of view that I will give it here in its entirety:—
“For the eruptions and humors which afflict the body:
Fill a vase which has held drugs with water from an inexhaustible
well;
Put in it a shoot of ⸺ a ⸺ reed, some date-sugar, some urine,
some bitter hydromel
Add to it some ⸺;
Saturate it with pure water [and]
Pour upon it the water of the [sick] man.
Cut reeds in an elevated meadow;
Beat some pure date-sugar with some pure honey;
Add some sweet oil which comes from the mountain;
Mix them together.
Rub [with this ointment] the body of the [sick man].”
The reference to the “art of the apothecary” made in the Bible[513] has
been regarded as “the first recorded notice upon the subject of medicine
and pharmacy,”—as, for example, by the late professor, Dr. George B.
Wood;[514] but here we have explicit evidence that farther back, say
1000 years before the time of Moses, people were in the habit of having
medicines stored in vases of a set kind, and that the Babylonians had
considerable pharmaceutical knowledge, as well as that their medical
practice was not exclusively magical; or, as Mr. Halevy puts it, “it
proves that the Babylonians were in the possession of a rational medicine
as well as a magical one.”[515] He further remarks that it is “the only
known specimen of an Assyro-Babylonian prescription.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
MISCELLANEOUS MEDICAL SYMBOLS.
THE BARBER’S AND SURGEON’S POLE.—The peculiar pole made use of by barbers
as a sign seems to have been medical in origin. For a long time the
barber performed all the duties of the surgeon. It was in the year 1461
that, on petition, King Edward IV granted “the freemen of the Mystery of
Barbers of the city of London, using the mystery or faculty of surgery,”
“the mystery,” which constituted the beginning of the present Royal
College of Surgeons of England.[516] It was not, however, until the
middle of the eighteenth century (1745) that each began to limit his
functions.
The sign is generally explained thus: The pole represents a stick,
usually held in his hand by the patient while getting bled, and the
red and white spiral stripes, blood and a bandage, respectively. The
colors, it may be observed, are not always arranged in spiral parallel
stripes; nor are the colors limited to red and white. The use of blue
with, or even without, red is partly allowable, on account of venous
blood being somewhat bluish in hue. Mr. Jeaffreson, indeed, says that
“the chirurgical pole, properly tricked out, ought to have a line of blue
paint, another of red, and a third of white,”[517] spirally arranged.
On the top of the pole there is usually placed, in Great Britain, France,
and other European countries, a brass basin, with a semicircular gap in
one side. This vessel is used by the barber to keep the clothes of his
patrons from being soiled. With a gallipot, instead of the basin, one
has the real pole of the surgeon, which has been extensively used as a
sign. Without either, it is in use by the barbers in this country. Lord
Thurlow, a member of the House of Commons, delivered a speech on the 17th
of July, 1797, in opposition to the Surgeons’ Incorporation Bill, in
which he said: “By a statute, still in force, the barbers and surgeons
were each to use a pole. The barbers were to have theirs blue and white
striped, with no appendage; but the surgeons’, which was the same in
other respects, was likewise to have a gallipot and a red flag, to denote
the particular nature of their vocation.”
THE COLOR YELLOW.—It is a well-known fact that yellow is a
characteristically medical color. A flag of this color is in use at
lazarettos, and it is often placed at plague-stricken spots, as a warning
to the observer to keep away. How is the medical import of the color to
be accounted for? In Christian symbolism it signifies faith, but one
must turn, I believe, to astrology to learn the reason of its medical
significance. To the astrologer, yellow was the color of the sun; and
it was to this planet, anciently so regarded, that the possession of
greatest influence over disease was accorded.
THE PHYSICIAN’S CONVEYANCE.—It is said that Asclepiades, the ancient
quack, perambulated the world on a cow’s back, living on her milk as
he went along. We have no reason to believe that such a mode of moving
from point to point ever became a professional custom; but physicians in
recent times have always had, in most places, characteristic methods of
travel, in their rounds among their patients.
It appears that, previous to the reign of Charles II, it was customary
for the English doctors to visit on horseback, “sitting,” as Jeaffreson
says, “sideways on foot-cloths, like women.”[518] At any rate, Aubrey
says that Harvey “rode on horseback with a foot-cloth, his men following
on foot, as the fashion then was, which was very decent, now quite
discontinued.”[519] Later, carriages of various kinds, some very showy,
came into vogue.
For many years the physicians of Philadelphia, as of other prominent
American cities, have been known, as they have gone about their duties,
by their use of a special form of phaeton. It is a four-wheeled
conveyance, with a fixed top, and is drawn by one horse. Riding in it
is pleasant, and its generous top protects well in bad weather. Several
years ago a two-wheeled modification of it was introduced, but it did not
become popular, and of late has been disappearing. By a few of the more
well-to-do in the profession, two-horse carriages of various styles are
used; but there is nothing characteristic about them.
THE PHYSICIAN’S GOLD-HEADED CANE.—Much might be written about the
gold-headed cane of the physician. Although it has had its day, it
was long considered an important part of a medical outfit. Jeaffreson
ventures to affirm that formerly “no doctor would have presumed to pay
a professional visit, or even to be seen in public, without this mystic
wand.”[520] What was its history? Did it come down to our time as a
representative of the one placed in the hand of the god of medicine
by the artists? Jeaffreson expresses the opinion that it is “a relic
of the conjuring paraphernalia with which the healer in ignorant and
superstitious times always worked upon the imagination of the credulous,”
and that “it descended to him from Hermes and Mercurius.” “It was a
relic,” he adds, “of old jugglery, and of yet older religion.”[521]
As the reader is aware, these statements are open to criticism. But,
whatever its origin may have been, it was almost universally used by
physicians until recently.
The physician’s cane was generally smooth, of moderate weight, and with
a gold head in the form of a knob. A gold head! What was the meaning
of that? Was it used because of the bearer’s reputed love of the
precious metal? Chaucer says, and with charming casuistry, in the famous
description of his doctor:—
“For gould in physike is a cordial;
Therefore, he lovede gould in special.”[522]
It may, then, have been its medicinal virtues, virtues still occasionally
lauded by therapeutic prospectors, which suggested the use of it in the
cane. But, after all, the desire to make a good appearance may have been
the reason for its use.
The head of the cane was not always solid; on the contrary, it was often,
like many a one’s, doubtless, who carried it, hollow. In the cavity, it
was customary to keep something medicinal, such as ammonia. About this
there was much mystery in the minds of the populace. Jeaffreson, who may
very properly be regarded as of this class, says that the doctor “always
held it to his nose, when he approached a sick person, so that its fumes
might protect him from the noxious exhalations of his patient.”[523]
Something of the kind is still supposed by many to be done. The idea
was entertained by more than a few, that within the head of the cane
existed, in some cases at least, a familiar spirit which gave the owner
extraordinary power. Paracelsus was reputed to have within the pummel of
his long sword, which he used instead of a cane, a genius, in the form of
a bird, which enabled him to perform wonders. Butler speaks of it thus:—
“Bombastus kept a devil’s bird,
Shut up in the pummel of his sword,
That taught him all the cunning pranks
Of past and future mountebanks.”[524]
Alchemists said that it was the philosopher’s stone, but it has been with
better reason conjectured[525] that it was laudanum,—an agent which the
bold, talented quack was in the habit of using much with striking results.
There is preserved, in the College of Physicians of London, a cane which
was carried successively by Drs. Radcliffe, Mead, Askew, Pitcairn, and
Baillie. On it are coats-of-arms used by the distinguished carriers of
it. The gold head of it is in the form of a crooked cross-bar, and not a
knob,—the orthodox one. A book has been written with it for the title,
treating of its several owners.[526]
THE PHYSICIAN’S DRESS.—At the present time there is nothing about the
dress of the physician symbolic of his calling. Formerly the case was
different. Until less than a century ago, the dress of the members of the
medical profession was both decidedly typical and remarkable. It was worn
last, it is said, by Dr. Henry Revell Reynolds, one of the physicians
of George III. The items of it were: a well-powdered three-tailed wig,
a silk coat, breeches, stockings, buckled shoes, and lace ruffles. Says
Jeaffreson: “Next to his cane, the physician’s wig was the most important
of his accoutrements. It gave profound learning and wise thought to lads
just out of their teens.”[527] If this were the case it should be coaxed
into use again.
THE PHYSICIAN’S RING.—Among the ancients, rings were held in high
esteem. The signet of Solomon, which had considerable to do with the
building of the great temple, and the ring of Gyges, the shepherd of the
king of Lydia, through which he could become invisible and see people
at pleasure, are examples of the surprising powers often accorded to
them. One was, until a period not far distant, an important item of the
insignia of the medical man. It is spoken of in one of the spurious
Hippocratic works. The seal variety was the orthodox one. Different
stones were used, and on these were engraved various designs. As
indicative of his position, a learned writer says that the doctor wore
the ring “on the third finger of the right hand.”[528]
The physician’s ring was viewed generally in the light of an amulet,
or talisman. The engraving it bore had much to do with its supposed
virtues; and the stone also gave it special value. Aubrey thus refers to
a sapphire ring: “They say it preserves from infection and pestilential
diseases. See Albertus Magnus _de hoc_. I warrant he has recited virtues
enough of it.”[529] Red carnelian was believed to be curative of
hæmorrhage, and coral of nervous affections.
CHAPTER XIX.
MEDICAL SYMBOLISM IN PRACTICE.
It is hardly necessary to say to the reader who has followed me this far
that the scope of medical symbolism is not very restricted. In extent
it is obviously not limited; nor is it without variety and the means of
variety enough. Yet how little use does one see made of it! How seldom
do publishers take any advantage whatever of it, on the covers of their
books or anywhere else! And what little is here and there attempted is
apt to be a trifle preposterous, on a par with the misuse of the serpent
by the quack-medicine man, who confounds the most obvious religious
(Christian) significance of it with the medical.
Examples without limit of questionable medical symbols might be given.
Here is a publisher who makes use of the caduceus of Hermes; there is one
who displays the club of Hercules, with a rather venomous-looking serpent
crawling down it from aloft; and yonder one who exhibits a skull on a
closed book, suggestive of a hopeless meditation on death,—the reverse of
what the physician should indulge in. But, at a time when the absence of
symbols is almost the rule, perhaps one should try to be a little blind
to the faults of those which are met with.
Of a collection of medical symbols on hand, few are notably good. I may
instance a fair specimen. On the title-page of a journal edited by the
late Dr. Dunglison, a learned and sensible man, _The American Medical
Intelligencer_, which had a brief existence in the latter half of the
fourth decade of this century, appears the figure a copy of which is here
given (Fig. 26). The idea is better than its execution.
Ideas for symbolic designs of medical import are not scarce. The
instruments and drugs used by the disciples of Æsculapius afford a host,
if one does not wish to turn to mythology or anything allied. But,
although the scientific physician might properly hesitate about using,
say, an emblem of St. Luke, the patron saint of physicians, there are
mythological and related conceptions, many of which might be utilized to
good purpose. Thus, if it be desired to give an Egyptian design on the
cover of a book, say, on obstetrics, the main part of an admirable one
may be found ready at hand on the wall of the great temple at Luxor.[530]
It is the scene—and a sufficiently chaste one, too—of the maiden mother
giving birth to the future king, Amunotoph III, for whom the temple or
palace was erected about 1400 B.C. She is seated on the midwife’s stool,
as described in the Bible,[531] while two nurses have her by the hands,
doing what they can to ease the pains of labor. Or, a representation
of Pasht, Bubastis, or Sekhet, the sister of Horus and mother of
Imhotep,—who generally appeared cat-headed because the cat, a most sacred
animal, was consecrated to her,—would not be inappropriate; for, to use
the words of Ebers, “she seems to have been honored as the deity who
conferred the blessing of children and watched over their birth.”[532]
[Illustration: FIG. 26.—A MEDICAL SYMBOL.]
But, for a design of obstetrical import, there could probably be few
better than one in which prominence were given to the good housewifery
symbols,—the pestle, hatchet, and broom; those, respectively, of
Pilumnus, a god of children; Intercidona, the goddess who first taught
the art of cutting firewood; and Deverra, the goddess who invented the
broom, that great instrument of cleanness and enemy of the Typhon, or,
I may say, Hydra, of many modern doctors,—the disease-germ: the deities
that saved the pregnant woman from harm from her special enemies, the
unclean sylvan gods. The broom! Wise old Romans! Wiser than the unsteady
enthusiasts of our time, with bottles of carbolic acid in their hands
yesterday and of corrosive sublimate to-day. And with these symbols,
especially if the design were for a work by a female author, there might
be given a figure of Juno Lucina, the special friend of women in labor,
the type of the Eileithyiai, the handmaids of Hera, of the Greeks.
And here I may observe that, according to ancient custom, the goddess
Juno Lucina should be represented with one hand empty and, as it were,
ready to receive the coming infant, and with the other holding a lighted
torch, a symbol of life. The torch should be erect, for when the flame
is turned downward it signifies death. In the seal of the American
Gynæcological Society, a woman, possibly meant for Juno, is represented
with a torch in her right hand and in the other a sprig of evergreen,
with a baby resting on the arm. This is of obstetric import. The members
of the society, however, consider themselves something else than
midwives. Judging from their title, they might be _petits maîtres_.
CHAPTER XX.
THE PENTACLE.
By way of conclusion, and at the risk of running too deep into occult
learning, I will give some account of a remarkable magic figure, of
interest to the physician, about which little appears to be generally
known, but which is often referred to in certain out-of-the-way lines
of study. I refer to the pentacle, or triple triangle, the pentalpha
of Pythagoras, the formulator of a celebrated system of philosophy,
the basal idea of which is that all things sprang from numbers. A
representation of it in its simple form is given herewith. On inspection,
it will be observed that the figure has five arms, or points, five
double triangles, with five acute angles within and five obtuse ones
without; so that, if five—a number made up of the first even (2) and
the first[533] odd one (3)—be possessed of the virtue which the occult
philosophers have asserted, the pentacle must have much. It is, in fact,
the famous legendary key of Solomon, which has played a remarkable rôle
in history. Tennyson, one of the few well-known authors by whom reference
to it is made, speaks of it when he makes one of his characters (Katie)
thoughtlessly draw (it can be done through one stroke)—
“With her slender-pointed foot,
Some figure like a wizard’s pentagram,
On garden gravel.”[534]
[Illustration: FIG. 27.—THE PENTACLE.]
I have said that little is generally known about the pentacle. Here
is some evidence: Ruskin defines it to be “a five-pointed star, or
a double-triangle ornament, the symbol of the trinity”[535]—a wrong
definition, but not quite as bad as that given in Mollett’s handsome
work, to wit: “A figure formed of two triangles, intersected so as to
form a six-pointed star.”[536] The opinion is expressed by Bayard Taylor
that the magical powers attributed to it could be explained by the fact
that, being made up of three triangles, it was a “triple symbol of the
trinity.”[537] This may be true, but it was regarded as possessing
mysterious powers long before Christianity originated.
A common mistake—the one evidently made by Mollett—of even learned
writers (as, for example, Oliver[538] and Fairholt[539]) is to confound
the pentacle with the seal of Solomon (called also the shield of David),
which consists of two equilateral triangles so arranged as to form a
six-pointed star.
By the German writers on magic and kindred subjects, the pentacle
is often called _Drudenfuss_,—that is, wizard’s foot,—a term which
Mackey[540] takes to be a corruption of the word for Druid’s foot, by
which people it was in use, being often worn, as a symbol of deity,
on their sandals. As Bayard Taylor, however, says: “_Drud_, from the
same root as Druid, was the old German word for wizard.” In Mr. Blake’s
interesting book,[541] a representation of a very old coin is given, on
which the mystic figure appears.
The pentacle has been observed on a figure of Anubis, in Egypt. It
is stated[542] that it was used on coins of Antiochus Epiphanes, and
also[543] of Lysimachus. I have seen it stated somewhere that it is one
of the old sect marks of the Hindus; but this is an error, I believe. By
referring to Coleman’s[544] or Birdwood’s[545] work, it will be found
that it is Solomon’s seal which has been so used. It was one of the
totems of the American Indians. Dawson[546] gives a picture of it as seen
sculptured on the Roches Percées, a remarkable solitary mass of sandstone
on the plains west of Manitoba.
I have said that the pentacle has been observed on a figure of Anubis.
It would appear to have been well known and highly prized by the early
Egyptians, or rather, perhaps, I should say Egypto-Chaldeans, if a recent
writer, Mr. Robert Ballard, is to be believed. He declares that “it is
the geometric emblem of extreme and mean ratio, and the symbol of the
Egyptian pyramid, Cheops.”[547] Let a pentacle be formed within a circle.
Around the interior pentagon of it describe a circle. Around this circle
form a square. “Then will the square represent the base of Cheops.”
Again, draw two diameters to the outer circle, intersecting at right
angles, and each parallel to a side of the square. “Then will the parts
of those diameters, between the square and the outer circle, represent
the four apothems of the four slant-sides of the pyramid.” Still again,
connect by lines the angles of the square with the outer circle at the
four points indicated by the ends of the diameters. Then “the star of
the pyramid is formed, which, when closed as a solid, will be a correct
model of Cheops.”
Mr. Ballard, it is to be feared, like Mr. Piazzi Smyth, has not the
power to perceive coincidences and after-thoughts. His book, however, is
decidedly original and interesting.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.—THE PENTACLE AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.]
I may observe that if the plan of the great pyramid was fashioned after
the pentacle, and Mr. Proctor be right in saying that it is identical
with “the ordinary square scheme of nativity,”[548] the figure of the
astrologers used in casting horoscopes, it follows that the pentacle
furnishes also a key to the latter. Then, if it be a fact that the
pyramid was designed by and constructed under the superintendence of
early Chaldeans, one has reason to infer that the pentacle was of
Oriental origin. Probably it was at first a symbol of the sun,—a purpose
for which it has been used by different bodies of mystics, and others.
It is interesting to notice that the figure was one of the symbols of
the great hero-myth, Quetzalcoatl, a light-god according to some, but
really, according to Reville,[549] a god of the wind, who was generally
represented in the form of a feathered serpent. Thus Dr. Brinton
says: “In one of the earliest myths he is called _Yahualli ehecatl_,
meaning ‘the wheel of the winds,’ the winds being portrayed in the
picture-writing as a circle or wheel, with a figure with five angles
inscribed upon it, the sacred pentagram. His image carried in the left
hand this wheel, and in the right a sceptre with the end recurved.”[550]
The pentacle has been accorded great potency, and used extensively to
keep off witches and all sorts of evil influences, including the devil
himself, and hence it has served purposes very similar to those to which
the horseshoe has often been put. Aubrey says that it was formerly
used by the Greek Christians, as the sign of the cross is now, “at the
beginning of letters or books for good luck’s sake,”[551]—something which
old John Evelyn was wont to do in his works, and as Southey placed the
puzzling monogram,[552] meant, perhaps, to have similar significance on
the title-page of his book, “The Doctor.” One is found in the western
window of the south aisle of Westminster Abbey, which, doubtless,
the black monks, as they chanted in the choir, often looked on with
superstitious emotion. It may be seen on many a cradle and threshold at
the present day in the Fatherland.
The readers of Goethe’s great work will remember that Dr. Faust had one
on his threshold, and that, when he began to perceive that there was
something decidedly suspicious about the character of the “poodle,” he
remarked that
“Für solche halbe Höllenbrut
Ist Salomonis Schlüssel gut.”
How Mephistopheles himself got in was afterward explained by his showing
that one of the angles of the “Drudenfuss” was left open.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.—HYGEIA, A SYMBOL OF HEALTH.]
Disciples of the Samian sage, cabalistic[553] Jews and Arabians, and
others, especially Gnostics, long viewed the pentacle as a symbol of
health, and made use of it as an amulet, calling it Hygeia, the name of
the goddess of health. It was so called, and to some extent, likely for a
similar reason, regarded as a sacred symbol of health, because it could
be resolved, it was believed, into the Greek letters which form the word
Hygeia; and these were placed one on each point of the figure.[554] It
was accepted, in fact, as a sort of rebus of the name of the celebrated
daughter of Æsculapius. The scholarly and ingenious reader may be able
to trace, more or less definitely, this reputed similarity. It is an
interesting feature of what is certainly a very remarkable figure.
FOOTNOTES
[1] That scholarly old writer, Ashmole, well says: “What some light
braines may esteem as foolish toyes, deeper judgments can and will value
as sound and serious matter.” Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, 1652.
[2] Ecclesiasticus, xxxix, 1.
[3] Natural History, xxi.
[4] Introduction to a Scientific System of Mythology, p. 197. London,
1844.
[5] A Dictionary of Terms in Art. London, 1854.
[6] _Ibid._ Article, “Attribute.”
[7] History of the Egyptian Religion, p. 219. London, 1882.
[8] Royal Masonic Cyclopædia. London, 1877.
[9] The Greek form of the name is Asclepios or Asklepios, Ἀσκληπιὸς. The
Latin form being the one in general use, I will adhere to it in this
essay.
[10] Itinerary of Greece (translation), vol. iii, p. 23.
[11] Iliad, xi.
[12] Ch. xxxviii, v. 3.
[13] Cicero would appear to have duly prized the physician. I recall a
passage of his to the effect that in no way can man approach so near to
the gods as by conferring health on his fellows.
[14] Natural History, xxix, 7.
[15] _Ibid._, xxix, 8.
[16] Natural History, xxix, 8.
[17] _Ibid._
[18] De Medicinâ.
[19] Natural History, xxix, 1.
[20] Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.
[21] Metamorphosis, xv. Translation by Mr. Welsted.
[22] Although there is little evidence to show that serpent-worship was
indigenous in Rome, Fergusson holds that “such an embassy being sent on
the occasion in question indicates a degree of faith on the part of the
people which could only have arisen from previous familiarity.” Tree and
Serpent Worship, p. 19.
[23] The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. ii.
[24] Livy, x, 47.
[25] _Ibid_., xxix, 11.
[26] In his Life of Publicola, Plutarch gives an interesting account of
its origin. The sacrifice of corn and trees on a field belonging to the
Tarquins, in the Campus Martius, had much to do with it. These being cast
into the river, found lodgment at shallows where the island is, which
favored alluvial accumulations. See also Livy, ii, 5.
[27] It is stated by Sir George Head that it is twelve hundred feet in
length and four hundred in breadth. Rome—A Tour of Many Days, vol. iii,
p. 106. London, 1849.
[28] A hospital established by Gregory XIII in 1581 and several
residences are also on the island.
[29] God of fields and shepherds. The Temple of Æsculapius was the most
ancient, having been dedicated A.U.C. 462.
[30] Pilgrimage of the Tiber, p. 63. London, 1875. Tiberius ascended
the throne, A.D. 14. Plutarch, writing half a century later, says of
the island: “It is now sacred to religious uses.” Life of Publicola. He
states that several temples and porticoes had been built on it, but makes
no reference to a prison.
[31] Natural History, xxix, 8.
[32] _Ibid._
[33] The Very Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Donovan states, in his learned work,
that “the temple (of Æsculapius) being recorded by the Regionaries must
have existed in the fifth century.” Rome, Ancient and Modern, and its
Environs, vol. iv, p. 431. Rome, 1842.
[34] Zoological Mythology, or Legends of Animals, vol. i, p. 416. London
and New York, 1872.
[35] It appears that the serpent has still devotees in Italy. It is said
that what is called a snake festival is held once a year in a little
mountain-church near Naples. Those attending carry snakes around their
necks, arms, or waists. The purpose of the festival is to preserve the
participants from poison and sudden death, and to bring them good fortune.
[36] The port of Epidaurus not being within several miles of the grove of
Æsculapius, it is very improbable that a serpent found its own way from
the latter to the Roman ship.
[37] Lives of Illustrious Men.
[38] Itinerary of Greece (translation), vol. ii, p. 213. London, 1794.
[39] Natural History, xxix, 23.
[40] As by Aristophanes in Plutus. In Liddell & Scott’s Lexicon Πἁρώας is
defined to be “a reddish-brown snake sacred to Æsculapius.”
[41] Thierleben. Grosse Auflage. Dritte Abtheilung. Erster Band. Seite
348. Leipzig, 1878.
[42] General Zoology, part ii, p. 452. London, 1802.
[43] Coronella venustrissima.
[44] Animal Kingdom, vol. ix, p. 263.
[45] Reptiles and Birds, p. 92. New York, 1870.
[46] The Medical and Surgical Reporter for January 5th and 12th, 1884.
[47] Travels in the Morea, vol. ii. London, 1830.
[48] Mr. Thos. W. Ludlow, of Yonkers, N. Y., has two interesting letters
on the subject in the New York Nation, September 28, 1882, and February
15, 1883. No comprehensive account has as yet appeared in either the
English, French, or German language. An interesting article on “Æsculapia
as Revealed by Inscriptions,” by Prof. A. C. Merriam, in Gaillard’s
Medical Journal for May, 1885, partly meets the want.
[49] Geography, viii. Translation in Bohn’s Library.
[50] Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography.
[51] Itinerary of Greece (translation), vol. ii, p. 212.
[52] Στὸ Ἱερὸν, sacred place.
[53] Mr. Ludlow says, in one of his letters, and also informs me
privately, that Mr. Kavvadias has found the theatre to be without the
peribolus of the Sacred Grove. Following Pausanias, Mr. Leake states it
to be within the enclosure.
[54] There is reason to hope that Mr. Kavvadias will make valuable
discoveries in excavating its ruins.
[55] Anything about a physician which might be the means of conveying
disease from one to another is seriously objectionable. Woolen material
is not the proper thing in the outside clothing, and one attending cases
of contagious diseases should not wear gloves, unless he is wont to wash
his hands well after each visit.
[56] Itinerary of Greece (translation), vol. ii, p. 213.
[57] Travels in Morea, vol. ii, p. 428. The Æsculapian priest is not
represented as an honest personage in the “Plutus” of Aristophanes. He
stealthily gathers the cakes from the altars and “consecrates these into
a sack.”
[58] Itinerary of Greece (translation), vol. ii, p. 27.
[59] See note in succeeding chapter.
[60] Professor A. C. Merriam, in Gaillard’s Medical Journal, May, 1885.
[61] Professor Merriam’s article; also L’Asclépieion d’Athenès, by Paul
Girard, Paris, 1882. An interesting little book, in which much may be
learned about asclepia and the asclepiades. The Athenian asclepion was
quite famous, and existed until beyond the fifth century.
[62] Natural History, xxii, 2.
[63] In reference to the asclepia or asclepions, as he calls them, Draper
says: “An edict of Constantine suppressed those establishments.” And
again: “The asclepion of Cnidus continued until the time of Constantine,
when it was destroyed along with many other pagan establishments.”
History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, pp. 386 and 397.
Revised edition. New York, 1876.
[64] Asclepion is from Asclepios, the Greek form of the name of the god
of medicine. In Greek it is ἀσκληπιεῖον, meaning Temple of Asclepios.
Æsculapium is of similar meaning.
[65] Vitruvius, who flourished in the first century before our era,
expresses the opinion that “natural consistency” suggests the selection
of situations affording the advantages of “salubrious air and water” for
“temples erected to Æsculapius, to the goddess of health, and such other
divinities as possess the power of curing diseases.” It materially helped
the divinities. See second edition of his work on Architecture, p. 11, by
Joseph Swift. London, 1860.
[66] Encyclopædia Britannica, ninth edition.
[67] See William Adams’ edition of the Genuine Works of Hippocrates. Two
volumes. London, 1849.
[68] Hygeia and Panacea, both daughters of Æsculapius.
[69] Treatment.
[70] _Op. cit._, p. 777.
[71] In Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible.
[72] Most of the votive inscriptions which have been discovered by Mr.
Kavvadias at the Epidaurian Asclepion do not fortify this opinion,
but they do not serve to disprove it, because others of a different
character may be found. Moreover, the practice there may have been less
scientific than at Cnidus, Cos, and elsewhere. However, the inscriptions
brought to light by Mr. Kavvadias are, generally speaking, poor enough.
One runs thus: “Cures of Apollo and Æsculapius. Concerning Kleo, who
was _enceinte_ for five years. This woman, after being _enceinte_ for
five years, came as a suppliant to the god, and lay down to sleep in
the sacred chamber. As soon as she had gone forth from it and from the
sanctuary, she gave birth to a male child. When the baby was born,
he washed himself in the fountain and set to creeping around his
mother.”—See Ἐφημερὶς Ἀρχαιολογική, No. 4, 1883.
[73] Genuine Works of Hippocrates (Adams), p. 229.
[74] “The Father of Medicine” was, of course, one of the asclepiades. He
was born, it is believed, in the year 460 B.C., and lived to be very old.
His genealogy is preserved in his works. As given in Adams’ edition, he
is of the fifteenth generation, in a direct line, from Æsculapius. He
was of the Podalirius branch. In this connection I may remark that, if
Hippocrates took the oath of the asclepiades, he must have given it a
decidedly liberal interpretation, for it looks as if he divulged to the
whole world all the mysteries of the healing art of great consequence
then known.
[75] It is improbable that Hippocrates was but a fair example of the
asclepiades of his day. He has said himself: “Physicians are many in
title, but very few in reality.” (The Law.)
[76] On the Sacred Disease.
[77] _Ibid._
[78] On Fractures.
[79] Iatrum.
[80] On Fractures.
[81] On Articulations.
[82] On Regimen in Acute Diseases.
[83] On Ancient Medicine.
[84] On Regimen in Acute Diseases.
[85] In the fifth century B.C.
[86] The Law.
[87] It is a beautiful Biblical passage (date about 400 B.C.) which
reads “The sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings.”
Malachi, iv, 2.
[88] See Chaldean Magic, p. 180. François Lenormant. London, 1877.
[89] Iliad, i.
[90] Chryseïs.
[91] Agamemnon.
[92] _Op. cit._, i.
[93] Iliad, xvi.
[94] It was doubtless from the idea of deliverance from suffering that
the term Pæon was applied to Thanatos, or Death, as was sometimes done.
[95] Æsculapius.
[96] Παιών or Παιήων, savior, healer, or physician.
[97] Odyssey, iv.
[98] Æneid, vii.
[99] Metamorphosis, i.
[100] Ἰητήρ ἀμύμων.
[101] Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.
[102] The stadium equals 600 feet; 625 Roman or 606¾ English feet make a
stadium.
[103] Cicero informs us that there were three distinguished physicians
of the name. “The first Æsculapius,” says he, “the god of Arcadia, who
passes for the inventor of the probe and the manner of binding up wounds,
is the son of Apollo. The second, who was slain by a thunderbolt and
interred at Cynosura (in Arcadia), is a brother to the second Mercury.
The third, who found out the use of purgatives and the art of drawing
teeth, is the son of Arsippus and Arsinoë. His tomb may be seen in
Arcadia and the grove that is consecrated to him, pretty near the river
Lusius.” On the Nature of the Gods, iii.
[104] The Mythology and Fables of the Ancients Explained from History,
vol. iii, p. 160. London, 1740. Translated from the French. The account
of Æsculapius given is one of the best I have met with.
[105] Iliad, iv, lines 193-4. _Vide supra._
[106] Itinerary of Greece (translation), vol. ii, p. 212.
[107] Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.
[108] Walden, p. 85.
[109] The Greek for raven or crow is κορώνη.
[110] Itinerary of Greece (translation), vol. ii, p. 211.
[111] _Ibid._
[112] Itinerary of Greece (translation), vol. ii, p. 211.
[113] Geography, xiv.
[114] According to Homer, it was at Tricca and round about that his two
sons bore sway. Iliad, ii.
[115] Diana.
[116] Pythian Ode, iii.
[117] As Grimm remarks, children brought into the world, like Macduff,
by abdominal section, usually become heroes. Teutonic Mythology
(translation), p. 383.
[118] Itinerary of Greece (translation), vol. ii, p. 210.
[119] Because of this occurrence it is said that the name of the Mount
was changed from Myrtium to Titthium, from Τιτθη, a nurse.
[120] Heroes were often indebted to dogs for kind offices. The Hindu
Saramâ is the bitch which aids such when lost in the forests, grottoes,
or darkness. See De Gubernatis’ Zoological Mythology, p. 98. Grimm even
says: “A widely-prevalent mark of the hero-race is their being suckled by
beasts or fed by birds.” Teutonic Mythology, p. 390.
[121] Itinerary of Greece (translation), vol. ii, p. 210.
[122] _Ibid._
[123] Pythian Ode, iii.
[124] Leech was formerly a common name for the physician; such was the
meaning of the Anglo-Saxon _læce_ and the Gothic _leikeis_.
[125] History of Greece, vol. i, p. 179.
[126] Lenormant says that the Oriental Gandarvas, or celestial horses,
which represented the rays of the sun, gave the name and the first idea
of the Grecian Centaurs. Ancient History of the East, vol. ii, p. 13. Mr.
Sayce holds that “Hea-bani, the confidant and adviser of Gisdhubar, is
the Kentaur Kheiron.” The Ancient Empires of the East, p. 156. New York,
1884.
[127] Iliad, xi.
[128] Pythian Ode, vi.
[129] This may have been a fraxinus, or true ash,—a famous tree in
mythical history. The mountain-ash, or rowan-tree (_Pyrus aucuparia_),
however, has been believed from time immemorial to possess great magical
powers. It averted fascination, evil spirits, and diseases. Faith in it
is still wide-spread. See Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and
Folk-lore, by Walter K. Kelly, p. 158 _et seq._ London, 1863.
[130] Iliad, xix.
[131] _Ibid._, xi.
[132] Nemean Ode, iii.
[133] It is worthy of remark that, while the form of Chiron, or Cheiron,
serves as a pharmacist’s symbol, he has, probably, bequeathed his name to
the healer of wounds and the like,—the surgeon. The word surgeon is from
the Latin, _chirurgus_, or, rather, the French, _chirurgien_. Chirurgeon
has some standing as an English word. The Latin, _chirurgus_, is usually
said to have come from the Greek, χειρουργικος, a word compounded of
χειρ, the hand, and ἐργος, worker, meaning one who works with the hand.
It seems likely, however, that the name of the Centaur, χειρων, suggested
the application of the word to the surgeon.
[134] Diodorus, iv; Pindar’s Pythian Ode, iii.
[135] Apollodorus, ii.
[136] Hyginus. Poet. Ast., ii.
[137] Natural History, xxix.
[138] Æneid, vii.
[139] Pythian Ode, iii.
[140] Natural History, xxix.
[141] Republic, b. iii.
[142] _Ibid._
[143] This policy is inculcated in the “Institutes of Menu.” The
incurable Hindu is directed to proceed toward the invincible northeast,
living on air and water. Exposure in battle is also advised.
[144] Herodicus introduced the new practice. He was a sickly trainer, and
did what he could to keep well; “and so,” says Plato, “dying hard by the
help of science, he struggled on to old age.” Republic, b. iii.
[145] Pythian Ode, iii.
[146] History of Greece, vol. i, p. 159.
[147] Pindar and various tragedians.
[148] Republic.
[149] Says Ahura-Mazda: “The man who has a wife is far above him who
begets no son; he who keeps a house is far above him who has none; he who
has children is far above the childless man.” Zend Avesta.
[150] Iliad, ii.
[151] Hand-Book of Ancient Art and its Remains, p. 12.
[152] Strabo, xii, 5.
[153] A toga of limited dimensions.
[154] Ancient Art and its Remains, p. 131.
[155] Cyprus. London, 1877.
[156] Handy-book of the British Museum, 1870.
[157] βακτηρίον. A bacterion is now a disease-germ. A marked instance of
how the sense of words may become changed.
[158] Of course, it is possible enough that Æsculapius carried a staff
at times. The Greeks, however, were not so much given to the practice as
some other peoples, as the Egyptians (see Rawlinson’s Egypt and Babylon,
p. 240. New York, 1885), or the Babylonians, of whom Herodotus (i, 195)
says that “every one carries a walking-stick carved at the top into the
form of an apple, a rose, a lily, an eagle, or something similar.”
[159] Ὀμφαλός means navel. Umbilicus was derived from it. The Jews
regarded Jerusalem as the navel of the earth (see Ezekiel, v, 5), and
also every other people has flattered itself as having it within its
possessions. (See chap. iv of Rev. Dr. William F. Warren’s Paradise
Found. Sixth edition. Boston, 1885.)
[160] Strabo, ix, 3.
[161] Republic, iv.
[162] See Pindar’s Pythian Ode, iv.
[163] Strabo, ix, 3.
[164] In most of the Oriental countries, including Egypt, there was
always more or less of a belief in one great divinity. “The Supreme
Omnipotent Intelligence” of the Hindus was “a spirit by no means the
object of any sense, which can only be conceived by a mind wholly
abstracted from matter.” (Institutes of Menu). El was a name given
the Ineffable One by the Phœnicians and other peoples. Il or Ilu and
Jaoh, the “being,” the “Eternal,” the “Jehovah” of the Hebrews, were
designations of him used by the Babylonians, and from him, it was
believed, the great trinity, Anu, Hea, and Bel emanated. Some, however,
especially in early times, confounded him with Anu. Baal, the “Lord,” was
a common designation of him in Syria and elsewhere.
[165] Dictionary of Mythology. London, 1793.
[166] Anantas.
[167] Ancient Art and its Remains, p. 519.
[168] The reader is doubtless familiar, through the Bible, with
consecrated stones. A Maççeba was a necessary mark of every “high place.”
Jacob set one up (Gen., xxxi, 45).
[169] See Lenormant’s Ancient History of the East, vol. ii, p. 230. A
pillar, cone, or tree-stem, more or less ornamented, constituted the
Ashêrah of the Syrians and others, which many of the Israelites long
looked on with favor (see Numbers, xxv, and 2 Judges, xxii), and which
is in the authorized version of the Bible translated “grove,” as in the
phrase, “the women wove hangings for the grove” (2 Judges, xxxiii, 7).
It was the image of the goddess of fertility and life, the Istar of the
Babylonians, The Baal-peor of the Moabites, Midianites, and others, and
the Priapus of the Greeks and Romans were practically similar. I may add
that the _Phallus_ (derived from Apis, the Egyptian sacred bull), the
_linga_ of the Hindus, has been taken by many peoples as emblematic of
the widely-worshipped, active, renovating power in nature, the sun; just
as an oval or round figure, the _cteis_ of the Greeks, the _yoni_ of the
Hindus, has been of the passive power, the earth. (See Cox’s Mythology
of the Aryans). The latter is the Mipleçeth, or “abominable image for
an Ashêrah,” spoken of in the Bible (1 Kings, xv, 13, and 2 Chronicles,
xv, 16). The whole subject is well presented in a little book by Messrs.
Westropp and Wake,—Ancient Symbol Worship. New York, 1874.
[170] Ancient Art and its Remains, p. 442.
[171] A name given to Hermes.
[172] Transactions of the Victoria Institute, vol. vi, p. 329. London,
1873.
[173] “Aaron’s rod” is similarly constituted, but of different import.
[174] Gemmæ Selectae. Amsterdam, 1703.
[175] Mercury of the Romans was not much, except the god of commerce.
[176] The posture only approximates that assumed in the act of
generation. In this act the two serpents, in the words of Aristotle,
“are folded together with the abdomens opposite.... They roll themselves
together so closely that they seem to be one serpent with two heads.”
Natural History, p. 103. Bohn’s edition. London, 1862.
[177] Remains of Gentilisme and Judaisme, p. 38.
[178] Natural History, xxix, 12.
[179] Æneid, iv.
[180] Zoological Mythology, p. 406.
[181] See Cory’s Ancient Fragments, p. 23. Edition by Hodges. London,
1876.
[182] McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopædia of Biblical and Religious
Literature.
[183] Historic Devices, Badges, and War-Cries. London, 1870.
[184] Natural History, xxix.
[185] _Ibid._
[186] Myths of the New World, p. 3. New York, 1868.
[187] Household Tales.
[188] See Hyginus. Poet. Astr., ii, 14.
[189] The literal meaning of _nagas_ is snakes. In his Indian Arts
(London, 1882), Dr. Birdwood says: “The worship of the snake still
survives everywhere in India, and at Nagpur was, until very recently,
a public danger, from the manner in which the city was allowed to be
overrun with cobras.” p. 83.
[190] “Serpent-Myths of Ancient Egypt,” in Transactions of the Victoria
Institute, vol. vi, p. 321. London, 1873.
[191] Mythology, vol. ii, p. 460.
[192] Egyptian Mythology, p. 36. London, 1863.
[193] Numbers, xxi, 9.
[194] Tree and Serpent Worship, p. 8. A splendid illustrated publication,
issued by the government. It treats principally of East Indian matters.
London, 1873.
[195] Brazen. See 2 Kings, xviii, 4.
[196] From the Greek ἀγαθός, good, and δαίμων, god, soul, fortune.
[197] Uarda, vol. ii, p. 38.
[198] One of the Pharaoh’s “treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.” Exodus,
i, 11.
[199] On the Egyptian obelisk, originally from On (Heliopolis), the
great seat of learning, now in the city of New York, in whose shadow,
doubtless, Joseph at times made love to the high-priest’s daughter, and
Moses learned the meaning of hieroglyphics, occurs the phrase, “Tum, lord
of the city of On;” and, what is of more interest in this connection, one
which reads, “The god Tum, who gives life.” I may add a stanza from a
hymn addressed to Tum:—
“Come to me, O thou sun;
Horus of the horizon, give me help.
Thou art he that giveth help;
There is no help without thee.”
—Records of the Past, vol. vi, p. 100.
[200] See 2 Kings, xviii, 5.
[201] Egypt Under the Pharaohs, vol. ii, p. 376. Second edition. London,
1881.
[202] It is well known that this is not the correct form of the name. It
was lost at an early day, and is not to be found in the New Testament in
any form. It was not to be spoken. Much interest has always been taken
in this remarkable word. According to a recently-translated Assyrian
inscription, the correct form of the name is Ya-u, or Yâhu. Mr. Hodges
dwells on this highly-interesting discovery in his edition of Cory’s
Ancient Fragments, p. 28.
[203] _Op. cit._, p. 377.
[204] Book of Wisdom, ii, 6.
[205] _Ibid._, xv, 12.
[206] The power of healing was a prominent and popular characteristic
of the god of the Hebrews. “I am the Lord that healeth thee” (Ex., xv,
26); “I will restore health unto thee and I will heal thee of thy wounds,
saith the Lord” (Jer., xxx, 17); “He healeth the broken in heart and
bindeth up their wounds” (Ps. cxlvii, 3); “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall
be healed” (Jer., xvii, 14); and other similar passages are met with
in the Bible. Indeed, the curing of diseases has always been largely
resorted to when the claim of divinity has been brought forward. It is a
deceptive test.
[207] Naia tripudians.
[208] Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible.
[209] Herodotus, ii, 74.
[210] Note to ii, 74, in George Rawlinson’s edition of Herodotus.
[211] The reader may turn with advantage to Dr. J. S. Phené’s interesting
illustrated essay on “Prehistoric Traditions and Customs in Connection
with Sun and Serpent Worship,” in the Transactions of the Victoria
Institute, vol. viii, p. 321. London, 1875.
[212] Hymn to Apollo. Translation by C. C. Conwell, M.D. Philadelphia,
1830.
[213] No doubt the great home of the Indo-Europeans furnishes a closely
corresponding myth. But there is good reason to hold that the main
features of the great astronomical myths antedated the Vedas. Grecian
mythology was largely derived from Egypt and Phœnicia.
[214] Mythology, vol. ii, p. 197.
[215] Tree and Serpent Worship, p. 3.
[216] Murray’s Mythology, p. 117.
[217] Chaldean Magic, p. 114.
[218] A graphic account of this mystic creature is given in an extant
fragment of Berosus. He introduced all civilizing arts. See Cory’s
Ancient Fragments, p. 59. Hodges’ edition.
[219] Five Great Monarchies, vol. i, p. 122.
[220] “The Origin of Serpent-Worship,” in the Journal of the Victoria
Institute, vol. ii, p. 373.
[221] Dr. Brinton gives the name as Michabo. He gives an interesting
account of this great Algonkin myth in his American Hero-Myths.
Philadelphia, 1882.
[222] Partly true.
[223] Indian Myths, p. 45. Boston, 1884.
[224] Mythology, vol. ii, p. 458.
[225] Outlines of Primitive Belief, p. 75. London and New York, 1882.
[226] _Ibid._, p. 77.
[227] Myths of the New World, p. 107.
[228] It is interesting to observe that, according to Miss Emerson, “it
is probable that the Indian derived the sacred symbols of his worship
from the configuration of the constellations.” Indian Myths, p. 316.
[229] Buddha and Early Buddhism, p. 7. London, 1881.
[230] The Great Pyramid, p. 100. London, 1883.
[231] In an article on the “Astronomy and Astrology of the Babylonians,”
Mr. Sayce says: “Next to the planets in importance was the polar star,
called Tir-anna, or Gagan-same, or ‘Judge of the Heaven,’ to which a
special treatise was devoted in Sargon’s Library.” See Transactions of
the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. iii, p. 206.
[232] Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid.
[233] The constellation of Draco lies near to and to the north of “the
Dipper,” or Great Bear, and is easily distinguished.
[234] _Op. cit._, p. 101.
[235] Homer’s description of the shield of Achilles is shorter, and was
probably suggested by the same thing. Iliad, xviii.
[236] See pictures of such in Astronomical Myths, by Blake, London, 1877.
Also, in Rawlinson’s Five Great Monarchies.
[237] It is believed that it is referred to in Job, in the verse reading,
“His spirit hath adorned the heavens and his obstetric hand brought forth
the winding serpent” (xxvi, 13, Douai version). The authorized is not
literal.
[238] The Shield of Hercules. Translation by Elton.
[239] Translated Pleiades. Job, ix, 9; xxxviii, 31; and Amos, v, 8.
[240] Five Great Monarchies, vol. i, p. 122. See also his edition of
Herodotus, vol. i, p. 600.
[241] Those interested in this symbol should consult Schliemann’s Troy
and its Remains.
[242] The swastika was so formed by Indians. See illustration in
Emerson’s Indian Myths, p. 10.
[243] Totem is an Algonkin word, signifying to have or possess. It
represented, among the Indians, the social unit or clan, the gens of the
Romans.
[244] Fortnightly Review, vol. vi and vii. N. S.
[245] The Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man, 1870.
[246] Strabo, xiii, 1.
[247] 1 Chronicles, xix, 2.
[248] Indian Myths, p. 44.
[249] The History of the Heavens. Translated from the French by J. B. de
Freval. Two volumes. London, 1741, vol. i, p. 42. The first volume is a
very able and interesting mythological production.
[250] Beginnings of History, p. 114.
[251] Myths of the New World, p. 120.
[252] “The Origin of Serpent Worship,” in the Journal of the
Anthropological Institute, vol. ii, p. 373.
[253] By Plutarch, in Isis and Osiris.
[254] In an extant fragment from Sanchoniathon, after the statement
that “Taautus first consecrated the basilisk and introduced the worship
of the serpent tribe, in which he was followed by the Phœnicians and
Egyptians,” it is said of the animal that it is “the most inspired of all
the reptiles and of a fiery nature, inasmuch as it exhibits an incredible
celerity, moving by its spirit without either hands or feet or any of
those external organs by which other animals effect their motion.” See
Cory’s Ancient Fragments, p. 22. Edition by Hodges.
[255] Proverbs, xxx, 19.
[256] Mr. Spencer says: “The rudimentary form of all religion is the
propitiation of dead ancestors, who are supposed to be still existing and
to be capable of working good or evil to their descendants.” “Origin of
Animal Worship, etc.,” in Fortnightly Review, vol. vii, p. 536. N. S.
[257] Uarda, vol. ii, p. 249.
[258] Myths of the New World, p. 108.
[259] _Op. cit._, vol. ii, p. 38.
[260] Comparative Mythology and Folk-lore, p. 148. London, 1881.
[261] See Exodus, vii, 10-13.
[262] The spinal marrow was believed by some in ancient times to be the
seat of life. Plato entertained that view. See Timæus, 74, 91.
[263] In that hoary Egyptian work, The Book of the Dead (ch. 155), occurs
this remarkable passage: “All creation is, when dead, turned into living
reptiles.”
[264] Rev., xvi, 9.
[265] Pantheon, p. 271. Am. edition. Baltimore, 1830.
[266] For much of interest about the laurel, see Plant-lore Legends and
Lyrics, p. 404, by Richard Folkard, Jr. London, 1884.
[267] Thessaly.
[268] The literal meaning of Telesphorus is “bringing to an end;” of
Euemerion, “prosperous, or glorious;” and of Acesius, “health-giving.”
[269] Pantheon.
[270] Tooke states that by _genius_ is generally meant “that spirit of
nature which produces all things, from which generative power it has its
name.... The images of the genii resembled, for the most part, the form
of a serpent. Sometimes they were described like a boy, a girl, or an old
man.” Pantheon, p. 240.
[271] Zend Avesta.
[272] Herodotus, i, 140.
[273] See Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. ii, p.
245.
[274] Phædo.
[275] Grimm justly remarks that sacrifice was a common feature of heathen
medicine; “great cures and the averting of pestilence,” says he, “could
only be effected by sacrifice.” Teutonic Mythology (translation), p. 1150.
[276] The Past in the Present, p. 164. New York, 1881.
[277] Itinerary of Greece (translation), vol. ii, p. 211.
[278] Pantheon, p. 271.
[279] See Levit., xvi _et seq._
[280] Ch. ii, 39.
[281] Ammon, Knuphis, or Agathodæmon of later times.
[282] Ancient History of the East, vol. i, p. 326.
[283] The language of the Hebrews is essentially the same: _es_ or _ez_
means a goat.
[284] ἀίξ.
[285] The Mythology and Fables of the Ancients Explained from History,
vol. iii, p. 160. London, 1740.
[286] New System of Mythology, vol. iii, p. 456. Philadelphia, 1819.
[287] Now called Beyrout.
[288] Damascius, in his Life of Isidorus, uses the phrase “Esmun, who is
interpreted Asclepius.”
[289] Daughters of Titan, by Astarte.
[290] See Cory’s Ancient Fragments, p. 14. Edition by Hodges.
[291] From the Semitic word _Kabir_, great.
[292] Cory’s Ancient Fragments, p. 19.
[293] Chambers’s Encyclopædia.
[294] The temple of the god at Carthage was of great splendor and renown.
See Dr. Davis’s Carthage and its Remains, ch. xvii. London, 1861. Says
the Doctor: “The Temple of Æsculapius was as prominent a feature of
Carthage as the Capitoline hill was at Rome, or as St. Paul’s is in
London” (p. 369). It was on a rocky eminence (the Byrsa). Ruins of the
staircase still remain.
[295] The city of Hermopolis received also the name of Esmun. In the
Book of the Dead (ch. cxiv) the deceased is represented as saying, while
adoring Thoth, Amset, and Tum: “I have come as a prevailer, through
knowing the spirits of Esmun.” Thoth presided over this nome.
[296] Bunsen maintains that the Cabiri were the seven archangels of the
Jews, originally “the seven fundamental powers of the visible creation.”
Egypt’s Place in Universal History, vol. iv, p. 256.
[297] See Prof. Lesley’s interesting work, Man’s Origin and Destiny,
first edition. Philadelphia, 1868. For some reason the chapter on Arkite
symbolism is not given in the second edition.
[298] Primitive Culture, vol. i, p. 218. London, 1871.
[299] Saturnal, i, 20.
[300] The Mysteries of the Cabiri, vol. i, p. 98. Oxford, 1803.
[301] In Phœnicia he was the seven viewed collectively as “the soul of
the world.” Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place, etc., vol. iv, p. 229.
[302] Ancient History of the East, vol. ii, p. 221.
[303] Æneid, vii, line 773.
[304] Tiele takes such a view of Anubis. See History of the Egyptian
Religion, p. 65.
[305] Nearly all ancient Hebrew, as well as Assyrian, proper names are
expressive of something about the birth or life of the bearers.
[306] Mythology of Ancient Greece and Rome. Third edition. London, 1854.
[307] The Hebrew word, like the Latin _vir_, means man in a distinguished
sense (virile), and may come from the Egyptian _ash_, tree of life.
[308] Caleb, or city of the dog, on the coast of Phœnicia, has been
accorded the credit of the name of the god. See the Abbé Banier’s
Mythology and Fables of the Ancients, etc. (translation), vol. iii, p.
160.
[309] Possibly the first syllable of Æsculapius, like the Hebrew _ishi_,
salutary, and _asa_, to heal, may have been from the Egyptian _usha_,
health-bringing,—doctor. See Gerald Massey’s Book of Beginnings, vol. ii,
p. 301. London, 1881.
[310] Hence the name, Canicular Year.
[311] It does not now rise heliacally until the middle of August. But,
4000 years ago it rose so about the 20th of June, and just preceded the
annual rising of the Nile.
[312] History of the Heavens, vol. i, p. 185. Anubis had various
functions which cannot be spoken of here. He bore the souls of men to the
nether world, like Hermes, of the Greeks, and assisted Horus in weighing
them. A passage in the Book of the Dead reads, “He is behind the bier
which holds the bowels of Osiris.” Evidently he might be regarded as the
god of undertakers.
[313] Typhon, or Set, was regarded, indeed, by the Egyptians as the god
Sothis, or Sirius. See Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place, etc., vol. i, p. 429. But
Typhon was not, in early times, regarded as simply the personification of
evil. See Kenrick’s Ancient Egypt, vol. i, p. 350.
[314] Zend Avesta. Edition by James Darmesteter, in two parts, or
volumes, in The Sacred Books of the East, edited by Max Müller, vol. i,
p. 83. Oxford, England, 1883.
[315] Iliad, xxii.
[316] Such a staff is, indeed, shown by Wilkinson, and is given by Cooper
in his essay, already quoted. From the presence of the hawk and uræus,
one might more properly accord it to Horus.
[317] Physic and Physicians, vol. i, p. 6. London, 1839.
[318] Princess, vol. i, p. 210.
[319] _Ibid._
[320] See Cory’s Ancient Fragments, p. 112. Edition by Hodges.
[321] Bunsen, in Egypt’s Place in Universal History, vol. ii, p. 89.
[322] See Cory’s Ancient Fragments, p. 113.
[323] Ancient Empires of the East, p. 76.
[324] Herodotus, ii, 84. Translation by Rawlinson.
[325] _Ibid._, ii, 77.
[326] Princess, vol. i, p. 17.
[327] History of Ancient Egypt, vol. ii, p. 528. London, 1881.
[328] Encyclopædia Britannica, ninth ed.
[329] Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible.
[330] Ancient Empires of the East, p. 76.
[331] Jer., xlvi, 11.
[332] Herodotus, iii, 1, 129.
[333] Polydamna. Helen’s enforced sojourn in Egypt is fully described by
Herodotus (ii, 113-116), Thone, Thon, or Thonis, the historian speaks of
as the “warden of the Canopic mouth of the Nile.” The town of Heracleum
bore the name.
[334] Odyssey, iv.
[335] _Ibid._
[336] Natural History, vii.
[337] Homer and the Iliad, vol. i.
[338] Beginnings of History, p. 536.
[339] Bunsen holds that Esmun and he were originally the same; “as the
snake god he must actually be Hermes, in Phœnician, Tet, Taautes.”
Egypt’s Place, etc., vol. iv, p. 256.
[340] In the cut he appears counting the years on a palm-branch—the
ideograph for year. (Fig. 12, p. 101.)
[341] Ibis religiosa, Hab of the Ancient Egyptians.
[342] Ibis falcinellus, the glossy ibis.
[343] Book of the Dead, ch. lxxviii. Translation by Birch, in vol. v of
Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place, etc. The hawk is the usual symbol of Horus, just
as the ibis is of Thoth.
[344] Tiele pronounces Horus to be “the God of Light, the Token of Life.”
History of the Egyptian Religion, p. 54.
[345] Manual of Mythology, p. 346. London, 1873.
[346] Often spoken of as the Hercules of the Egyptians.
[347] History of the Egyptian Religion, p. 154.
[348] See Diodorus Siculus, i, 25; and Tacitus, xiv, 81.
[349] Says Gibbon: “Alexandria, which claimed his peculiar protection,
glorified in the name of the City of Serapis.” The Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire, ch. xxviii.
[350] See his Essay, p. 50.
[351] Egypt of the Past, p. 15. London, 1881.
[352] The capital of Lower Egypt.
[353] Uarda, vol. i, p. 203.
[354] History of the Egyptian Religion, p. 94. London, 1882. Tiele
remarks that Imhotep was not only called Asklepios by the Greeks, “but
likewise the Eighth, thus showing that they regarded him as one of
the Kabirs” (p. 95). I may add that the worship of the Kabirs, in the
character of cosmic deities, was early established in the region where
Memphis stood. Bunsen, indeed, identifies Ptah and his seven sons with
the Kabirs. See Egypt’s Place, etc., vol. iv, p. 217.
[355] Vulcan of the Romans.
[356] Ancient Egypt, vol. i, p. 333.
[357] Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. iii, p.
386.
[358] See Fig. 13, p. 104. The characters of this name are all phonetic;
but very many are pictorial or symbolic. Examples of symbolic characters
will be given in the chapter on amulets.
[359] An offering; food, peace, welcome.
[360] Egypt’s Place in Universal History, vol. i, p. 400.
[361] Mysteries of the Cabiri, vol. i, p. 99.
[362] See his work on Egypt, etc., in Asiatic Researches, vol. iii, p.
392.
[363] Cooper says that they were the two deities of the morning and
evening twilight, and “were the origin of the Dioscuri of the Greeks.”
Archæic Dictionary. London, 1876.
[364] Zoological Mythology, vol. i, p. 353.
[365] Evil has always been associated with darkness. Harmful demons have
always disliked light.
[366] Mythology of the Aryans, vol. i, p. 391.
[367] See Wilson’s edition, vol. iii, p. 307.
[368] _Ibid._, p. 103.
[369] Ormazd, believed to have been originally identical with Varuna of
the Vedas.
[370] Believed to be the Asclepias acida, or Sarcostemma viminalis, whose
juice yields an intoxicating liquor.
[371] Zend Avesta, vol. i, p. 141.
[372] Demon.
[373] Evil Spirits.
[374] Zend Avesta. Translation by Darmesteter, vol. ii, p. 92.
[375] The name is given in the cuneiform characters as found in Norris’s
Assyrian Dictionary, p. 853. It is spelled phonetically. The first three
wedges are the sign or determinative of deities.
[376] The devotion of Nebuchadnezzar to him is indicated in the Bible
(see 2 Chron. xxxvi, 7, and Daniel, i, 2). The great king went so far as
to say: “Merodach deposited my germ in my mother’s womb.” Records of the
Past, vol. v, p. 113.
[377] In an article entitled “Nemrod et les Ecritures Cuneiformes,” M.
Joseph Grivel has occasion to speak of the names of the god. Amar-ud,
which is apparently the same as Nimrod, is a synonym of Merodach. See
Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. iii, p. 136.
[378] The older Bel was Elum, father of the gods.
[379] Chaldean Magic, and the Beginnings of History. To M. Lenormant
mainly belongs the credit of opening up the valuable stores of learning
wrapped in the Accadian and closely allied idioms.
[380] A series of small volumes, twelve in number, issued a few years
ago, in London.
[381] Silik-mulu-khi is rather a descriptive title than a name. It is the
designation used in the magical and mythological texts of the Accadian
inscriptions.
[382] Of this serpentine god of life and revealer of knowledge, Sir Henry
Rawlinson remarks that “there is very strong grounds for connecting Hea,
or Hoa, with the serpent of Scripture and the paradisiacal traditions of
the tree of life.” See George Rawlinson’s second edition of Herodotus,
vol. i, p. 600.
[383] Chaldean Magic, p. 19.
[384] Assyria, its Princes, Priests, and People, p. 59. London, 1885.
[385] Another symbol of this god was the thunderbolt in the form of a
sickle, with which he slew the dragon of the deep.
[386] Chaldean Magic, p. 190.
[387] Records of the Past, vol. iii, p. 139.
[388] Herodotus, who visited the country, states that the Babylonians
“have no physicians; but when a man is ill they lay him in the public
square and the passers-by come up to him; and if they ever had his
disease themselves, or have known any one who has suffered from it, they
give him advice, recommending him to do whatever they found good in
their own case or in the case known to them; and no one is allowed to
pass the sick man in silence, without asking him what his ailment is”
(i, 197). From this it would seem that Herodotus might rather have said
that the Babylonians were all doctors, or presumed to be. However, it is
thought that Jeremiah refers to the practice in Lamentations, i, 12, when
he says: “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold and see if
there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.” A similar plan was certainly
practiced elsewhere than in Babylonia. Strabo says that the Egyptians
resorted to it (xvi), and in St. Mark it is said that the people “laid
the sick in the streets” (vi, 56) in order to be healed by Jesus as he
passed along.
[389] Deuteronomy, xi, 18.
[390] Records of the Past, vol. iii, p. 140.
[391] Was this gonorrhœa or diabetes? See Leviticus, xv.
[392] Ana.
[393] Hea.
[394] Chaldean Magic, p. 4.
[395] Chaldean Magic, p. 20.
[396] _Ibid._, p. 22.
[397] Lenormant remarks that the assimilation was probably made when
Mardux had become emphatically the god of the planet Jupiter, “the great
fortune” of the astrologers, which justified them in connecting with his
other attributes the favorable and protecting office of Silik-mulu-khi.
He was originally a solar deity.
[398] Chaldean Magic, p. 190.
[399] Jeremiah, v, 15.
[400] Or Shinar. See Gen., xi, 2. Essentially Babylonia.
[401] See Smith’s Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 19. Revised edition, by
Mr. Sayce, 1880.
[402] The Semitic language, called Assyrian, as the one spoken by the
Babylonians, including part of the Chaldeans, before the people of Assur
(see Gen., x, 11) became a nation, which was later than the time of
the great King Sargon (B.C. 2000); and here I may say that cuneiform
inscriptions are largely Assyrian. I may add that Lenormant takes Assur
to be Nimrod, and the latter Mardux, reduced to the position of a hero.
[403] Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. iii, p.
466.
[404] Kaldu, or Kaldi, was the name of a tribe of Accadio-Sumerians that
rose to prominence about nine centuries before our era. The title was
subsequently given to the whole race.
[405] Zend Avesta, vol. i, p. 85.
[406] _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 44.
[407] North American Indians, vol. i, p. 78.
[408] Ecclesiasticus, xxxviii, 13.
[409] Ecclesiasticus, xxxviii, 13.
[410] Bacchus.
[411] Fire was duly esteemed by the ancients. The worship was closely
related to that of the sun. Atar of the Zend Avesta means fire, and
a personification of it, spoken of as the son of Ahura-Mazda, is
characterized as “the god who is a full source of glory, the god who is a
full source of healing” (vol. ii, p. 8). The Parsis and also the Hindus
were forbidden to blow a fire lest the effete emanations from the system,
present in the breath, might contaminate the flame. Menstruating women
were forbidden even to look at it.
[412] Zoological Mythology, vol. i, p. 410.
[413] See Gen., ii, 7. Hippocrates appears to take _pneuma_, the breath,
and the soul and vital principle to be the same. It is still a common
thing to hear the breath spoken of as the divine and immortal element in
man.
[414] Ninevah and its Remains, vol. ii, p. 233. London, 1849. See Ex.,
xxviii, 33-34, and 1 Kings, vii, 41-42.
[415] Fir-trees were regarded with much favor in the East. Ezekiel likens
the Assyrian nation to a great cedar, envied by “all the trees of Eden,”
none being “like unto him in his beauty.” Ez., xxxi, _passim_.
[416] Medical virtues are inherent in fir-trees. Hence, there was a good
foundation for the Accadian superstition. It is curious to observe that
“among the Dakotah tribe of Indians the white cedar-tree is believed
to have a supernatural power, and its leaves are burned as incense to
propitiate the gods.” See Emerson’s Indian Myths, p. 241.
[417] Beginnings of History, p. 90.
[418] Mr. Sayce gives the name as Lubara. See Ancient Empires of the
East, p. 157.
[419] According to Mr. Black, disease and death have been referred by
the unscientific to three great sources, namely: (1) the anger of an
offended external spirit; (2) the supernatural powers of a human enemy;
(3) the displeasure of the dead. See Folk-medicine, p. 4, published by
the Folk-lore Society. London, 1883.
[420] The Origin of Primitive Superstitions. Philadelphia, 1881.
[421] See Sayce’s Ancient Empires of the East, p. 146.
[422] Chaldean Magic, p. 64.
[423] Says Tiele: “The operation or the sun is two-fold, beneficial
and terrible; it quickens or it destroys life. The Greeks united both
characteristics in Phœbus Apollo.” History of the Egyptian Religion, p.
45.
[424] 2 Samuel, xxiv.
[425] Ecclesiasticus, xxxviii, 15.
[426] It appears that the idea of the devil is first brought into clear
relief in the Book of Wisdom, where it is said: “By the envy of the devil
death came into the world” (ii, 25). The Hebrew demonology is usually
said to be of Iranian origin, but it may just as likely have sprung
from a Turanian source, either directly or through their Semitic kin in
Babylonia.
[427] Job, ii, 7.
[428] Set, called Typhon by the Greeks, the embodiment of physical and
moral evil, was regarded as the Egyptian god of death. Plagues were
attributed to him.
[429] The plague maiden of Teutonic folk-lore is somewhat like Dibbara.
See Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology (translation), p. 1185.
[430] Chaldean Account of Genesis, vol. viii.
[431] Psalms, xci, 6.
[432] 2 Sam., xxiv, 13 _et seq._, and 2 Kings, xix, 35.
[433] The wife of Hea, the queen of the gods, Davkina, was a health
goddess. In an inscription Marduk is sent to a dying man, and it is
further said:—
“Sprinkle holy water over him.
He shall hear the voice of Hea.
Davkina shall protect him;
And Marduk, eldest son of Heaven, shall find him a happy habitation.”
See Records of the Past, vol. iii, p. 142. She was invoked by women in
labor.
[434] This figure is copied from one given by W. R. Cooper in his essay
on “Serpent Myths of Ancient Egypt.” See Transactions of the Victoria
Institute, vol. vi, p. 321. London, 1873.
[435] The Art of Preserving Health. First published in 1744. One of the
very few great medical poems.
[436] Tobias, viii, 10.
[437] American Hero-Myths, p. 19. 1882.
[438] This arrangement of the serpent is seen in an Egyptian priestess, a
picture of which is given in Cooper’s essay, already referred to.
[439] It has been published, I think, in pamphlet form, but the copy I
have was issued in 1882 in connection with the March and April numbers of
a monthly published in the interest of Jefferson Medical College and her
alumni, The College and Clinical Record. There are a dozen octavo pages
of it.
[440] Animal Kingdom, vol. ix, p. 309.
[441] See Tooke’s Pantheon, p. 296.
[442] See Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology (translation), pp. 588, 1150.
[443] For Cooper’s view of her origin, see quotation, p. 93.
[444] Maut, Mat, or Mut, is to Amen-Ra what Artemis was to Zeus, and Juno
to Jupiter. She might be viewed as a form of the more familiar Isis, and
from close relationship is often confounded with Neith.
[445] From address referred to on page 125.
[446] Princess, vol. ii, p. 296.
[447] See Plato’s Timæus.
[448] The famous one brought from the East to Scotland and called the
“Lee-Penny” has an interesting history. Sir Walter Scott speaks at length
of it in his work, “The Talisman.” Says the great novelist: “Its virtues
are still applied to for stopping blood and in cases of canine madness”
(p. 287).
[449] By Josephus.
[450] The name signifies highland.
[451] The Great Pyramid, p. 159.
[452] It stands out prominent in the first chapter of Genesis. The whole
host of heaven was created for earthly purposes.
[453] The reader of the Book of Daniel learns much of the repute of the
Chaldeans as astrologers. The Romans were in the habit of calling all
astrologers Chaldeans. That people, I may say, never gave the class legal
countenance.
[454] In an old Accadian tablet bearing on the observance of the Sabbath
by the king, it is said, among other things: “Medicine for his sickness
of body he may not apply.” See Smith’s Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 89.
[455] According to the Bible narrative, which Lenormant says is “a
tradition whose origin is lost in the night of the remotest ages and
which all the great nations of Western Asia possessed in common, with
some variations” (Beginnings of History, p. xv), the luminaries were
placed in the heavens “to divide the day from the night and to be signs
for the time of festivals, the days and the years” (Gen., i, 14). This
is from the Elohist version, which, with the Jehovist, may be found in
Lenormant’s work. The ordinary version was drawn from the two.
[456] Architecture, p. 219, 2d ed. By Joseph Swift. London, 1860.
[457] It is well to state that the astrologer was the forerunner of the
astronomer. In his interesting book on The Astronomy of the Ancients,
Sir J. Cornwall Lewes says: “The word ἀστρολογος signifies an astronomer
in the Greek writers. The word _astrologus_ has the same sense in the
earlier Latin writers. In later times the distinction which now obtains
between the words astrology and astronomy was introduced” (p. 292).
[458] The Greeks generally gave Atlas the credit of introducing it. See
Cory’s Ancient Fragments, p. 82. Hodges’ edition.
[459] Tetrabiblos, i, 2.
[460] In “A Plea for Urania,” issued in 1854, it is said that “less than
two hundred years ago an individual who entered upon the profession of
doctor of medicine, either in England or any of the European countries,
was obliged to pass an astrological examination” (p. 246).
[461] Canterbury Tales.
[462] Gemmæ Selectae. Amsterdam, 1703.
[463] Fascinum and penis are Latin synonyms.
[464] This is still done in parts of China and elsewhere in the East.
[465] Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, p. 32. London, 1880.
Republication by the Folk-lore Society. First issued 1686-’87.
[466] See Psalms, lxviii, 4, and lxxxix, 8.
[467] Medical Economy during the Middle Ages, p. 92.
[468] Chaldean Magic, p. 43.
[469] Indian Arts, p. 104.
[470] The star of Babylon is frequently spoken of in the Inscriptions.
The star of Marduk is the same. It is Dilgan, or Jupiter.
[471] Act I, Scene 2.
[472] ABRACADABRA is not the same as abraxas, but may have been derived
from it. In the third century, and later, it was regarded as a capital
remedy for malarial fevers.
[473] Medical Economy during the Middle Ages, p. 94.
[474] The letter Alpha = 1, Beta = 2, Rho = 100; Alpha = 1, Xi = 60;
Alpha = 1, and Sigma = 200.
[475] Egyptian Mythology, p. 93.
[476] Chambers’ Encyclopædia.
[477] The Care and Culture of Children, Philadelphia, 1880.
[478] It is worth while to observe that Raphael was, according to the
Cabbala, the angel of the sun.
[479] Tobias, iii, 25.
[480] Nearly all savage and semi-civilized peoples have viewed the heart
as a very mysterious organ. Not a few have regarded it as the epitome or
soul of the individual. In sacrifice it has played an important rôle. See
Albert Reville’s work on The Native Religions of Mexico and Peru, p. 43.
New York, 1884.
[481] There is the ring of the Zend Avesta and the cuneiform inscriptions
about it also.
[482] Cyprus, p. 384. London, 1877.
[483] 1 Sam., vi, 4 _et seq._
[484] Chaldean Magic, p. 50.
[485] The Past in the Present, p. 19 _et seq._ 1881.
[486] Medical Economy during the Middle Ages. New York, 1883.
[487] A practice long in use. See p. 110.
[488] Urine of oxen. The supposed virtue sprang from certain mythological
notions.
[489] It was probably connected with the god Sbat and the Egyptian Seb or
Cronus, the father of Osiris. See Transactions of the Victoria Institute,
vol. xvi, pp. 136 and 160. London, 1883.
[490] The Princess, vol. i, p. 210.
[491] Chaldean Magic, p. 41.
[492] Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, p. 49.
[493] Uarda, p. 118.
[494] Institute of Menu, p. 154.
[495] Ancient Egypt, vol. i, p. 254.
[496] A Book of Beginnings. London, 1881.
[497] _Ibid._, p. 101.
[498] T served some as a symbol of the generative power. John Davenport
says that it was “used indiscriminately with the Phallus: it was, in
fact, the Phallus.” Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs, p. 13. London,
1869. Privately printed. Payne Knight states that the male organs
represented as “the cross, in the form of the letter T, sometimes served
as the emblem of creation and generation.” Worship of Priapus, p. 48.
[499] History of the Heavens, vol. i, p. 259.
[500] See Occult Sciences, p. 222. A volume of the Encyclopædia
Metropolitana. London, 1855.
[501] Superstitions Connected with Medicine and Surgery. London, 1843.
[502] Historiaum, iv, 81.
[503] North American Indians, vol, i, p. 70. Philadelphia, 1857.
[504] _Ibid._
[505] Indian Myths, p. 230.
[506] Ecclesiasticus, xxxviii, 7.
[507] Medical Economy during the Middle Ages, p. 27.
[508] Medical Economy during the Middle Ages, p. 307.
[509] History of Sign-Boards, p. 341. Second edition. London, 1866.
[510] Schesch.
[511] Princess, vol. i, p. 296.
[512] The Records of the Past, vol. xi, p. 159. London, 1878.
[513] Ex., xxx, 25-35. In the revised translation apothecary becomes
perfumer.
[514] Introductory Lectures and Addresses on Medical Subjects, p. 54.
Philadelphia, 1859.
[515] Mr. Sayce, writing in 1884, states that “the fragments of a work on
medicine closely resembling the Egyptian Papyrus-Ebers have recently been
found” (at Babylon). Ancient Empires of the East, p. 173.
[516] Incorporated in the year 1800. Date of the present charter, 1843.
[517] A Book about Doctors, vol. i, p. 7. London, 1860.
[518] A Book about Doctors, vol. i, p. 13.
[519] Letters and Lives of Eminent Persons, vol. ii, p. 386. London, 1813.
[520] A Book about Doctors, vol. i, p. 2.
[521] A Book about Doctors, vol. i, p. 2.
[522] Canterbury Tales.
[523] A Book about Doctors, vol. i, p. 3.
[524] Hudibras.
[525] Occult Sciences, p. 40.
[526] The Gold-Headed Cane. By Dr. McMichael. London, 1828.
[527] A Book about Doctors, vol. i, p. 11.
[528] Finger-Ring Lore. By William Jones, p. 191. London, 1877.
[529] Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, p. 210.
[530] See Sharpe’s Egyptian Mythology, p. 19.
[531] Exodus, i, 16.
[532] Princess, vol. i, p. 37.
[533] One was not regarded as a number.
[534] The Brook.
[535] Art Culture, p. 468. New York, 1874.
[536] Dictionary of Words used in Art and Archæology. Boston, 1882.
[537] In his notes to Faust.
[538] The Pythagorean Triangle. London, 1875.
[539] Dictionary of Terms in Art.
[540] Encyclopædia of Freemasonry. Philadelphia, 1875.
[541] Astronomical Myths. London, 1877.
[542] Broughton’s Italy, vol. ii.
[543] Notes and Queries, vol. ix, p. 511, third series.
[544] Mythology of the Hindus. London, 1832.
[545] Indian Arts. London, 1880.
[546] Fossil Men and their Modern Representatives, p. 272. London, 1880.
[547] The Solution of the Pyramid Problem, p. 92. New York, 1882.
[548] The Great Pyramid, p. 35.
[549] The Native Religions of Mexico and Peru, p. 57. New York, 1884.
[550] American Hero-Myths, p. 121.
[551] Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, p. 51.
[552] An equilateral triangle divided into three equal triangles by lines
meeting from the three angles.
[553] Professors of the Cabbala, a mystic philosophy, believed that
there was a secret meaning in Holy Writ and a higher meaning in the law,
and pretended to be able to perform miracles by the use of names and
incantations. Auerbach gives an interesting account of them in his novel,
“Spinoza.” He gives this as an instance of their mode of reasoning: “The
Hebrew word for Messiah contains the same number as the Hebrew word for
serpent, in which form Satan seduced Eve; the Messiah will, therefore,
bruise the head of the serpent and banish sin and death from the world.”
[554] The word _Salus_, the synonymous Latin name, was also used in the
same way. In Mrs. Pelliser’s work it is thus seen. It is there spoken of
as a device used by Marguerite of France, wife of Henry IV and the last
of the Valois.
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=Physicians’ Interpreter=: _In Four Languages (English, French, German,
and Italian)_.
Specially arranged for diagnosis by M. VON V. The object of this little
work is to meet a need often keenly felt by the busy physician, namely,
the need of some quick and reliable method of communicating intelligibly
with patients of those nationalities and languages unfamiliar to the
practitioner. The plan of the book is a systematic arrangement of
questions upon the various branches of Practical Medicine, and each
question is so worded that the only answer required of the patient is
merely YES or NO. The questions are all numbered, and a complete Index
renders them always available for quick reference. The book is written by
one who is well versed in English, French, German, and Italian, being an
excellent teacher in those languages, and who has also had considerable
hospital experience. Bound in full Russia Leather, for carrying in the
pocket. Size, 5 × 2⅔ inches. 206 pages.
=Price, in United States and Canada, post-paid, $1.00, net; Great
Britain, 6s.; France, 6 fr. 20.=
=PRICE AND EAGLETON—Three Charts of the Nervo-Vascular System.= _Part
I.—The Nerves. Part II.—The Arteries. Part III.—The Veins._
A New edition, Revised and Perfected. Arranged by W. HENRY PRICE,
M.D., and S. POTTS EAGLETON, M.D. Endorsed by leading Anatomists. “The
Nervo-Vascular System of Charts” far excels every other system in their
completeness, compactness, and accuracy. Clearly and beautifully printed
upon extra-durable paper. Each chart measures 19 × 24 inches.
=Price, in the United States and Canada, post-paid, 50 cents, net,
Complete; Great Britain, 3s. 6d.; France, 3 fr. 60.=
=PURDY—Diabetes: its Cause, Symptoms, and Treatment.=
By CHAS. W. PURDY, M.D. (Queen’s University), Honorary Fellow of the
Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Kingston; Member of the
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario; Author of “Bright’s
Disease and Allied Affections of the Kidneys;” Member of the Association
of American Physicians; Member of the American Medical Association;
Member of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, etc., etc. With Clinical
Illustrations. In one neat 12mo volume. Handsomely bound in Dark-Blue
Cloth. _No. 8 in the Physicians’ and Students’ Ready-Reference series._
=Price, United States and Canada, $1.25, net; Great Britain, 6s. 6d.;
France, 7 fr. 75; post-paid.=
=REMONDINO—Circumcision: its History, Modes of Operation, etc.= _From
the Earliest Times to the Present; with a History of Eunuchism,
Hermaphrodism, etc., as Observed Among All Races and Nations; also
a Description of the Different Operative Methods of Modern Surgery
Practiced upon the Prepuce._
By P. C. REMONDINO, M.D. (Jefferson); Member of the American Medical
Association; Member of the American Public Health Association; Member of
the State Medical Society of California, and of the Southern California
Medical Society. IN PRESS. NEARLY READY. _No. 11 in the Physicians’ and
Students’ Ready-Reference Series._
=ROHÉ—Text-Book of Hygiene.= _A Comprehensive Treatise on the Principles
and Practice of Preventive Medicine from an American Stand-point._
By GEORGE H. ROHÉ, M.D., Professor of Obstetrics and Hygiene in the
College of Physicians and Surgeons, Baltimore; Member of the American
Public Health Association, etc.
SECOND EDITION, thoroughly revised and largely rewritten, with many
illustrations and valuable tables. In one handsome Royal Octavo volume of
over 400 pages, bound in Extra Cloth.
=Price, United States, post-paid, $2.50, net; Canada (duty paid) $2.75,
net; Great Britain, 14s.; France, 16 fr. 20.=
Every Sanitarian should have Rohé’s “Text-Book of Hygiene” as a work
of reference. Of this new (second) edition, one of the best qualified
judges, namely, Albert L. Gihon, M.D., Medical Director of U.S. Navy, in
charge of U.S. Naval Hospital, Brooklyn, N. Y., and ex-President of the
American Public Health Association, writes: “It is the most admirable,
concise _résumé_ of the facts of Hygiene with which I am acquainted.
Professor Rohé’s attractive style makes the book so readable that no
better presentation of the important place of Preventive Medicine, among
their studies, can be desired for the younger members, especially, of our
profession.”
=SAJOUS—Hay Fever and its Successful Treatment by Superficial Organic
Alteration of the Nasal Mucous Membrane.=
By CHARLES E. SAJOUS, M.D., formerly Lecturer on Rhinology and
Laryngology in Jefferson Medical College; Vice-President of the American
Laryngological Association; Officer of the Academy of France and of
Public Instruction of Venezuela; Corresponding Member of the Royal
Society of Belgium, of the Medical Society of Warsaw (Poland), and of
the Society of Hygiene of France; Member of the American Philosophical
Society, etc., etc. With 13 Engravings on Wood. 12mo. Bound in Cloth.
Beveled edges.
=Price, in United States and Canada, $1.00, net; Great Britain, 6s.;
France, 6 fr. 20.=
=SANNE—Diphtheria, Croup: Tracheotomy and Intubation.=
From the French of A. SANNE. Translated and enlarged by HENRY Z. GILL,
M.D., LL.D. Diphtheria having become such a prevalent, wide-spread, and
fatal disease, no general practitioner can afford to be without this
work. It will aid in preventive measures, stimulate promptness in the
application of and efficiency in treatment, and moderate the extravagant
views which have been entertained regarding certain specifics in the
disease diphtheria.
A full Index accompanies the enlarged volume, also a list of authors,
making, altogether, a very handsome ILLUSTRATED volume of over 680 pages.
=Price, United States, post-paid, Cloth, $4.00, Leather, $5.00. Canada
(duty paid), Cloth, $4.40; Leather, $5.50, net. Great Britain, Cloth,
22s. 6d.; Leather, 28s. France, Cloth, 24 fr. 60; Leather, 30 fr. 30.=
=SENN—Principles of Surgery.=
By N. SENN, M.D., PH.D., Professor of Principles of Surgery and Surgical
Pathology in Rush Medical College, Chicago. Ill.; Professor of Surgery
in the Chicago Polyclinic; Attending Surgeon to the Milwaukee Hospital;
Consulting Surgeon to the Milwaukee County Hospital and to the Milwaukee
County Insane Asylum.
In one handsome Royal Octavo volume, with 109 fine Wood-Engravings and
624 pages.
=Price, in United States, Cloth, $4.50; Sheep or Half-Russia, $5.50, net.
Canada (duty paid), Cloth, $5.00; Sheep or Half-Russia, $6.10, net; Great
Britain, Cloth, 24s. 6d.; Sheep or Half-Russia, 30s. France, Cloth, 27
fr. 20; Sheep or Half-Russia, 33 fr. 10.=
This work, by one of America’s greatest surgeons, is thoroughly COMPLETE;
its clearness and brevity of statement are among its conspicuous merits.
The author’s long, able, and conscientious researches in every direction
in this important field are a guarantee of unusual trustworthiness, that
every branch of the subject is treated authoritatively and in such a
manner as to bring the greatest gain in knowledge to the Practitioner and
Student. Physicians and Surgeons alike should not deprive themselves of
this very important work.
_A critical examination of the Wood-Engravings (109 in number) will
reveal the fact that they are thoroughly accurate and produced by the
best artistic ability._
Stephen Smith, M.D., Professor of Clinical Surgery in Medical Department
of University of the City of New York, writes: “I have examined the work
with great satisfaction, and regard it as a most valuable addition to
American Surgical literature. There has long been great need of a work
on the principles of Surgery which would fully illustrate the present
advanced state of knowledge of the various subjects embraced in this
volume. The work seems to me to meet this want admirably.”
“The achievements of Modern Surgery are akin to the marvelous, and Dr.
Senn has set forth the principles of the science with a completeness
that seems to leave nothing further to be said until new discoveries
are made. The work is systematic and compact, without a fact omitted or
a sentence too much, and it not only makes instructive but fascinating
reading. A conspicuous merit of Senn’s work is his method, his persistent
and tireless search through original investigations for additions
to knowledge, and the practical character of his discoveries. This
combination of the discoverer and the practical man gives a special value
to all his work, and is one of the secrets of his fame. No physician,
in any line of practice, can afford to be without Senn’s ‘Principles of
Surgery.’”—_The Review of Insanity and Nervous Diseases._
=SHOEMAKER—Heredity, Health, and Personal Beauty.= _Including the
Selection of the Best Cosmetics for the Skin, Hair, Nails, and All Parts
Relating to the Body._
By JOHN V. SHOEMAKER, A.M., M.D., Professor of Materia Medica,
Pharmacology, Therapeutics, and Clinical Medicine, and Clinical
Professor of Diseases of the Skin in the Medico-Chirurgical College
of Philadelphia; Physician to the Medico-Chirurgical Hospital, etc.,
etc. _This is just the book to place on the waiting-room table of every
physician, and a work that will prove useful in the hands of your
patients._
The health of the skin and hair, and how to promote them, are discussed;
the treatment of the nails; the subjects of ventilation, food, clothing,
warmth, bathing; the circulation of the blood, digestion, ventilation; in
fact, all that in daily life conduces to the well-being of the body and
refinement is duly enlarged upon. To these stores of popular information
is added a list of the best medicated soaps and toilet soaps, and a whole
chapter of the work is devoted to household remedies.
The work is largely suggestive, and gives wise and timely advice as to
when a physician should be consulted.
Complete in one handsome Royal Octavo volume of 425 pages, beautifully
and clearly printed, and bound in Extra Cloth, Beveled Edges, with side
and back gilt stamps and Half-Morocco Gilt Top.
=Price, in United States, post-paid, Cloth, $2.50; Half-Morocco, $3.50
net. Canada (duty paid), Cloth, $2.75; Half-Morocco, $3.90, net. Great
Britain, Cloth, 14s.; Half-Morocco, 19s. 6d. France, Cloth, 15 fr.;
Half-Morocco, 22 fr.=
=SHOEMAKER—Materia Medica and Therapeutics.= _With Especial Reference to
the Clinical Application of Drugs._
Being the second and last volume of a treatise on Materia Medica,
Pharmacology, and Therapeutics, and an independent volume upon drugs.
By JOHN V. SHOEMAKER, A.M., M.D., Professor of Materia Medica,
Pharmacology, Therapeutics, and Clinical Medicine, and Clinical
Professor of Diseases of the Skin in the Medico-Chirurgical College of
Philadelphia; Physician to the Medico-Chirurgical Hospital, etc., etc.
This is the long-looked-for second volume of Shoemaker’s Materia
Medica, Pharmacology, and Therapeutics. It is wholly taken up with the
consideration of drugs, each remedy being studied from three points of
view, viz.: the Preparations, or Materia Medica; the Physiology and
Toxicology, or Pharmacology; and, lastly, its Therapy. Dr. Shoemaker
has finally brought the work to completion, and now this second volume
is ready for delivery. It is thoroughly abreast of the progress of
Therapeutic Science, and is really an indispensable book to every student
and practitioner of medicine. Royal Octavo, about 675 pages. Thoroughly
and carefully indexed.
=Price, in United States, post-paid, Cloth, $3.50; Sheep, $4.50, net.
Canada (duty paid), Cloth, $4.00; Sheep, $5.00, net. Great Britain,
Cloth, 20s.; Sheep, 26s. France, Cloth, 22 fr. 40; Sheep, 28 fr. 60.=
The first volume of this work is devoted to Pharmacy, General
Pharmacology, and Therapeutics, and remedial agents not properly classed
with drugs. Royal Octavo, 353 pages. Price of Volume I, post-paid, in
United States, Cloth, $2.50, net; Sheep, $3.25, net. Canada, duty paid,
Cloth, $2.75, net; Sheep, $3.60, net. Great Britain, Cloth, 14s., Sheep,
18s. France, Cloth, 16 fr. 20; Sheep, 20 fr. 20. _The volumes are sold
separately._
=SHOEMAKER—Ointments and Oleates, Especially in Diseases of the Skin.=
By JOHN V. SHOEMAKER, A.M., M.D., Professor of Materia Medica,
Pharmacology, Therapeutics, and Clinical Medicine, and Clinical
Professor of Diseases of the Skin in the Medico-Chirurgical College of
Philadelphia, etc., etc. SECOND EDITION, revised and enlarged. 298 pages.
12mo. Neatly bound in Dark-Blue Cloth. _No. 6 in the Physicians’ and
Students’ Ready-Reference Series._
=Price, in United States and Canada, post-paid, $1.50, net; Great
Britain, 8s. 6d.; France, 9 fr. 35.=
The author concisely concludes his preface as follows: “The reader may
thus obtain a conspectus of the whole subject of inunction as it exists
to-day in the civilized world. In all cases the mode of preparation is
given, and the therapeutical application described seriatim, in so far as
may be done without needless repetition.”
It is invaluable as a ready reference when ointments or oleates are to be
used, and is serviceable to both druggist and physician.—_Canada Medical
Record._
To the physician who feels uncertain as to the best form in which to
prescribe medicines by way of the skin the book will prove valuable,
owing to the many prescriptions and formulæ which dot its pages, while
the copious index at the back materially aids in making the book a useful
one.—_Medical News._
=SMITH—The Physiology of the Domestic Animals.= _A Text-Book for
Veterinary and Medical Students and Practitioners._
By ROBERT MEADE SMITH, A.M., M.D., Professor of Comparative Physiology
in University of Pennsylvania; Fellow of the College of Physicians
and Academy of the Natural Sciences, Philadelphia; of the American
Physiological Society; of the American Society of Naturalists; Associé
Étranger de la Société Française d’Hygiène, etc. In one handsome Royal
Octavo volume of over 950 pages. Profusely illustrated with more than 400
fine Wood-Engravings and many Colored Plates.
=Price, in United States, Cloth, $5.00; Sheep, $6.00, net. Canada (duty
paid), Cloth, $5.50; Sheep, $6.60, net. Great Britain, Cloth, 28s.;
Sheep, 32s. France, Cloth, 30 fr. 30; Sheep, 36 fr. 20.=
This new and important work is the most thoroughly complete in the
English language on the subject. In it the physiology of the domestic
animals is treated in a most comprehensive manner, especial prominence
being given to the subject of foods and fodders, and the character
of the diet for the herbivora under different conditions, with a
full consideration of their digestive peculiarities. Without being
overburdened with details, it forms a complete text-book of physiology,
adapted to the use of students and practitioners of both veterinary and
human medicine. This work has already been adopted as the Text-Book
on Physiology in the Veterinary Colleges of the United States, Great
Britain, and Canada.
=SOZINSKEY—Medical Symbolism.= _Historical Studies in the Arts of Healing
and Hygiene._
By THOMAS S. SOZINSKEY, M.D., PH.D., Author of “The Culture of Beauty,”
“The Care and Culture of Children,” etc. 12mo, Nearly 200 pages. Neatly
bound in Dark-Blue Cloth. Appropriately illustrated with upward of
thirty (30) new Wood-Engravings. _No. 9 in the Physicians’ and Students’
Ready-Reference Series._
=Price, in United States and Canada, post-paid, $1.00, net; Great
Britain, 6s.; France, 6 fr. 20.=
=STEWART—Obstetric Synopsis.=
By JOHN S. STEWART, M.D., Demonstrator of Obstetrics and Chief Assistant
in the Gynæcological Clinic of the Medico-Chirurgical College of
Philadelphia; with an introductory note by WILLIAM S. STEWART, A.M.,
M.D., Professor of Obstetrics and Gynæcology in the Medico-Chirurgical
College of Philadelphia. 42 Illustrations. 202 pages. 12mo. Handsomely
bound in Dark-Blue Cloth. _No. 1 in the Physicians’ and Students’
Ready-Reference Series._
=Price, in United States and Canada, post-paid, $1.00 net; Great Britain,
6s. 6d.; France, 6 fr. 20.=
=ULTZMANN—The Neuroses of the Genito-Urinary System in the Male.= _With
Sterility and Impotence._
By DR. R. ULTZMANN, Professor of Genito-Urinary Diseases in the
University of Vienna. Translated, with the author’s permission, by
GARDNER W. ALLEN, M.D., Surgeon in the Genito-Urinary Department, Boston
Dispensary. Illustrated. 12mo. Handsomely bound in Dark-Blue Cloth. _No.
4 in the Physicians’ and Students’ Ready-Reference Series._
=Price, in United States and Canada, post-paid, $1.00, net; Great
Britain, 6s.;. France, 6 fr. 20.=
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.—First Part—I. Chemical Changes in the Urine in
Cases of Neuroses. II. Neuroses of the Urinary and of the Sexual Organs,
classified as: (1) Sensory Neuroses; (2) Motor Neuroses; (3) Secretory
Neuroses. Second Part—Sterility and Impotence. The treatment in all cases
is described clearly and minutely.
=WHEELER—Abstracts of Pharmacology.=
By H. A. WHEELER, M.D. (Registered Pharmacist, No. 3468, Iowa). Prepared
for the use of Physicians and Pharmacists, and especially for the use of
Students of Medicine and Pharmacy, who are preparing for Examination in
Colleges and before State Boards of Examiners.
This book does not contain questions and answers, but solid pages of
abstract information. It will bean almost indispensable companion to the
practicing Pharmacist and a very useful reference-book to the Physician.
It contains a brief but thorough explanation of all terms and processes
used in practical pharmacy, an abstract of all that is essential to be
known of each officinal drug, its preparations and therapeutic action,
with doses: in Chemistry and Botany, much that is useful to the Physician
and Pharmacist; a general working formula for each class and an abstract
formula for each officinal preparation, and many of the more popular
unofficinal ones, together with their doses; also many symbolic formulas;
a list of abbreviations used in prescription writing; rules governing
incompatibilities; a list of Solvents; tests for the more common drugs;
the habitat and best time for gathering plants to secure their medical
properties.
The book contains 180 pages, 5½ × 8 inches, closely printed and on the
best paper, nicely and durably bound, containing a greater amount of
information on the above topics than any other work for the money.
=Price, in United States and Canada, post-paid, $1.50, net; Great
Britain, 8s. 6d.; France, 9 fr. 35.=
=WITHERSTINE—International Pocket Medical Formulary.= _Arranged
Therapeutically._
By C. SUMNER WITHERSTINE, M.S., M.D., Associate Editor of the “Annual
of the Universal Medical Sciences;” Visiting Physician of the Home
for the Aged, Germantown, Philadelphia; late House-Surgeon to Charity
Hospital, New York. Including more than 1800 formulæ from several hundred
well-known authorities. With an Appendix containing a Posological
Table, the newer remedies included; Important Incompatibles; Tables on
Dentition and the Pulse; Table of Drops in a Fluidrachm and Doses of
Laudanum graduated for age; Formulæ and Doses of Hypodermatic Medication,
including the newer remedies; Uses of the Hypodermatic Syringe; Formulæ
and Doses for Inhalations, Nasal Douches, Gargles, and Eye-washes;
Formulæ for Suppositories; Use of the Thermometer in Disease; Poisons,
Antidotes, and Treatment; Directions for Post-Mortem and Medico-Legal
Examinations; Treatment of Asphyxia, Sun-stroke, etc.; Anti-emetic
Remedies and Disinfectants; Obstetrical Table; Directions for Ligation
of Arteries; Urinary Analysis; Table of Eruptive Fevers; Motor Points
for Electrical Treatment, etc. This work, the best and most complete
of its kind, contains about 275 printed pages, besides extra blank
leaves. Elegantly printed, with red lines, edges, and borders; with
illustrations. Bound in leather, with Side-Flap.
=Price, in United States and Canada, post-paid, $2.00, net; Great
Britain, 11s. 6d.; France, 12 fr. 40.=
=YOUNG—Synopsis of Human Anatomy.= _Being a Complete Compend of Anatomy,
including the Anatomy of the Viscera, and Numerous Tables._
By JAMES K. YOUNG, M.D., Instructor in Orthopædic Surgery and Assistant
Demonstrator of Surgery, University of Pennsylvania; Attending Orthopædic
Surgeon, Out-Patient Department, University Hospital, etc. Illustrated
with 76 Wood-Engravings. 390 pages. 12mo. _No. 8 in the Physicians’ and
Students’ Ready-Reference Series._
=Price, in United States and Canada, post-paid, $1.40, net; Great
Britain, 8s. 6d.; France, 9 fr. 25.=
While the author has prepared this work especially for students,
sufficient descriptive matter has been added to render it extremely
valuable to the busy practitioner, particularly the sections on the
Viscera, Special Senses, and Surgical Anatomy.
The work includes a complete account of Osteology, Articulations and
Ligaments, Muscles, Fascias, Vascular and Nervous Systems, Alimentary,
Vocal, and Respiratory and Genito-Urinary Apparatus, the Organs of
Special Sense, and Surgical Anatomy.
In addition to a most carefully and accurately prepared text, wherever
possible, the value of the work has been enhanced by tables to facilitate
and minimize the labor of students in acquiring a thorough knowledge of
this important subject. The section on the teeth has also been especially
prepared to meet the requirements of students of dentistry.
In its preparation, Gray’s “Anatomy” (last edition), edited by Keen,
being the anatomical work most used, has been taken as the standard.
_The following Publications sold only by Subscription, or Sent Direct on
Receipt of Price, Shipping Expenses Prepaid._
=Annual of the Universal Medical Sciences.= _A Yearly Report of the
Process of the General Sanitary Sciences Throughout the World._
Edited by CHARLES E. SAJOUS, M.D., formerly Lecturer on Laryngology
and Rhinology in Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, etc., and
Seventy Associate Editors, assisted by over Two hundred Corresponding
Editors and Collaborators. In Five Royal Octavo Volumes of about 500
pages each, bound in Cloth and Half-Russia, Magnificently Illustrated
with Chromo-Lithographs, Engravings, Maps, Charts, and Diagrams. Being
intended to enable any physician to possess, at a moderate cost, a
complete Contemporary History of Universal Medicine, edited by many of
America’s ablest teachers, and superior in every detail of print, paper,
binding, etc., a befitting continuation of such great works as “Pepper’s
System of Medicine,” “Ashhurst’s International Encyclopædia of Surgery,”
“Buck’s Reference Hand-Book of the Medical Sciences.”
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Half-Russia, $22.00. Great Britain, Cloth, £4 7s; Half-Russia, £5 15s.
France, Cloth, 93 fr. 95; Half-Russia, 124 fr. 35.=
THE SATELLITE of the “Annual of the Universal Medical Sciences.” A
Monthly Review of the most important articles upon the practical branches
of Medicine appearing in the medical press at large, edited by the Chief
Editor of the ANNUAL and an able staff. Published in connection with the
ANNUAL, and for its Subscribers Only.
=Lectures on Nervous Diseases.= _From the Stand-point of Cerebral and
Spinal Localization, and the Later Methods Employed in the Diagnosis and
Treatment of these Affections._
By AMBROSE L. RANNEY, A.M., M.D., Professor of the Anatomy and Physiology
of the Nervous System in the New York Post-Graduate Medical School
and Hospital; Professor of Nervous and Mental Diseases in the Medical
Department of the University of Vermont, etc.; Author of “The Applied
Anatomy of the Nervous System,” “Practical Medical Anatomy,” etc., etc.
Profusely Illustrated with Original Diagrams and Sketches in Color by the
author, carefully selected Wood-Engravings, and Reproduced Photographs of
Typical Cases. One handsome Royal Octavo volume of 780 pages.
=Price, in United States, Cloth, $5.50; Sheep, $6.50; Half-Russia, $7.00.
Canada (duty paid), Cloth, $6.05; Sheep, $7.15; Half-Russia, $7.70. Great
Britain, Cloth, 32s.; Sheep, 37s. 6d.; Half-Russia, 40s. France, Cloth,
34 fr. 70; Sheep, 40 fr. 45; Half-Russia, 43 fr. 30.=
=Lectures on the Diseases of the Nose and Throat.= _Delivered at the
Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia._
By CHARLES E. SAJOUS, M.D., formerly Lecturer on Rhinology and
Laryngology in Jefferson Medical College; Vice-President of the American
Laryngological Association; Officer of the Academy of France and of
Public Instruction of Venezuela; Corresponding Member of the Royal
Society of Belgium, of the Medical Society of Warsaw (Poland), and of
the Society of Hygiene of France; Member of the American Philosophical
Society, etc., etc. Illustrated with 100 Chromo-Lithographs, from
Oil-Paintings by the author, and 93 Engravings on Wood. One handsome
Royal Octavo volume.
=Price, in United States, Cloth, Royal Octavo, $4.00; Half-Russia, Royal
Octavo, $5.00. Canada (duty paid), Cloth, $4.40; Half-Russia, $5.50.
Great Britain, Cloth, 22s. 6d.; Sheep or Half-Russia, 28s. France, Cloth,
24 fr. 60; Half-Russia, 30 fr. 30.=
=Stanton’s Practical and Scientific Physiognomy; or How to Read Faces.=
By MARY OLMSTED STANTON. Copiously Illustrated. Two large Octavo volumes.
The author, MRS. MARY O. STANTON, has given over twenty years to the
preparation of this work. Her style is easy, and, by her happy method of
illustration of every point, the book reads like a novel and memorizes
itself. To physicians the diagnostic information conveyed is invaluable.
To the general reader each page opens a new train of ideas. (This book
has no reference whatever to Phrenology.)
=Price, in United States, Cloth, $9.00; Sheep, $11.00; Half-Russia,
$13.00. Canada (duty paid), Cloth, $10.00; Sheep, $12.10; Half-Russia,
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France, Cloth, 30 fr. 30; Sheep, 36 fr. 40; Half-Russia, 43 fr. 30.=
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=Journal of Laryngology and Rhinology.=
Issued on the First of Each Month. Edited by DR. NORRIS WOLFENDEN, of
London, and DR. JOHN MACINTYRE, of Glasgow, with the active aid and
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and SIR MORELL MACKENZIE. Besides those specialists in Europe and America
who have so ably assisted in the collaboration of the Journal, a number
of new correspondents have undertaken to assist the Editors in keeping
the Journal up to date, and furnishing it with matters of interest.
Amongst these are: DRS. SAJOUS, of Philadelphia; MIDDLEMASS HUNT, of
Liverpool; MELLOW, of Rio Janeiro; SEDZIAK, of Warsaw; DRAISPUL, of St.
Petersburg, etc. DRS. MICHAEL, JOAL, HOLGER MYGIND, PROF. MASSEI, and
DR. VALERIUS IDELSON will still collaborate the literature of their
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