668, etc., 732 ff.
Then the God clucked, And out there issued from the holy shrine Two great, enormous serpents....
And underneath the scarlet cloth they crept, And licked his eyelids, as it seemed to me; And, mistress dear, before you could have drunk Of wine ten goblets, Wealth arose and saw.( 17) (17) Ibid.
The incubation sleep, in which indications of cure were divinely sent, formed an important part of the ritual.
The Asklepieion, or Health Temple of Cos, recently excavated, is of special interest, as being at the birthplace of Hippocrates, who was himself an Asklepiad.

It is known that Cos was a great medical school.
The investigations of Professor Rudolf Hertzog have shown that this temple was very nearly the counterpart of the temple at Epidaurus.
The AEsculapian temples may have furnished a rare field for empirical enquiry.

As with our modern hospitals, the larger temple had rich libraries, full of valuable manuscripts and records of cases.

That there may have been secular Asklepiads connected with the temple, who were freed entirely from its superstitious practices and theurgic rites, is regarded as doubtful; yet is perhaps not so doubtful as one might think.
How often have we physicians to bow ourselves in the house of Rimmon! It is very much the same today at Lourdes, where lay physicians have to look after scores of patients whose faith is too weak or whose maladies are too strong to be relieved by Our Lady of this famous shrine.

Even in the Christian era, there is evidence of the association of distinguished physicians with AEsculapian temples.