CHAPTER III 



THE EARLIER PHASE OF GREEK MEDICAL SCIENCE AND 

 ITS SIGNIFICANCE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF BIOLOGY 



Magical beginnings of Greek medicine 



THE EARLIEST BEGINNINGS of the scicncc of medicinc among the Greeks 

 were as always in primitive medical practice, based on magical 

 religion, ^sculapius, the god of the healing art, had a numerous 

 priesthood, in which secret knowledge of the forces of nature and their use 

 for the curing of disease was jealously guarded and handed down from gen- 

 eration to generation. Pilgrimages were made to the temples of ^sculapius 

 by crowds of sick persons ■ — • both those in real and those in imaginary ill 

 health — to be cured of their maladies; and the latter class, the hypochondri- 

 acs, were not slow to spread abroad and confirm stories of the most wonderful 

 miracles of healing performed there. Immense hospitals were erected in the 

 neighbourhood of these temples for the benefit of those who required lengthy 

 treatment, and the very necessity of having to watch over and follow the 

 course of these patients' diseases must naturally have created a large 

 supply of purely empirical observations of immense value to the sacer- 

 dotal miracle-workers, who were thus enabled to estimate the result of their 

 methods of treatment. In time there grew up, as a result of the widespread 

 adoption of these empirical observations and methods, a class of purely 

 secular'healers, no longer directly associated with the temples of i^sculapius, 

 who nevertheless, in order to denote the origin of their art and to take ad- 

 vantage of the confidence inspired by religious belief, called themselves 

 Asclepiads — that is, descendants of i^sculapius. As other professions did at 

 that time, they formed a private guild, the members of which taught their 

 art preferably only to sons and kinsmen. Outsiders too were able by paying 

 large sums to obtain an insight into the secrets of the profession, while the 

 children of the family of Asclepiads always had the right to receive free 

 instruction from any of their father's colleagues. The wording of the oath 

 which the young physician had to swear before being allowed to begin the 

 practice of his profession is still extant. By this oath he pledged himself to 

 help teachers and his professional colleagues, give free instruction to their 

 sons, share with them any fresh experiences and discoveries, to the best of 

 his ability heal the sick, and refrain from mixing poisons and producing 

 abortions. 



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