The Asclepian art of medicine and surgery
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ORTHOPAEDIC HERITAGE
The Asclepian art of medicine and surgery Pantelis Limneos 1 & Andreas Kostroglou 2 & Spyridon Sioutis 1 & Konstantinos Markatos 3 & Theodosis Saranteas 2 & Andreas F. Mavrogenis 1 Received: 5 March 2020 / Accepted: 14 May 2020 # SICOT aisbl 2020
Abstract Purpose To summarize the available information from mythology, archeology, and classical literature aiming to compose the image of Asclepieia, Asclepius, and the Asclepiads, and to depict the atmosphere of medicine in its infancy. Method A thorough literature search was undertaken in PubMed and Google Scholar as well as in physical books in libraries to summarize the pharmacies and pain practices used for trauma in ancient Greece. Results The antiquity of medicine is confirmed by the worship of God Apollo and Asclepius, who were the persons who possessed the knowledge of medicine and surgery, and delivered it to mortals. The available archaeological data, stone offerings, and inscriptions from Asclepieia were the first testimonies of divine and human knowledge and provide insights on individual cases of patients cured by the Asclepiads. Sparse descriptions offer a first glimpse of the methods and means used by the first priests-physicians for wound healing and diseases treatment. Conclusion Asclepieia established the roots of medicine and the first step of human knowledge, and contributed to the field of surgery and pharmacology that gave birth to the rational medicine. With Hippocrates and his research, the circle of Asclepieia ended, and the era of the organized medical schools with theories and experiments on every aspect of medicine begun. Keywords Asclepius . Asclepeia . Ancient Greece . Medicine . Surgery
Introduction Medicine is inseparably linked to the presence of man on earth because of the need for wound healing and disease therapy. Prehistoric men without language and culture focused on every experienced disease instinctively to plants and herbs; these pharmacies progressed after millennia of evolution to modern treatments [1–3]. The first references surrounding the early steps of medicine move to the fine line of mythology and date around the fifth to fourth century BC. The first medical institutions and centres of medical knowledge were the Asclepieia [4]. This is considered the era of those who with their apprenticeship in Asclepius and their writings formed medicine as a * Andreas F. Mavrogenis [email protected] 1
First Department of Orthopaedics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, School of Medicine, 41 Ventouri Street, Holargos, 15562 Athens, Greece
2
Second Department of Anesthesiology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, School of Medicine, Athens, Greece
3
Kapandriti Medical Center, Athens, Greece
coherent and rational body of knowledge and practice [1–4]. Yet, in that era, the ancient people were trying to understand the institution of Asclepieia in mythology fiction, with supernatural elements and unproven divine factors in the fine line between superstition and science, exaggeration, and re
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