concept
Aesculapius
also: эскулап
The Greco-Roman god of medicine, whose name was used colloquially in 19th-century Russian as a mocking or jocular epithet for a doctor.
Reading notes
- The Christmas Tree §12 Aesculapius
The Greco-Roman god of medicine, used here (as often in 19th-century Russian) as a mock-elevated, jocular epithet for an ordinary doctor.
- Ivanov §350 The Aesculapius
Aesculapius (Asclepius) was the Greco-Roman god of medicine; his name was used colloquially in 19th-century Russian, often mockingly, as a jocular stand-in for "doctor." Count Shabelsky uses it here dismissively of Dr. Lvov, whose diagnosis of Anna Petrovna's consumption he refuses to believe ("докторское шарлатанство, фокус," "doctor's quackery, a trick"). See also the note at \S516, where Lebedev uses the same epithet good-naturedly rather than mockingly.
- Ivanov §516 Aesculapius
Lebedev's own use of the same mock-classical epithet for Dr. Lvov (see the note at \S350), here as a genial toast ("our humblest respects to Aesculapius") rather than Shabelsky's dismissive jab -- the same joking vocabulary put to a warmer purpose.