CHAPTER XII

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THE PINE-CONE AS AN ATTRIBUTE OF ÆSCULAPIUS.

The fruitful results of studies in oriental history, industriously and intelligently pursued by able and learned men in recent times, are making more and more apparent the borrowed character of many features of the civilization of Greece and other western nations. Greek, Latin, German, Irish, and other languages of the Indo-European races, have been shown to be largely derived from Sanskrit, or a source similar to it, and the various mythologies have also been proved to be more or less evolutions.

Of late, the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Accadio-Sumerians, but especially the last, who were, as is said in the Bible, both “a mighty” and “an ancient nation,”[399] have been accorded a greater influence than formerly on other peoples. There is little or no ground for doubt that the first forms of belief, as well as art, came from the East. It is certain that in the fertile region, about the lower waters of the Euphrates and Tigris, there was, at very early period, a remarkable unfoldment of intellectual, social, and other elements of progress, from the savage state. The ideas brought with them three thousand years or more before our era, to the rich plains southward of Mesopotamia, and gathered there by the early inhabitants of the hills of Elam and their kin, the earlier inhabitants of Sumer,[400] have been potent everywhere to the westward.

These Turanians, a dark-complexioned people, were conquered by the Semites settled in parts to the west of Babylonia, by whom their culture and civilization were appropriated.[401]

The Accadio-Sumerians undoubtedly gave direction and shape to the religions of Babylonia, Assyria, Phœnicia, and other countries, including Egypt. This means a great deal, for in the earlier stages of civilization the religion, such as it may be, is a matter of the greatest possible significance, both in itself and its influence on everything else. The language of the Accadio-Sumerians long served as the sacred one in Babylonia and Assyria,[402] and has been characterized by Mr. Sayce as “the Sanskrit of the Turanian family.”[403] In it are the important early cuneiform inscriptions, all the originals of which were written eighteen hundred years or so before our era.

The medical ideas of the Accadio-Sumerian were closely related to his religion; to him the cause and cure of disease were, to a great extent, in fact essentially, supernatural affairs. And thus, indeed, it has been among all early peoples. Nor is it probable that it will ever be entirely otherwise anywhere. The same feelings which prompted the dweller in Elam, or in the plains to the westward, to formulate his religion and philosophy are still experienced by humanity. Even the myth-formers are not all dead. The spirit of all the mythologies is yet alive. There are gods of fancy to-day, as there were when Ana and Hea and Bel were in the ascendant. And they are not very different. The _nomen_, the name, may vary much, but the _numen_, the thing, for the most part, does not.

The science of the nineteenth century has not cleared away from the minds of a large majority, in even the most highly civilized nations, the belief that health and sickness are largely subject to mysterious spiritual powers. They are matters of which the populace are still apt to entertain preposterous notions. Cullen well remarks somewhere that he had found even men with trained logical faculties, such as lawyers, satisfied with reasons of any kind, advanced to explain medical phenomena. And in truth the physician deals with matters not readily understood. In the very first paragraph of his book of books, has not Hippocrates himself said: “Experience is fallacious and judgment difficult”?

However, it is not to be denied that there are many who sincerely and firmly believe that both health and disease are entirely dependent on the will of spiritual powers. Doubtless every physician has seen instances of perfect resignation, on the death of even a near relative, brought about by the notion that the bereavement was “the will of God.” An innocent child, cut off by diphtheria, or scarlet fever, or some other pestilential disease, which exists only by tolerance, with a tearless mother bending over it, calm and full of the idea that it was the will of the Almighty to destroy it in the bud, as it were, is not an uncommon sight, and one which cannot fail to impress both deeply and sadly the intelligent observer. Impious and erroneous doctrine, to be sure; but, nevertheless, part and parcel of many, nay, most of the creeds of the day.

My statements are not rashly made and baseless. I might almost ask in vain for a creed in which an absolute declaration of the life and death of mortals being entirely in the hands of supra-mundane powers is not made. For example, in the chapter of the “Book of Common Prayer,” on “the order for the visitation of the sick,” it is said: “Dearly beloved, know this, that Almighty God is the Lord of life and death, and of all things to them pertaining, as youth, strength, health, age, weakness, and sickness. Wherefore, whatsoever your sickness be, know you certainly that it is God’s visitation.” For relief, the means is indicated in this petition: “O Lord! look down from heaven, behold, visit, and relieve this thy servant.” There is no doubt about the meaning of these passages; and it is certain that the ideas contained in them are essentially those which were current among various peoples of remote antiquity. Of course, to one who sincerely entertains such ideas there can be no such thing as a science and art of medicine. But we know that they rarely or never stand in the way of a due resort to rational medical treatment. Truly, the human mind is, in many instances, “many-sided.”

What has just been said will indicate that it is very improbable that the so-called religious literature of early times fairly represents the state of medical practice. Assuredly, one could form no idea of the state of the healing art at present from the perusal of a manual of orthodox religious literature.

However, as I have intimated above, the prevalence of an ostensible belief in the cause and cure of diseases by supernatural powers does not stand in the way of the existence and practice of a more or less rational art of healing.

The Chaldean[404] looked to the gods for the removal of the evils which afflicted him; and he had his set earthly ways by which to bring about the result desired. Supplication, sacrifice, and the like were practiced, but material means were not entirely neglected. In the sacred book of the Parsis it is said: “If several healers offer themselves together, namely, one who heals with the knife, one who heals with herbs, and one who heals with the Holy Word, it is this one who will _best_ drive away sickness from the body of the faithful.”[405] In another place the “Holy Word” is pronounced “the best healing of all remedies.”[406] Evidently, one might resort to other means, if he chose. And here I may remark, that in the practices of Æsculapius there was precisely the same threefold means of cure, as will be seen by referring to the chapter on the god.

It may be affirmed with confidence that no people in either ancient or modern times has relied exclusively on the good offices of supernatural powers for the cure of diseases. According to Catlin, the Indian doctors first prescribed “roots and herbs, of which they have a great variety of species; and when these have all failed, their last resort is to medicine.”[407] A reverse plan was the more common. In that interesting book, “Ecclesiasticus,” written by one well informed, and even at a time when medicine was far advanced, the sick man is curiously advised to pray and sacrifice to God first, and then to give place to the physician.[408] The old Hebrew conveys the idea that, when nothing else could be done, resort should be had to medical men. He thoughtfully remarks that “there is a time when thou must fall into their hands.”[409]

Now, as was to be expected, the Grecian god of medicine was viewed by some through a veil of superstition brought from the East. In connection with statues of him were things the meaning of which would be entirely unintelligible without a previous knowledge of ideas entertained in Assyria and other countries. One of these, the special theme of this chapter, is very interesting because of its historical connections. A study of it brings to light much exceedingly interesting information.

The pine- or cedar-cone, or, as some have spoken of it, the pine-apple, was figured in the hand of the cryselephantine statue of Æsculapius, made by Calamis for the temple at Sicyon, in Arcadia, as in representations of Mardux. What was the meaning of this peculiar object? Some have taken it to have been a phallic symbol. The presence of it on the thyrsus of Dionysus,[410] brought by him from the East, would seem to support that view. It has also been regarded as a flame.[411]

[Illustration: FIG. 15.—THE PINE- OR CEDAR-CONE AS SEEN IN THE HAND OF A WINGED FIGURE FROM NIMROUD.]

Whether the cedar-cone of the Sicyonian statue of Æsculapius was representative of the reproductive organ or of fire or not, it is certain that it was largely in use by the Babylonians, Assyrians, and others, to restore health as well as to overcome witchcraft and the like. One sees it in the hand of the winged, eagle-headed figure from Nimroud, now in the British Museum, and a cut of the same is given here. Two similar genii or figures, very like the gryphon of Greek mythology connected with Apollo, are represented watching, like the cherubim at the gate of Eden, over the priests who attend about the sacred tree of life,—that apple-, fig-, palm-, or somo-tree, serpent-guarded, which yields fruit or ambrosia, in which, as De Gubernatis says, “the life, the fortune, the glory, the strength, and the riches of the hero have their beginning,”[412] and which is so prominent in the sculptures and records of Oriental peoples. The object is often seen extended under the king’s nose, apparently that he may inhale the vitalizing emanations from it, after the manner of the ancients’ notion of the mode of reception of the “breath of life.”[413] It even appears on the tree of life in some of its conventional forms. Thus, Layard says: “The flowers at the end of the branches are frequently replaced in later Assyrian monuments and on cylinders by the fir- or pine-cone, and sometimes by a fruit or ornament resembling the pomegranate.”[414]

In connection with what he has to say about the cones on the tree of life, George Smith expresses the opinion that “the Accadians brought the tradition of the fir-cones with them from their original seat in the colder, mountainous land of Media, where the fir[415] was plentiful.”

[Illustration: FIG. 16.—THE TREE OF LIFE.]

The use of the fir-cone in the cure of disease has been made evident by recent translations of cuneiform inscriptions.[416] It is said by Lenormant that in a magic fragment as yet inedited the god Hea, the _averruncus par excellence_, the vivifier and preserver of the human race which he has created, prescribes to his son Marduk, the mediator, a mysterious rite which will cure a man whose malady is caused by an attack of demons. “Take,” says he, “to him the fruit of the cedar, and hold it in front of the sick person; the cedar is the tree which gives the pure charm and repels the inimical demons, who lay snares.”[417]

In the cedar-cone, then, in the hand of the figure of Æsculapius we have the symbol and instrument of “the life charm,” of which the god Hea was the master and the son the dispenser; and I may add (as Lenormant has suggested) that when fruits of this nature adorn the sacred plant they characterize it more emphatically than ever as the tree of life.

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