Note 13 — HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

As these persons were ambitious to pass for the descendants of Esculapius, they assumed the name of The Asclepiades. The writings of Pausanius, Philostratus, and Plutarch, abound with the artifices of those early physicians. Aristophanes describes in a truly comic manner the craft and pious avarice of these godly men, and mentions the dexterity and promptitude with which they collected, and put into their bags, the offerings on the altar. The patients, during this period, reposed on the skins of sacrificed rams, in order that they might procure celestial visions. As soon as they were believed to be asleep, a priest, clothed in the dress of Esculapius, imitating his manners, and accompanied by the daughters of the god, that is, by young actresses, thoroughly instructed in their parts, entered, and delivered a medical opinion.