The medicine and surgery of Homer / by Henry Dunbar.

  • Dunbar, Henry, -1883.
Date:
[1880]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The medicine and surgery of Homer / by Henry Dunbar. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    and Penates. What was the occupation of these damsels in these stirring times ? Besides making up their lords’ and masters’ couches, and “redding up” their tent or tents, did they wash their linen, O Homer, for thou sayest nothing about it? No, for thou wouldst not descend from the sublime to the ridiculous ; and this brings me to re- mark again, that the washing of linen or clothes occurs only once in the Iliad (Book xxii, 155) : —“ 80t e'i/j,ara cnyaXbevTa irKtvetncov Tpibwv a\oxoi Ka\ai re Ovyarpes—” “ where the wives and handsome daughters of the Trojans were wont to wash their splendid garments”; and once in the Odyssey (Book vi, 31), where Minerva appears to Nausicaa in a dream, and desires her to go with her attendants to the river to wash her clothes preparatory to her marriage, she (Minerva) following as her assistant : “ Let us go, ” says Minerva, to wash them together with the morning’s dawn.” “ ctXX’ ’lofJiev TrXvvlovacu dpi 170? tpauv oplvqspiv IlXtW, to wash clean (clothes), is the opposite of Xobu, to wash the body, mid. \otopai, to wash one’s self: which verb occurs repeatedly both in the Iliad and Odyssey, and to idfw, to wash the hands, which is found three times in the Iliad and four times in the Odyssey. But, Nestor, what was a man at thv time of life doing with a fair maiden in thy tent ? Fie on’t ! O Pylian sage ! Was thine old lady, the once fair Eurydice, then far away in Pvlos, aware of the fact? Possibly so, for it seems to have been an universal custom among the Greek chiefs to take a captive maiden in their train. Horace sings that “ Serva Brise'is niveo colore Movit Achillem: Movit Ajacem Telamone natum Forma captivae dominum Tecmessae. All these damsels were of attractive beauty : and Homer himself had a keen eve for female and manly comeliness, for all the men and women, more especially in the Iliad, mentioned by him, were fair to see, ex- cept Thersites, the “inordinate babbler” (aKpiTipvdoi), who “was the ugliest man who came to Ilion”. But Patroclus is standing at the door of Nestor’s tent all this time. He is invited bv Nestor to come in and sit down. “ No seat for me,” replies Patroclus. Whereupon, possibly to punish him, Nestor, with the garrulity of old age, gives him a long description of valiant deeds done by him in his earlier years, keeping him standing all the while, and no doubt chafing, yet afraid to interrupt the old man, who winds up with a message of exhortation to be carried by him to Achilles. Patroclus hies him away to the ship of Achilles ; but, on his way, he falls in with his friend Eurvpvlus, wounded by an arrow in the thigh, limping to the rear ; Patroclus, like a true-hearted comrade, at his friend’s entreaty, carries him tenderly to his (Eurypylus’) tent, and does a little surgery on his own account. He cuts out the arrow from his friend’s thigh with some haphazard bistoury; he washes away the black blood with warm water ; then he applies a bitter pain-assuaging root, rubbing it in his hands, which eases all Eurypylus’ pangs ; the wound is dried up, and the haemorrhage ceases. Having completed this little bit of surgery, no doubt to his own and his wounded friend’s satisfac- tion, Patroclus hurries away, eager to deliver his message to his heaven- born chief Achilles. XVith regard to the pestilence which was committing such havoc in the Grecian camp, as mentioned in Iliad, Book i, 51, we have no means of knowing what kind of disease it was. The (bv and /WXos dis- charged by Apollo meant, metaphorically translated, sudden death~jfcif so, it might be likened, though in a far less degree as to the ravages Hi