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Asclepius: The Greek Medical Phenomenology

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Many Greek gods and goddesses helped to make medicine what it is today. Many medical terminology comes from or is name after these Greek gods and goddesses. There are even symbols that are derived from Greek gods. First we have Asclepius, the god of medicine. Asclepius is the son of Apollo and Coronis. The myth behind why Asclepius becomes the god of medicine is as follows: Apollo found out that Coronis was cheating on him and Artemis killed her. Asclepius was cut out of his dead mother and left to be raised by Chiron, a centaur who was known as the “master of medical practices and herbal medicines” (Fornaro et. al. 2009). Because he was raised by a master, Asclepius became the god of medicine. He had over 200 temples dedicated to him and …show more content…

Aphrodite’s name is given to the aphrodisiacs. Aphrodisiac is arousing, increasing or intensifying sexual desire. The Latin name of Aphrodite is Venus and venereal diseases are named after that (Athanasiadis; 1997). A venereal disease is known also as a sexually transmitted disease. Both Aphrodite and (the Latin name for her) Venus have connections to the medical terms named after them. Aphrodite’s son Phobos is the god of fear. His father is thought to be Hephaestus, but really it is Ares, the man with whom she had an affair, that is Phobos’ father (Athanasiadis; 1997). The term phobias come from his …show more content…

Her name is correlated with amnesia which is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or trauma, and with amnestic which is a loss of a large block of interrelated memories or a complete or partial loss of memory that is caused by brain injury or shock (dictionary). Going along with the goddess of memory we have the Greek spirit of forgetfulness and oblivion, Lethe. She gave the name to the river of oblivion. It is said that those who drink that water forget their past. Lethargy and lethargic are two terms that are formed from her name. Next there are two nymphs: Syrinx and Echo. Syrinx was turned into a tuft of reeds when Pan tried to rape her (Athanasiadis; 1997). Her name is said to have a connection with the syringes that are used for injections. Echo deceived the goddess Juno and she made it to where Echo could only repeat the last words of others, a terrible punishment for Echo because she always wanted to have the last word and after that she never could. Echo, later, fell in love with Narcissus but she never was able to tell him how she felt. Her name was given to echolalia which is the “almost automatic repetition of words or phrases heard” (Athanasiadis; 1997) and echopraxia which is the “involuntary mimicking of another’s movements” (Athanasiadis;

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