“Apollo’s son, by double right, physician
And prophet both.”
This is somewhat of a circumlocution for the single Greek phrase, ἱατρόμαντις, physician-prophet; a name applied to Apollo himself by the Pythoness, in the prologue to the Eumenides ([p. 142] above). The original conjunction of the two offices of prophet and leech in the person of Melampus, Apis, Chiron, etc. and their patron Apollo, is a remarkable fact in the history of civilization. The multiplication and isolation of professions originally combined and confounded is a natural enough consequence of the progress of society, of which examples occur in every sphere of human activity; but there is, besides, a peculiar fitness in the conjunction of medicine and theology, arising from the intimate connexion of mind with bodily ailment, too much neglected by some modern drug-minglers, and also, from the fact that, in ancient times, nothing was more common than to refer diseases, especially those of a striking kind, to the immediate interference of the Divine chastiser—(see Hippocrates περὶ ἱερῆς νόσου init.). Men are never more disposed to acknowledge divine power than when under the influence of severe affliction; and accordingly we find that, in some savage or semi-savage tribes, the “medicine-man” is the only priest. It would be well, indeed, if, in the present state of advanced science, professional men would more frequently attempt to restore the original oneness of the healing science—(see Max. Tyr. πῶς ᾶν τις ἄλυπος ἒιη)—if all medical men would, like the late Dr. Abercrombie, bear in mind that man has a soul as well as a body, and all theologians more distinctly know that human bodies enclose a stomach as well as a conscience, with which latter the operations of the former are often strangely confounded.
“. . . Io, on this Argive ground,
Erst bore the keys to Hera.”
i.e. was priestess of the Argive goddess. The keys are the sign of custodiary authority in modern as in ancient times. See various instances in Stan.
“So runs the general rumour.”