to the medical knowledge of that period, it seems desirable to introduce here a few of the more characteristic references which the poet makes to spear, javelin and arrow wounds, to the injuries caused by fragments of rocks hurled by the assailants, and to various remedial measures, both surgical and medical, employed for the relief of the wounded or sick warriors. There are at least one hundred such passages in the Iliad alone, but the few which are here cited will serve as adequate examples of Homer's familiarity with anatomy and with some of the methods of treating spear and arrow wounds,—a familiarity which indicates that the poet must have had some medical training.
Thus he; and not unmoved Machaon heard:
They through the crowd, and through the wide-spread host,
Together took their way; but when they came
Where fair-hair'd Menelaüs, wounded, stood,
Around him in a ring the best of Greece,
And in the midst the godlike chief himself,
From the close-fitting belt the shaft he drew,
With sharp return of pain; the sparkling belt
He loosen'd, and the doublet underneath,
And coat of mail, the work of Arm'rer's hand.
But when the wound appeared in sight, where struck
The stinging arrow, from the clotted blood
He cleans'd it, and applied with skilful hand
The healing ointments, which, in friendly guise,
The learned Chiron to his father gave.
(Book IV. of the Iliad, Lines 221-259.)
He said: the spear, by Pallas guided, struck
Beside the nostril, underneath the eye;
Crashed through the teeth, and cutting through the tongue
Beneath the angle of the jaw came forth:
Down from the car he fell; and loudly rang
His glittering arms: aside the startled steeds
Sprang devious: from his limbs the spirit fled.
Down leaped Aeneas, spear and shield in hand,
Against the Greeks to guard the valiant dead;
And like a lion, fearless in his strength,
