This is precisely what the sanitary authorities do with fever dens at the present day.
Homer several times refers to Machaon:—
“And great Machaon to the ships convey.
A wise physician, skilled our wounds to heal,
Is more than armies to the public weal.”
(Iliad, XI. 614.)
With Podalirius, his brother, also a “famed surgeon,” he went to Troy with thirty ships. Homer calls them “divine professors of the healing arts” (Iliad, II. 728), and to them was committed the care of the medical work of the expedition.
When Menelaus had been wounded by the spear of Pandarus, Machaon, we are told by Homer (Iliad, IV. 218)—
“Sucked the blood, and sovereign balm infused,
Which Cheiron gave, and Æsculapius used.”