1006.] oti Hippocrates and the Health Temple at Cos. 259 



right, and the wide expanse of turquoise sea dotted by the purple 

 islands of the ^gean ; and the dim mountains about HaUcarnassus to 

 the north-east. 



Of course, little remains of the sacred precinct excepting founda- 

 tions, but from these, and the architectural fragments which remain, 

 it is not difficult to reconstruct in one's mind the ensemble of 

 beautiful buildings which existed 2000 years ago. 



The restoration which is annexed gives some idea of the grouping 

 of the temples and stoa in three terraces on ascending levels. 



In the foreground is a three-sided stoa, or portico, having irregu- 

 lar buildings at a lower level, adjacent to its outer border, all round. 

 This stoa is approached by a Doric propylsea, or porch. Within this 

 porch there are signs of certain great tanks, or basins, and of an 

 aqueduct supplying them. They were probably for the preliminary 

 ceremonial ablutions. The Asklepiadse were to be congratulated 

 upon this usage. (Their successors would not be sorry if a prelimi- 

 nary cleansing or lustration of soap and water were required from 

 some of the votaries of the out-patient room in our modern Askle- 

 pieia.) The buildings adjacent to the left wing of this great stoa 

 were occupied by an extensive series of baths, mostly reconstructed 

 in Roman times. Here the hot and cold douches of which Hippo- 

 crates speaks, the frictions and affusions of water of various tem- 

 peratures, the inunction of "smegma," a sort of hot, semi-fluid 

 soap, and the applications of sponge and strigil took place. Hippo- 

 crates beheved greatly in the remedial uses of water, and here, 

 doubtless, hundreds of his patients have submitted to the hydro- 

 therapia of the time. Probably the remainder of these buildings on 

 the north served as waiting-rooms, consulting and operating rooms, 

 the " latrium," with its store of instruments, of which Hippocrates 

 speaks, including the " scamnum," or bench for reducing dislocations. 

 Here, probably, would be the dispensary, where were prepared the 

 tisanes, the hellebore, the arsenic, the cantharides, and other drugs 

 he names ; here, also, the library. Here may have been the rooms 

 devoted to teaching, for a most important medical school existed 

 at Cos. Here, I assume, he wrote his careful notes of cases. Most 

 likely Hippocrates kept in these rooms the skeleton which he after- 

 wards gave to the oracle of Delphi. 



Here, also, may have been the Deipneterion, or room for meals, 

 and the culinary department, where the special diet to which the 

 Coan school gave so much attention was made ready, where, pro- 

 bably, was prepared the " cygeon," that curious mixture of cheese, 

 honey and wine, which we first read of as being given by Circe to 

 Ulysses, but which, notwithstanding this discouraging origin, may 

 have proved a nourishing form of food for certain of the sick. 

 Here, perhaps, was the winestore, with the Chian and the strong 

 Cretan vintages, which Hippocrates so rarely gave undiluted. He 

 was a strong believer in the truth that much strong wine weakened 



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