[PP-042]

Ancient Healing Temples Specialized in Urogenital Diseases

¹Department of Urology, University of Health Sciences, Dr. Sadi Konuk Education and Training Hospital, Bakırköy Istanbul
²Esenyurt University, Kolan International Hospital, Department of Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplantation, Sisli, Istanbul

INTRODUCTION: From the moment of its existence, mankind has been searching for the remedies to their diseases. This quest in polytheistic antiquity has revealed an institutionalized temple medicine model with the effect of Greek mythology and gods. People going to the temple for their illnesses begged to the gods, presented miniature samples of their organs they wanted to be healed as offerings, stayed in the temples for the treatment.
In this paper, we intended to reveal which temples were specialized in urogenital diseases and the relation of these votives with urogenital diseases by looking at the frequency of male genitalia and urinary votives in the temples.
METHOD: Temple healing centers of gods in Anatolia,Greece and Italy where ancient Greece and Rome civilizations lived simultaneously, urogenital offering samples in archaeological museums in Turkey and world have been investigated.
RESULTS: People presenting anatomical organ votives to the gods when they wish healing or post-treatment were seen for the first time in 3000BC, MinoanPeak Temple located in AegeanSea area, for next centuries continued in the temples of ancient Greek,Etruscan and Roman gods. The most famous one was Asclepius, the god of health, and healing temples were made in his name called the Asclepeion.(Figure1a)
Most of male genitalia offering were discovered in Corinth and Athens Asclepeion in Greece and in Cales(Caserta) Temples near Napoli and Campetti in city of Veii in Italy.(Figure1b,c)In most of the genital votives it was seen that testes were together with phimotic penes. The bladder votives were discovered in most of the temples, not being very frequent.(Figure1d)Of these ancient cities, some had brothels, some were port-cities with crowded populations. In the cities with high population or brothels, most important reason of urogenital disorders, phimosis firstly, are STDs particularly gonorrhea.
CONCLUSIONS: Discovery of many bladder and male genitalia votives in Corinth,Athens, Campetti and Cales Temples revealed that these temples were specialized in male urogenital diseases. However, temples of specialty was not seen in Anatolia.Although most of them were phimotic penes it is possible that some of these votives were about urinary and genital diseases such as difficulty urinating, dysuria, bladder stone, even impotence and infertility.

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Figure 1a: Asklepios sculpture discovered in Epidaurus Asclepeion, National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece
Figure 1b: Examples of genital votive samples discovered in Athens Asclepeion, National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece
Figure 1c: Male genital votives discovered in the Temple of Cales (Caserta), Naples Archaeological Museum, Italy
Figure 1d: Various bladder votive samples from baked clay discovered in temples