Who was Asclepiades Bithynus?
By Chelsie Vandaveer
October 11, 2002
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Linnaeus named the milkweeds, Asclepias, in honor of the Greek god of medicine, Aesculapius. Milkweeds contain toxic cardioactive glycosides. At one time, milkweeds were used medicinally for pleurisy, pneumonia, and fevers.
Aesculapius may or may not have been a real person. According to the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1902), "The descendents of Aesculapius were called by the patronymic name Asclepiadae....
But the Asclepiadae were also regarded as an order or caste of priests, and for a long period the practice of medicine was intimately connected with religion."
In later years, Asclepiades was "the name of several physicians, some of whom probably assumed this appellation...in allusion to the ancient family." One of the more colorful of these physicians was Asclepiades Bithynus who lived in the first century BCE. His biography in the Dictionary states, "...he first came to Rome as a teacher of rhetoric, and that it was in consequence of his not being successful in this profession, he turned his attention to the study of medicine."
Asclepiades Bithynus was a popular physician who believed health came from diet, exercise, bathing, and liberal use of wine. The followers of Hippocrates, the father of medicine, said Asclepiades was ignorant.
Pliny the Elder wrote, "Asclepiades (physician of Bithynia) has a very great reputation for the following reasons: he founded a new school of medicine; despised the ambassadors and promises of King Mithridates; discovered a means by which wine might cure the sick; brought a man back from the grave and saved him. But, most of all, he is renown because he made a bet with Fortune that he should not be considered a doctor if ever he himself should be ill in any way, and he won his bet because he lost his life as a very old man by falling down stairs." (Natural History, Book VII, pre-79 CE, trans. John Healy)
The Institute for Systematic Botany, University of South Florida has numerous photographs of pleurisy root (Asclepias tuberosa), once used medicinally. To view the photographs, click on the link:
http://www.plantatlas.usf.edu/images.asp?plantID=3627
Click on the individual thumbnails to enlarge the images.
killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~
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Asclepias Collection
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