CHAPTER VI.
THE GRECIAN GOD OF MEDICINE.
During most of the earlier part of their history it is safe to say the Greeks regarded Apollo as their main god of medicine. Being possessed of the eminent qualities of a sun-god, replacing Helios as such, and both mighty and popular, this was to be expected. Nothing could be more natural than to accord to a deification of the orb of day a direct concern with matters pertaining to life and death.[87] Who so blind and stupid as not to see and know that all vital activity is intimately connected with the presence and movements (apparent) of this great light- and heat-producing heavenly body!
In an old Chaldean hymn the power of the sun over health and disease is recognized. He is petitioned to relieve a patient. The petitioner, after saying that “the great lord, Hea, had sent him,” continues:—
“Thou at thy coming, cure the race of man;
Cause a ray of health to shine upon him;
Cure his disease.”[88]
However, the reader of Homer is well aware that medical affairs were regarded by the Greeks as subject to the will of Phœbus. The epidemic which affected the Grecian forces, spoken of in the beginning of his great work, was held to be caused by the god. Being moved to anger by the words of his daughter-robbed priest—
“Latona’s son a dire contagion spread