Then in the _Odyssey_ (Book IV. 200) occurs the reference to nepenthe, a drug which has puzzled commentators exceedingly; some say it was poppy juice, others hashish; we have also the magic moly, which Mercury gave to Ulysses against the charms of Circe. By some this is thought to have been the unpoetical garlic, by others to be wild rue, such as Josephus refers to. It was more probably the mandrake.
There is a very curious and important reference to sulphur, as a disinfectant fumigation in the _Odyssey_ (Book XXII. 481):—
“Bring sulphur straight, and fire” (the monarch cries). “She hears, and at the word obedient flies, With fire and sulphur, cure of noxious fumes, He purged the walls and blood-polluted rooms.”
This is precisely what the sanitary authorities do with fever dens at the present day.
“And great Machaon to the ships convey. A wise physician, skilled our wounds to heal, Is more than armies to the public weal.” (_Iliad_, XI. 614.)
With Podalirius, his brother, also a “famed surgeon,” he went to Troy with thirty ships. Homer calls them “divine professors of the healing arts” (_Iliad_, II. 728), and to them was committed the care of the medical work of the expedition.
When Menelaus had been wounded by the spear of Pandarus, Machaon, we are told by Homer (_Iliad_, IV. 218)—
“Sucked the blood, and sovereign balm infused, Which Cheiron gave, and Æsculapius used.”
Agamede is referred to by Homer (_Iliad_, XI. 739) as acquainted with the healing properties of all the plants that grow on the earth. She was a daughter of Augeias, and wife of Mulius. The poet refers to her as—
“She that all simples’ healing virtues knew, And every herb that drinks the morning dew.”[340]
HESIOD lived about the same time as Homer. He wrote the famous _Works and Days_, a species of farmer’s calendar, and the _Theogony_.
On account of the knowledge he possessed of the properties of plants, Theophrastus, Pliny, and others ranked him amongst the physicians.[341]
Both Podalirius and Machaon were held in great honour, not only as combatants, but as medical advisers, and Homer’s account of them exhibits the medical profession of his time as one that was very highly esteemed. In the fragment of Arctinus which remains to us, we find thus early the distinction made between the arts of medicine and surgery, the two principal divisions of medical science: “Then Asclepius bestowed the power of healing upon his two sons; nevertheless, he made one of the two more celebrated than the other; on one did he bestow the lighter hand, that he might draw missiles from the flesh, and sew up and heal all wounds; but he other he endowed with great precision of mind, so as to understand what cannot be seen, and to heal seemingly incurable diseases.”[342]