A typed ten paged document stapled together and is composed out of paper and black ink. The document, assumed lecture paper, is broken down into four paragraphs and a note section located at the bottom of the page. At the central top of the paper are the words, "The Asklepian Myths Revalued." Chauncey D. Leake, The Ohio State University, Columbus. " In the upper left corner is an illegible handwritten message in black pen. The document reads, "The Asklepian myths are used currently in the initiation rites of USA Greek-letter medical fraternities. These brotherhoods in the healing arts have chapters at medical schools and their members are pledged to support the ancient ethical standards of the Hippocratic Oath. Medical fraternity rituals include appearances of Asklepios as the son of the wounding and healing Apollo, born at the death of his mother Koronis.^1 (For more info look at the note section). While modern American medical fraternities pay lip service to Asklepian mythology, the original meaning has been forgotten and the symbolism confused. This is the usual fate of myths: they become distorted for various practical or political reasons and are edited to fir special conditions. Their history is therefore important, so that we may understand what we are doing when we refer to them. Recent popularized studies by Robert Graves suggest that the classical Greek myths convey records of historical events in the Eastern Mediterranean, chiefly the overthrow of a moon-worshipping, matriarchal stone-and bronze-age culture by invasions of sun-worshipping, patriarchal, iron-weaponed tribes from the North. As Kerenyi argues, the mythological birth of Asklepios is symbolic of the teaching that life comes from death, as occurs in parallel myths. Asklepios was the archetypal image of the gentle sympathetic man, later the physician, who cared for the sick and injured. He was also the ideal of the slowly-growing group of professional physicians associated with his shrines, as at Kos. Graves suggests that the name, Asklepios, meaning, "the gentle one", would have been a complimentary title given to all physician-heroes."

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