Part 4 (2/2)
(13) Caton: Temples and Ritual of Asklepios, 2d ed., London, 1900.
(14) Max Neuburger: History of Medicine, English translation, Oxford, 1910, p. 94.
The temples were in charge of members of the guild or fraternity, the head of which was often, though not necessarily, a physician. The Chief was appointed annually. From Caton's excellent sketch(15) you can get a good idea of the ritual, but still better is the delightful description given in the ”Plutus” of Aristophanes. After offering honey-cakes and baked meats on the altar, the suppliants arranged themselves on the pallets.
(15) Caton: Temples and Ritual of Asklepios, 2d ed., London, 1900.
Soon the Temple servitor Put out the lights and bade us fall asleep, Nor stir, nor speak, whatever noise we heard.
So down we lay in orderly repose.
And I could catch no slumber, not one wink, Struck by a nice tureen of broth which stood A little distance from an old wife's head, Whereto I marvellously longed to creep.
Then, glancing upwards, I beheld the priest Whipping the cheese-cakes and figs from off The holy table; thence he coasted round To every altar spying what was left.
And everything he found he consecrated Into a sort of sack--(16)
a procedure which reminds one of the story of ”Bel and the Dragon.” Then the G.o.d came, in the person of the priest, and scanned each patient.
He did not neglect physical measures, as he brayed in a mortar cloves, Tenian garlic, verjuice, squills and Sphettian vinegar, with which he made application to the eyes of the patient.
(16) Aristophanes: B. B. Roger's translation, London, Bell & Sons, 1907, Vol. VI, ll. 668, etc., 732 ff.
Then the G.o.d clucked, And out there issued from the holy shrine Two great, enormous serpents....
And underneath the scarlet cloth they crept, And licked his eyelids, as it seemed to me; And, mistress dear, before you could have drunk Of wine ten goblets, Wealth arose and saw.(17)
(17) Ibid.
The incubation sleep, in which indications of cure were divinely sent, formed an important part of the ritual.
The Asklepieion, or Health Temple of Cos, recently excavated, is of special interest, as being at the birthplace of Hippocrates, who was himself an Asklepiad. It is known that Cos was a great medical school.
The investigations of Professor Rudolf Hertzog have shown that this temple was very nearly the counterpart of the temple at Epidaurus.
The AEsculapian temples may have furnished a rare field for empirical enquiry. As with our modern hospitals, the larger temple had rich libraries, full of valuable ma.n.u.scripts and records of cases. That there may have been secular Asklepiads connected with the temple, who were freed entirely from its superst.i.tious practices and theurgic rites, is regarded as doubtful; yet is perhaps not so doubtful as one might think.
How often have we physicians to bow ourselves in the house of Rimmon!
It is very much the same today at Lourdes, where lay physicians have to look after scores of patients whose faith is too weak or whose maladies are too strong to be relieved by Our Lady of this famous shrine. Even in the Christian era, there is evidence of the a.s.sociation of distinguished physicians with AEsculapian temples. I notice that in one of his anatomical treatises, Galen speaks with affection of a citizen of Pergamos who has been a great benefactor of the AEsculapian temple of that city. In ”Marius, the Epicurean,” Pater gives a delightful sketch of one of those temple health resorts, and brings in Galen, stating that he had himself undergone the temple sleep; but to this I can find no reference in the general index of Galen's works.
From the votive tablets found at Epidaurus, we get a very good idea of the nature of the cases and of the cures. A large number of them have now been deciphered. There are evidences of various forms of diseases of the joints, affections of women, wounds, baldness, gout; but we are again in the world of miracles, as you may judge from the following: ”Heraicus of Mytilene is bald and entreats the G.o.d to make his hair grow. An ointment is applied over night and the next morning he has a thick crop of hair.”
There are indications that operations were performed and abscesses opened. From one we gather that dropsy was treated in a novel way: Asklepios cuts off the patient's head, holds him up by the heels, lets the water run out, claps on the patient's head again. Here is one of the invocations: ”Oh, blessed Asklepios, G.o.d of Healing, it is thanks to thy skill that Diophantes hopes to be relieved from his incurable and horrible gout, no longer to move like a crab, no longer to walk upon thorns, but to have sound feet as thou hast decreed.”
The priests did not neglect the natural means of healing. The inscriptions show that great attention was paid to diet, exercise, ma.s.sage and bathing, and that when necessary, drugs were used. Birth and death were believed to defile the sacred precincts, and it was not until the time of the Antonines that provision was made at Epidaurus for these contingencies.
One practice of the temple was of special interest, viz., the incubation sleep, in which dreams were suggested to the patients. In the religion of Babylonia, an important part was played by the mystery of sleep, and the interpretation of dreams; and no doubt from the East the Greeks took over the practice of divination in sleep, for in the AEsculapian cult also, the incubation sleep played a most important role. That it continued in later times is well indicated in the orations of Aristides, the arch-neurasthenic of ancient history, who was a great dreamer of dreams. The oracle of Amphiaraus in Attica sent dreams into the hearts of his consultants. ”The priests take the inquirer, and keep him fasting from food for one day, and from wine for three days, to give him perfect spiritual lucidity to absorb the divine communication” (Phillimore's ”Apollonius of Tyana,” Bk. II, Ch. x.x.xVII). How incubation sleep was carried into the Christian Church, its a.s.sociation with St. Cosmas and St. Damian and other saints, its practice throughout the Middle Ages, and its continuation to our own time may be read in the careful study of the subject made by Miss Hamilton (now Mrs. d.i.c.kens).(18) There are still in parts of Greece and in Asia Minor shrines at which incubation is practiced regularly, and if one may judge from the reports, with as great success as in Epidaurus. At one place in Britain, Christchurch in Monmouths.h.i.+re, incubation was carried on till the early part of the nineteenth century. Now the profession has come back to the study of dreams,(19) and there are professors as ready to give suggestive interpretations to them, as in the days of Aristides. As usual, Aristotle seems to have said the last word on the subject: ”Even scientific physicians tell us that one should pay diligent attention to dreams, and to hold this view is reasonable also for those who are not pract.i.tioners but speculative philosophers,”(20) but it is asking too much to think that the Deity would trouble to send dreams to very simple people and to animals, if they were designed in any way to reveal the future.
In its struggle with Christianity, Paganism made its last stand in the temples of Asklepios. The miraculous healing of the saints superseded the cures of the heathen G.o.d, and it was wise to adopt the useful practice of his temple.
(18) Mary Hamilton: Incubation, or the Cure of Disease in Pagan Temples and Christian Churches, London, 1906.
<script>