Greek Medicine

We spent yesterday at Epidauros, an ancient city devoted primarily to a temple of Asclepius, the god of medicine.  Unlike other temples, which are deliberately and with malice aforethought placed high on mountaintops, temples to Asclepius are normally at sea level.  Apparently, if you were sick you got a pass on the hike to "show your devotion".

Nonetheless, this site does have all the required elements, including the remnants of a temple and a stadium for races (done after the healing, one would expect):

Epidaurus Stadium - Judges seats would be on the left but are missing 

The real highlight, of course, is the theater, which Lauren has already shown.  I'm trying to convince her to let me post the video of her debut concert...

One of the more interesting bits was the museum, where they showed some of the medical implements the priests used.  Apparently, part of the method was to have the patients sleep in the sanctuary, after undergoing ritual purification, and the god would either heal them or deliver instructions on how to be healed in a dream.  But after some point, the priests/proto-surgeons decided to just get in there and see what they could do themselves.  Imagine what fun they had with these little toys:

Also on the walls of the museum were inscriptions about various healings that had taken place, along with instructions to the patients about how the healings worked.  A major part of the process was making donations to the temple after the healing occurred.  Just in case you were wondering if human nature ever changes, the inscriptions also noted a range of terrible things that could and would happen to people who stiffed the god afterwards....