Lastly, there is a link which, though of no practical import, is still a genuine historic bond connecting the Hieron of Epidauros with the medicine of Western Europe. Three centuries B.C. Rome was visited by dire pestilence. The rulers of Rome, having in vain endeavoured to check it, sought the counsel of the Sybilline books, and were directed to bring Asklepios to Rome from Epidauros. A galley was sent to the Saronic Gulf, and a mission visited the Hieron, bringing back to the ship one of the sacred serpents. The galley returned, entered the Tiber, approached Rome, and as it touched the insula in the Tiber the sacred serpent at once left the ship and found a refuge on the island. From that moment the plague is said to have rapidly disappeared. In gratitude to the god, who was thus visibly among them in serpent form, the south end of the island—probably, indeed, the whole of the island—was modelled into the shape of a great galley of hewn stone. A temple of Æsculapius (as the Romans called him) was built at the southern end, with portico and abaton. A well existing there became sacred to Æsculapius, and from that day to this the island in the Tiber has, through pagan and Christian times alike, been devoted to the cure and treatment of the sick. The stern of the stone galley still exists, with the effigy of the serpent and remains of the image of Æsculapius. The Church of St. Bartholomew stands on the site of the temple, and on or near the spot where stood the ancient abaton now stands a hospital served by the Brotherhood of San Juan de Dios, the benevolent saint of Granada, where the sick folk of Rome are helped and tended; and there, unlike their predecessors of 2,200 years ago, if illness should terminate in death, the poor weary souls are kindly and tenderly ministered to by priest, physician, and nurse, until they sink into the last sleep. * * * * * * * * It is doubtless in consequence of this episode of the founding of a temple of Æsculapius on the island of the Tiber that the staff and serpent of the Epidaurian god have been, and remain to this day, the symbol of the profession of Medicine. [Illustration: Staff and Serpent] Ο ΒΙΟΣ ΒΡΑΧΥΣ Η ΤΕΧΝΗ ΜΑΚΡΗ Ο ΚΑΙΡΟΣ ΟΞΥΣ —“Life is short, the art is long, the opportunity is fleeting” LIST OF AUTHORITIES Baunack (J.) Aus Epidauros 1890 —— (Ἐφηµερίς, 1884) 1884 —— Studien —— Zu den Inschriften aus Epidauros (_Philologus_, 54) 1895 Blinkenberg (C.) Asklepios og hans Frænder —— Inscriptions d’Epidaure (_Nordisk Tidsskrift for Filologi og Pædagogik_, 1895) 8^o., Copenhagen, 1895