ROCKY MOUNTAIN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 75 
der it probable, if not conclusive to most minds, that 
the physician must have held a most conspicuous and 
The medical precepts of the Egyptian god of medicine, it is stated, 
were collected after his death and embodied in a volume under the 
title of *' Embre," which possibly embraced the six Hermetical books. 
For centuries this work constituted the code of medical practice for 
the oracles and priest-physicians of Egypt. Following Hermes and 
almost equally celebrated in the medical annals of Egypt were Apis 
and Serapis, who after their deaths also received divine honors. It is 
surmised that the Greeks adopted, under slightly varied names, many 
Hindoo, Phoenician, and Egyptian deities. And indeed it is possible 
that Isis and Osiris are only appellations of particular ages, or of 
special localities, for the more ancient Egyptian deity Hermes. The 
Hellenic deities Apollo, Paean, Orpheus, Mercury, ^Esculapius, 
Melampus, Hercules, and Castor, may each have had their prototype 
in, or may have been adopted from, the older civihzations of Hindus- 
tan, Phoenicia, or Egypt. This hypothesis will at least account for the 
god Taaut or Hermes of Egypt becoming the Mercury of Greece. 
From the Hellenic character given to Mercury as dressed in winged 
sandals and cap, he was the recognized messenger of the gods, and 
brought the art of medicine down from heaven. In such veneration 
was he held that the early astronomers honored his name by giving 
it to the planet nearest the sun, and because it makes its circuit in less 
time than any other. His caduceus or staff has at the head two 
wings, and is entwined by two serpents. This scepter is the ensign 
of peace ; and mythology claims that it was obtained from Apollo. 
Nearly the same emblem is represented as the staff of ^sculapius. 
Medicine was specially honored in Greek and Roman mythology 
and the antiquity of the ait of the physician is indicated by the fact 
that there are in the figures of the Zodiac two stars named after 
physicians, Chiron and ^sculapius. These figurative characters had 
doubtless prototypes in real personages, who had won, by their skill, 
great distinction among their contemporaries, who were led in their ad- 
miration to consider them not only heroes, but gods. The esteem in 
which the art of medicine was wont to be held in those early times 
may be inferred from the testimony borne by that passage in the 
vEneid where lapis is introduced to heal the wounds of ^neas. It 
is stated that Apollo, wishing to reward lapis for his services, told him 
