the descendants of Asclepius, or Asculapius, by his sons Machaon and Podalirius, who were physicians in the Greek army, and ruled over Tricea, Ithome, and Echalia. Combining the functions of priest, prophet, and physician, they spread themselves, along with the worship of the god, over Greece and Asia Minor. They may be regarded as the founders of scientific medicine. They resided in the temples of the god, and there wrought cures of the sick by various remedies, by charms, incantations, and also by means which are supposed to have reference to magnetism. The Sermones Sacri of the orator Arisides contain some curious accounts of these mysterious cures. This order undoubtedly had its origin in Egypt, whence the coluber Asculapii, or sacred serpent, was brought by the Phoenicians to Epidaurus the chief seat of the god. Strangers, as Galen reports, were eventually initiated into the mysteries of this order. The priests were bound by a solemn oath not to divulge the secrets of their knowledge. Hippocrates, who was himself of the fraternity, has preserved the form of adjuration used on such occasions. The worship of Asclepius was introduced at Rome in B.C. 293, for the purpose of averting a pestilence.

The name Asclepiades was borne by a great number of physicians, of whom the most famous was a native of Prusa in Bithynia, who was the founder of the methodical school, and practised at Rome about B.C. 50.