Medical Symbolism in Connection With Historical Studies in the Arts of Healing and Hygiene

CHAPTER I.. Remarks on the Meaning of Symbols.

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.” In some authoritative works, as, for instance, that of Fairholt, 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.” 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.” There are many symbols, however, which never had anything to do with myths, as will become evident later.

In the wide sense in which I propose to use it, symbol is almost or quite synonymous with emblem, as popularly used. Mackenzie 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.

THE SERPENTINE GOD OF MEDICINE AT ROME.

As I have already intimated, the god of medicine—that is, Æsculapius—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. 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.”

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.” 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.

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.” 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.” 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.”

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.” 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 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.” 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, 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.

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