“Hear my whole story; thou wilt wonder more
What useful arts, what science I invented.
This first and greatest; when the fell disease
Preyed on the human frame, relief was none,
Nor healing drug, nor cool, refreshing draught,
Nor pain-assuaging unguent; but they pined
Without redress, and wasted, till I taught them
To mix the balmy medicine, of power
To chase each pale disease, and soften pain.”[336]
Melampus, who was famous for his prophetic powers, was believed by the Greeks to have been the first mortal who practised the art of medicine, and established the worship of Dionysus in Greece. As doctors are frequently expected to exercise the art of prophecy in conjunction with their profession, it is unfortunate that we have retrograded from the Melampian type. The eminent physician who tells the over-inquisitive friends of his patients that he is “a doctor and not a prophet,” might be answered that originally the two functions were combined. Melampus taught the Greeks to mix their wine with water. He is fabled to have learned the language of the birds from some young serpents who had been reared by him, and who licked his ears when he was asleep. When he awoke he found that he understood what the birds said, and that he could foretell the future.