AqualogNEWS100
14
Lexicon
AesculapianSnake
Elaphe: theGreekwordelaphos
means“deer”
Zamenis:anancient snakename
longissima:Latinmeaning“longest”
Portrait of anadultAesculapianSnake.
all photos:FrankSchäfer
AesculapianSnakes lurk inbushes in thisposture, lying inwait for birds.
Snakeorworm?
The interpretation of the staff of
Aesculapius is, however, not undisputed.
Although there isnodoubt that the cult of
Aesculapius existed in the Mediterranean
area, and it is also known for certain that
snakes were kept in the temples and the
peaceful, non-venomous, and slow-to-bite
AesculapianSnakewassurelyamongthem,
there is also a completely different
explanation for the staff.
There is a horrible parasite of humans
known as the MedinaWorm (
Dracunculus
medinae
). Humans can become infected if
they drink unfiltered water and thus
swallow the small copepods (
Cyclops
, etc)
that are intermediatehosts. for theMedina
Worm. Once swallowed, the worm larva
hatches inthestomachof thehuman,bores
through the intestinal wall, and migrates
into thebodycavity.Here themale,which is
only3cm long,mateswiththeupto120cm
long femaleandthendies.Thehumanbody
encapsulates itand itposesnodanger.
But the femalemigrates through the tissue
of theafflictedpersonandheads foranarea
where the victim comes into contact with
water, where she causes a pigeon-sized
“boil”. If the area comes into contact with
water, the thin skin covering the topof the
boil bursts and the female protrudes the
end of her body and releases hundreds of
larvae into thewater,where theyparasitize
Cyclops–and thecycle iscomplete.
Theremovalof theworm ispossibleonlyby
fixing theendof the female’sbody toastick
and carefullywinding it round the latter –
nomore than 10 cm per day. If the worm
ruptures, dangerous infection may follow.
The removal of theworm (which isvirtually
extinct today, but was widespread in the
Mediterranean area – Egypt, for example –
in historic times) was reserved for
specialists.The theory that these specialists
useda rodwithawormwound round it as
the emblem of their profession, and that
subsequently
this
symbol
was
metamorphosed into the staff and snake in
Greece (where the Medina Worm didn’t
occur), isat leastplausible.
AesculapianSnakes in the terrarium
This splendid,up to2meters long, snake is
