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.