Week 2: Medical Evidence in Greek Poetry

The treasure trove of epic poetry

• Things to watch out for:

  • Concepts of Disease

  • Knowledge of Anatomy

  • Practical Methods

  • Role of the Physician/ Healer

  • Divine Intervention

Relevance for the study of ancient medicine

• 1879: argument: Homer “serving as deputy chief of medical staff with Agamemnon’s army”

  • NONSENSE

• However, REMARKABLE emphasis on wounds, medical details, anatomy, etc.

• Homeric poems were history for the Greeks

Epic poetry & history of medicine

• Snapshot of medical thoughts/ theories and practices before the composition of medical texts

• Public performance; relatable

• “Eye-witness” descriptions in poems ACTUAL eye-witness descriptions

• “Now all the rest of his flesh was covered by the armor of bronze, the fair armor that he had stripped from mighty Patroclus when he slew him; but there was an opening where the collarbones part the neck and shoulders, the throat, where destruction of life comes most speedily; there, as he rushed on him, noble Achilles drove with his spear; and clean out through the tender neck passed the point. But the ashen spear, heavy with bronze, cut not the windpipe, so that he might yet make answer and speak to him.” (#11)

“Then Idomeneus struck Erymas on the mouth with a thrust of the pitiless bronze, and clean through passed the spear of bronze beneath the brain, and split asunder the white bones; and his teeth were shaken out, and both his eyes were filled with blood; and up through mouth and nostrils he spurted blood as he gaped, and a black cloud of death enfolded him..” #9

Healers in Homeric Poems

• “worth many other men for the cutting out of arrows and the sprinkling on of soothing herbs” (#4); but among the soldiers

• Machaon & Podalirius: established medical family

• Divine ancestry: Asclepius (father), Apollo (grandfather)

• Knowledge of drugs from Chiron, the centaur

• Practical & divine elements

• Craftsmen, “servants of mankind at large,” don’t need gods

homeric poem

Down from the peaks of Olympus he strode, angry at heart, with his bow and covered quiver on his shoulders. The arrows rattled on the shoulders of the angry god as he moved; and his coming was like the night. Then he sat down apart from the ships and let fly an arrow; terrible was the twang of the silver bow. The mules he attacked first and the swift dogs, but then on the men themselves he let fly his stinging arrows, and struck; and ever did the pyres of the dead burn thick.

For nine days the missiles of the god ranged through the army, but on the tenth Achilles called the army to the place of assembly, for the goddess, white-armed Hera, had put it in his heart; for she pitied the Danaans because she saw them dying. So, when they were assembled and met together, among them rose and spoke Achilles, swift of foot: “Son of Atreus, now I think we shall be driven back and return home, our plans thwarted—if we should escape death, that is—if indeed war and pestilence alike are to subdue the Achaeans. But come, let us ask some seer or priest, or some reader of dreams—for a dream too is from Zeus—who might tell us why Phoebus Apollo has conceived such anger, whether it is because of a vow that he blames us, or a hecatomb; in the hope that perhaps he may accept the savor of lambs and unblemished goats, and be minded to ward off destruction from us.” (#1)

Then the wounded Eurypylus said to him: “No longer, Zeus-born Patroclus, will there be any defense of the Achaeans, but they will fling themselves on to the black ships. For indeed all they who were best men before lie among the ships struck by arrows or wounded with spear-thrusts at the hands of the Trojans, whose strength constantly increases. But save me, and lead me to my black ship, and cut the arrow from my thigh, and wash the black blood from it with warm water, and sprinkle on it soothing herbs of healing power, which men say you have learned from Achilles, whom Cheiron taught, the most just of the Centaurs. For the healers, Podaleirius and Machaon, the one I believe lies wounded among the huts, having need himself of an incomparable healer, and the other in the plain awaits the sharp battle of the Trojans.”

…

He spoke and grasping the shepherd of men below the chest led him to his hut, and his attendant when he saw them spread on the ground hides of oxen. There Patroclus made him lie stretched out, and with a knife cut from his thigh the sharp-piercing arrow, and from the wound washed the black blood with warm water, and on it cast a bitter root, when he had rubbed it between his hands, a root that slays pain, which stayed all his pains; and the wound began to dry, and the blood ceased to flow. (#13)

Divine Healing

• Gods as cause of illness & its remedy (cf. Apollo book 1)

• Natural wounds vs. Divine

• “But countless other miseries roam among mankind; for the earth is full of evils, and the sea is full; and some sicknesses come upon men by day, and others by night, of their own accord, bearing evils to mortals in silence, since the counselor Zeus took their voice away” (#11)

• “Upon them Cronus’ son brings forth woe from the sky, famine together with pestilence, and the people die away; the women do not give birth, and the households are diminished by the plans of Olympian Zeus.” (#12)

Healing Deities

• apollo

• artemis

• chiron

• asklepios

apollo

• Common image: sun god, god of music

• Archer: medicine (Iliad sending disease)

• Cause & cure of disease

• Learned medicine from Chiron & fathers Asklepios with the nymph Koronis

• Epithets: iatros (physician) & paean (healer)

• Main cultic site: Delphi (also healing sanctuary)

artemis

• Virgin goddess (hunt)

• Twin of Apollo (feeling familiar?)

• Causes death (arrows) & restores health

• Many incantations invoke her

chiron

• Medicinal herbs

• First healer/ physician

• Trainer of heroes

• Taught medicine to Apollo & Asklepios (& to Melampus, Jason, Herakles, Machaon, Podalirius, and Achilles)

asklepios

• First mentioned in Hesiod & Homer

• Son of Apollo & Koronis

• Born through cesarean section, raised by Chiron

• Killed by Zeus for attempted resurrection of Hippolytus

Divine intervention

Book 1: Plague: divine cause & message —> decipher message —> make amends —> gods consider sacrifice —> acceptance: end of disease

Book 1: offense: taking Chryseis; solution: return girl & sacrifice to Apollo

Rational vs. Supernatural

• Divinely ordained diseases (popular view)

• Natural causes (some medical schools of thought)

• “But come, tell me this, and declare it truly. What fate of pitiless death overcame you? Was it long disease, or did the archer, Artemis, assail you with her gentle shafts, and slay you?” (#7)

• DON’T DISMISS supernatural views; rationality is subjective

Final notes

• Practical methods can be supplemented by supernatural approaches

• “...and the wound of flawless, godlike Odysseus they bound up skillfully, and checked the black blood with a charm, and immediately returned to the house of their staunch father. And when Autolycus and the sons of Autolycus had fully healed him, and had given him glorious gifts, they quickly sent him rejoicing back to his native land, to Ithaca.”

• Gods (can) have dual natures: cause & cure disease (Apollo, Artemis)

• Alliances between gods & also humans

• Medical pluralism!