Asclepius

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Perhaps the cult of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing, demonstrates that in the early Graeco-Roman tradition, magic and medicine ran side by side in the battle against illness. It is not really clear whether Asclepius was a real historical figure or a mythical one.

Outside the stream of early rational medicine was a widespread popular belief in the powers of early miracle-working wizards such as Serapis and Apollonius of Tyana. It was also believed that to sleep with the fourth book of the Iliad under one's pillow at night ensured a cure for the quartan ague!

The Asclepeion at Pergamum is one of the finest preserved and best-known medical establishments of the Graeco-Roman era, being founded in the first half of the fourth century BC by Archias, who had been healed by Asclepius at Epidaurus.

Archias had suffered a sprain while out hunting and had met a fast cure under the management of Asclepius. Archias was so impressed by the treatment he had received that he 'brought the God to Pergamum' in the founding of a temple there. The oracle at Delphi had already proclaimed that Asclepius was a healer of diseases. The tale of the growth of the cult of Asclepius in Rome in the year 292 BC is told by Livy.

Classical civilization entrusted its patients to the incubation cure, a treatment that arose from the cult of Asclepius. The patient would pass a night in the 'incubation temple' in the belief that the gods would cure them in a dream.

After ritual purification, suppliants for aid slept in the basement, or adyton, of the temple at the end of a long tunnel. Here they hoped to dream the dreams on whose interpretation by the priests depended their future treatment and welfare. The playwright Aristophanes (408-388 BC) makes reference to this ritual cult in his play Plutus.

Cures atPergamum

Nicanor, a lame man, was sitting by the temple when a young boy ran up to him and snatched away his crutches. Nicanor chased after the boy in hot pursuit and was cured. There is also the story of two women who became pregnant after their visit to the temple. Andromache, the wife of King Arybbas of Epirus, 'for the sake of offspring', slept in the temple and saw in a dream a handsome youth who uncovered and disrobed her, the god touched her with his hand, whereupon a child was bom to her.

The second lady, Agameda of Ceoa, was also infertile and went to sleep in the temple whereupon she dreamt of a serpent lying on her belly. Five children were later born to her.'

The plausibility of the cures at Pergamun are striking, especially the cures of psychologically-induced ailments, although the cures administered at other health centres, such as Epidaurus, are no less striking. One patient remained sceptical, however.

'When parchance my penis was hurt... I feared the surgeon's hands. I , ' was reluctant to entrust my membrum virile to the care and the very great gods such as Phoebus and the son of Phoebus.' Much of Greek thinking on medicine was appropriated by the Romans, and it was the Romans who developed the idea of a public hospital system. But after the collapse of the Roman Empire there was a virtually complete return to magic and mysticism.

Paracelsus

Practising in the 16th century, Philippus Paracelsus (1493-1541) is regarded as the father of modern therapeutics. Leaving his native Switzerland after becoming unhappy with the means of procuring wisdom in his indigenous country, he travelled around Europe. Something of an unorthodox healer, during his travels he became acquainted with physic not in common use among doctors of medicine and accomplished many miraculous cures, acquiring a great reputation in the process.

Paracelsus developed the idea that human beings were an integral part of nature, suggesting that they were continuous with nature and reflected internally the broader cosmos in the external world. He claimed that healing energies existed and radiated in and around humans. He called this force Archaeus. This force was an ambivalent one because it could cause as well as cure disease.

It was also contained, he argued, in stars and also in magnets. The notion of magnetism, as expounded by Mesmer, has its roots in Paracelsus. He also believed that negative thoughts could block the flow of Archaeus and result in illness. For most of his life he was regarded as a charlatan, but he massively enriched science in the course of his life, primarily in the fields of chemistry and medicine. He died at the hospital of St Sebastian at Salzburg in 1541.