It may be safely held that one must go back to a time long anterior to that of Æsculapius of the Greeks to acquire the true medical import of the serpent, which has been so closely associated with him. There is excellent reason for believing that we have in it a remnant of that ancient and wonderfully wide-spread cultus, serpent-worship, which is still kept up by the Nagas[189] of India and others. Epidaurus was favorably situated for communication with Egypt, a country in which the serpent played a great religious rôle “from the very earliest period,” as shown by both “written and monumental evidence,” to use the words of Cooper,[190] as well as in later times, even within the Christian era, when the special sect of Gnostics, who called themselves Ophitæ, were in their glory. But, in truth, serpent-worship in Greece did not begin in the time of Æsculapius. Bryant maintains that it was brought into Greece by Cadmus, who, under the name of Taautus, or Thoth, took it also to both Egypt and Phœnicia from Babylonia.[191] One can advance sufficient evidence to indicate with considerable conclusiveness that the Egyptians were in the habit of looking to a serpentine divinity for the cure of disease. In his interesting little book,[192] Sharpe gives a figure of a serpent wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, on a pole or standard, a cut of which is reproduced (Fig. 6), which was carried in the periodical airing processions of the Egyptian divinities. Now, it is quite certain that Moses, and his people, too, were very familiar with this figure and its import; but, at any rate, we find him making an imitation of it, in his journey with the Israelites in the Wilderness; and for what purpose? The story is told in the Bible, and runs thus: “And Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole; and it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass he lived.”[193] Verily, there is the Healer in essentially the same form in which he was sometimes embodied by the Greeks and Romans. Hence, it is sure that the serpent, as a medical symbol, took shape before the time of Æsculapius; long before, for Moses lived nearly four hundred years earlier than he, and, as we have just seen, it was likely far from new, far from being unfamiliar in his day. Fergusson has this to say of it: “It is the first record we have of actual worship being performed to the serpent; and it is also remarkable, as the cause of this adoration is said to have been its healing powers.”[194] [Illustration: FIG. 6.—THE SERPENT-HEALER.]