Agamede is referred to by Homer (Iliad, XI. 739) as acquainted with the healing properties of all the plants that grow on the earth. She was a daughter of Augeias, and wife of Mulius. The poet refers to her as—
“She that all simples’ healing virtues knew,
And every herb that drinks the morning dew.”[340]
Hesiod lived about the same time as Homer. He wrote the famous Works and Days, a species of farmer’s calendar, and the Theogony.
On account of the knowledge he possessed of the properties of plants, Theophrastus, Pliny, and others ranked him amongst the physicians.[341]
Both Podalirius and Machaon were held in great honour, not only as combatants, but as medical advisers, and Homer’s account of them exhibits the medical profession of his time as one that was very highly esteemed. In the fragment of Arctinus which remains to us, we find thus early the distinction made between the arts of medicine and surgery, the two principal divisions of medical science: “Then Asclepius bestowed the power of healing upon his two sons; nevertheless, he made one of the two more celebrated than the other; on one did he bestow the lighter hand, that he might draw missiles from the flesh, and sew up and heal all wounds; but he other he endowed with great precision of mind, so as to understand what cannot be seen, and to heal seemingly incurable diseases.”[342]
This very interesting extract not only shows the early separation of the arts of medicine and surgery, but it exhibits very clearly how it arose that the former was always held to be the higher branch of the medical profession. To sew up a laceration, or extract an arrow or a thorn from the flesh, demanded only manual dexterity; but “to understand that which cannot be seen,” and heal internal organs that cannot even be touched, required a skill and a mental precision that men even in those early times were able to appreciate as much the higher of the two arts. There seems, however, some confusion of the two branches in the lines:—
“A wise physician, skilled our wounds to heal,
Is more than armies to the public weal.”
If we suppose that the account of venesection which attributes its discovery to Podalirius is fabulous, this would only serve to prove the antiquity of the practice. Hippocrates is said to be the first medical writer who has spoken of bleeding,[343] yet we must not suppose it was unknown before his time. He advises blood-letting from the arm, from the temporal vessels, from the leg, etc., in some cases even to fainting. He is familiar with cupping and other methods of abstracting blood; it is not probable, therefore, that the operation was a new one in his day.