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Popular mythology
Gerald D. Hart
Royal Society of Medicine Press, London (UK); 2000
262 pp. [Symbol Not Transcribed]17.50 (paper) ISBN 1-85315-409-1
In what clearly stands as a labour of long devotion, Gerald Hart, a wellknown Ontario hematologist now living in England, has given us a readily accessible and well-illustrated book about the ancient healing god and patron saint of medicine. Hart, an expert on ancient coins, is particularly effective in applying numismatics to the story of temple healing.
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Hart's Asclepius reminds me of Ralph Jackson's Doctors and Diseases in the Roman Empire (British Museum Press, 1988), a book not readily available on this side of the Atlantic. Hart makes appropriate use of this text and of two earlier books about Asclepius and his rod and serpent as a...