The Doctor and the Snake

The goddess of health, Hygieia, was much venerated, understandably, in the ancient Greek world; her numerous statues usually represented her holding a serpent. Hygieia's father was Aesculapius, the god of medicine, who developed his clinical skills as physician to the Argonauts and made use of herbs in treatment; the serpent and the cock were considered sacred to him. So the Greeks, when wanting a medical cure, sacrificed on altars erected in the shrines of Aesculapius. In those times, the snake was thought of as being wise and statues of Aesculapius showed him holding a staff entwined by a serpent; such a staff, of course, has remained a medical emblem to the present day. Those who were gods, apparently, commonly had power over serpents, as was the case with Jupiter's son Hercules. Juno sent two snakes to destroy him when he was a child, but these were just seized in his two hands and crushed to death. Clearly snakes were considered to have remarkable powers, yet they continued to be thought to have enigmatic qualities. It is hardly surprising that in the Book of Genesis we read that the serpent was '. . more subtil than any beast of the field .'; indeed, the serpent beguiled Eve and, as punishment, it was decreed for the snake that 'upon thy belly thou shalt go, and dust shalt thou eat .