Before medicine became a science the role of the physician and priest were combined in many cultures, and existed in what we know today as the witch doctor, shaman, or medicine man, and the earliest snake charmers were traditional healers. Their aim was holistic healing, the healing of both mind and body. They used herbs, potions, charms, incantations, exorcism, magic, divination, and prayers, in their means to establish the cure. Aesculapius, we are told, was the first doctor of medicine with the ability to restore people to life. The name and the profession were continued in the Asclepiadae, an order of priest-physicians in Greece. Those seeking aid in healing stayed for periods of time in what was called an Asclepieion (or Asklepieion), a sanctuary or shrine dedicated to Asclepius. They slept overnight in these places where the god was said to reveal the remedies for the disease in dreams, they reported their dreams to a priest the following day who prescribed a cure. The Asklepieion at Epidaurus is traditionally regarded as the birthplace of Asclepius. Other Asklepieions were located in Athens, Cos, Pergamum, and later Rome, where his worship spread after a plague in 293 B.C.
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