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Asklipeio
A healing centre of the ancient world
History
The Asklepieion is an ancient medical center placed 4 km to the southeast of Kos Town, beyond Platani village. It was built in 357 BC to honor the god of health and medicine, Asklepios, after the death of the famous ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates. The characteristic symbol of this institution was a snake, as Greeks honored this animal due to its ability in terms of selecting curative herbs, and it can still be seen. The physicians of this hospital were also priests and a sanctuary was available for everyone who wanted to pray. The sanctuary was one of the main seats of the Asklepiadai, supposed descendants of Asklepios, who were a hereditary close order of priests, jealous guardians of the secrets of medicine
“Hippocratic Oath”
Hippocratic Oath is one of the oldest binding documents in history. The Oath written by Hippocrates is still held sacred by physicians: to treat the ill to the best of one's ability, to preserve a patient's privacy, to teach the secrets of medicine to the next generation, and so on.
Those days, doctors from all over the world are visiting Kos island to participated in a ceremony reviving the Hippocratic Oath in its original birthplace, in the ancient Asclepion where Hippocrates – the ‘father’ of modern medicine – once lived and practiced. Gathering in the sacred site where medicine began and taking the oath is to honour a great teacher and “remember the ethics of our science, according to Hippocrates, which must never be forgotten.”
