Asclepius, Modern Medicine and Health Reform

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Our exhausted elected servants have retired to their native haunts, spent perhaps by their efforts to noodle through a desperate plan to reform our national health care mess. It may be that they’ve retired to make good on their wakening efforts on health care, and go full throttle into sleep-and-dream efforts.  They might be able to find something there. At least for some of them there may be not a great difference between their awake and their asleep reasonings, so few will get injured. 

This is not without precedent; and as a matter of fact dream mental and physical therapy is far older than any sort of medicine that we recognize as “moderns”.  The dream temple was in extensive use in Egypt some 4000 years ago; people attended the temple and through various means entered a trance state, after which their visions/dreams were analyzed for medical benefit.  It was in many respects a hospital of dreams, with treatments ranging through the expansive gamut of sacrifices to the appropriate deities, sweating, fasting, bathing, meditation, sleep, and of course, more sleep.

But the one degree of separation business connecting health care reform with sleep-thinking is Asclepius, on whose pillow the legislators can feel safe and comfortable.  In ancient Greece

The connection between modern medicine and sleep and dreams is the staff of Asclepius—a snake-entwined staff, which is the very symbol of modern medicine.  In ancient Greece, people in need would go to their Asclepieion and take their treatment, again consisting of fasting, prayers, meditation and sleep.

The connection between modern medicine and sleep and dreams is the staff of Asclepius—a snake-entwined staff, which is the very symbol of modern medicine.  In ancient Greece the first step in attending the benefits of an Asclepieion was to sleep in its outer courtyard, waiting for a vision of the great Asclepius, who would be recognized by this very staff.  Once the pilgrim achieved this first level of dream/sleep/vision they could proceed to the interior of the temple and seek their treatment.  Perhaps now that the Congress is on vacation they might be more attuned to the possibility of entertaining a helpful sleepytime vision from the iconic benefactor of modern medicine, and  proceed accordingly.