MEDICAL SYMBOLISM.CHAPTER I.REMARKS ON THE MEANING OF SYMBOLS.
A symbol is an illustration of a thing which, to use a poetic phrase, is “not what it seems.” When a familiar object, or figure of any kind, from some cause or other, has attached to it a meaning different from the obvious and ordinary one, it is symbolic. Thus, if one take a poppy-head to convey the idea of sleep, it is a symbol; one may regard it as symbolic of sleep, or, if he choose, of Hypnos (Somnus), the god of sleep. The illustration on the next page will afford a still more apt example. To the eye, it appears to be simply a partly coiled serpent resting on a pedestal. That is, in truth, what it is. But, regarded from the stand-point of the student of medical symbolism, it has another and very different signification. Before such a figure many a human being, diseased and suffering, has bowed in reverence and piously offered to it petitions for relief; to many a noble Greek and haughty Roman, indeed, to generations of such, it was a god, the great god of “the divine art,” as medicine was often beautifully called in ancient times. The serpent is the most important of medical symbols.
In any composite figure the elements of it are spoken of asattributes; and of these some areessentialand someconventional. The essential ones only are, strictly speaking, symbols. Thus, in a representation of theGoddess of Liberty, the cap is not a symbol; it is a conventional attribute. Says the learned and distinguished historian of ancient art, C. O. Müller, “The essence of the symbol consists in the supposed real connections of the sign with the thing signified.”[4]In some authoritative works, as, for instance, that of Fairholt,[5]the serpent in medical art is said not to be a symbol; but this is not true if it be taken to represent the god of medicine, which, as I have already stated, was done by both Greeks and Romans. Evidently, if taken as of this narrow meaning, there are not many comprehensive medical symbols. But I will take it in a wider sense; I will take it to mean any mystic figure or any kind of attribute. In doing so I do no more than Fairholt holds should be done. Referring to the wordssymbol,image, andallegorical figureas well asattribute, he says, “Their shades of difference are so slight that it would be most convenient to regard them all under the general termsymbol.”[6]I may add these remarks of Tiele: “A symbol is a simple or complex thought clothed in a sensuous form. A myth is a phenomenon of nature represented as the act of a person. Usually symbols originate in myths, and in every case mythology is antecedent to symbolism.”[7]There are many symbols, however, which never had anything to do with myths, as will become evident later.
Fig. 1.—A Medical Symbol.
Fig. 1.—A Medical Symbol.
In the wide sense in which I propose to use it, symbol is almost or quite synonymous withemblem, as popularly used. Mackenzie[8]and other authorities, however, state that the word emblem is properly applicable only to a mystic object or figure of two or more parts. Thus, it is more correct to speak of “a skull and cross-bones” as emblematic than symbolic of a poison or of death. Again, while a serpent might properly be called a symbol, one in connection with a staff is an emblem. In this restricted sense, emblem is closely allied in meaning toallegory. But in an allegorical representation most of the elements of it are apt to be symbolic, and beauty of the whole is a consideration. The great Epidaurian representation of Æsculapius is an example. A simple image orstatueis essentially a symbol.
I need hardly say that any figure may or may not be a symbol; but a merefigureis simply a representation of any object regarded as void of any other than its ordinary meaning. A conventional representation of any idea may be nothing more than a figure. In this sense, it is sometimes called anideograph.