by Marina Stein

Created on: June 21, 2009   Last Updated: June 23, 2009

Asclepius is a Greek god of healing and medicine. He was a son of Apollo and a nymph Coronis (by other sources, Arsinoe). However, his mother did not live long enough to give Asclepius natural birth. While pregnant with Asclepius, she fell in love with a mortal man and Apollo could not forgive her for such unfaithfulness. First, Apollo punished the messenger, his pet crow with snow white feathers by making its feathers black forever, second, he asked Artemis, his sister, to get rid of Coronis.

Artemis set Coronis to death at the pyre, but Apollo felt sorry for his unborn son and saved him from the fire (probably performing the first C-section). Apollo did not raise his son though, instead he gave him to centaur Chiron to take care of the kid and teach him the art of healing.

Asclepius learnt the art of surgery, use of drugs, love potions and impressed Athena so much that she gave him blood of the Gorgon Medusa. That blood was said to come from two sides of the Gorgon: the left side blood was deadly poison and the right side blood was a potion capable of bringing dead back to life.

With this potion Asclepius brought a favorite hero of his aunt Artemis, Hyppolytis, back to life. Zeus became very angry with Asclepius action since it interfered with Zeus's vision of Universe and he killed Asclepius with a thunderbolt. Apollo being upset with his son's death could not, however, rise against the most potent god and killed Cyclopes instead. (Cyclopes were the makers of thunderbolts for Zeus.) Later Zeus changed his mind, made Asclepius into a god and put him in the sky in the form of a cancellation Ophiuchus (a serpent-bearer).

Asclepius had five daughters and two sons, Machaon and Podalirius. His sons were also physicians and were involved in the Trojan wars as such. Three of his daughters followed in their father's steps as well. Their names were Hygiea, Panacea, and Iaso (Meditrina). All those names mean "healing" but obviously Hygiea was the goddess of hygiene, Panacea took care of drugs, and Iaso was responsible for general healing.

Asclepius was believed to live and heal in the town of Epidaurus on the island of Kos. After his death and becoming a god (around 300 BC), a lot of cult centers called Asclepieions were built and used to cure the sick people. Ill and sick came and spent a night in one of those centers sleeping. In the morning priests interpreted their dreams and prescribed the course on actions accordingly. The greatest of ancient healers and the founder of medical science as we know it today, Hippocrates, studied the trade in one of those centers on the island Kos.

Asclepius is usually shown as a bearded man carrying a big wooden stick with a snake coiled around it. The reasons for Asclepius always going around with a snake are unknown. Some sources think that it was because Asclepius used snake venom in healing people (may be blood of Gorgon was actually snake venom and represented the duality of healing powers of the same material). Others think that snake represents the changing of the cured man (Plinius mentioned that as the snake leaves the old skin behind so the healed man is reborn with the help of medications). Whatever was the reason contemporary medical enterprises still use this symbol (stick with a snake, sometimes two snakes) as their insignia.

Sources:

http://www.drblayney.com/Asclepius.html

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/a/asclepius.html

http://www.astromyth.tau-site.ru/Subjects/Asclepi.ht m

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