Healing deities, healing cults, Greece and Rome

Abstract In one of his early works, Pablo Picasso placed at the sides of a dying person's bed a physician and a nun as symbols of science and charity. Despite the myriad sophisticated interpretations of the paintings, the two figures illustrate on the most basic level the eternal twin powers to which people appeal in cases of serious illness: medicine and religion. This attitude has not changed much since ancient times. In the period of Greek or even Roman antiquity, when western medicine was in its infancy and superstition dominated the diagnosis of illnesses, the cult of healing deities and heroes played a vital role in society.