“Some spells brought back to life;
These drank the potion plan’d; for these he bound
With drugs the aching wound;
Some leaped to strength beneath the helpful knife.”[139]
The lines just given certainly serve to disprove the statement of Pliny, that in Homeric times “the healing art confined itself solely to the treatment of wounds.”[140] It is doubtless true, however, that nothing is said in Homer’s works about particular diseases.
It has been held that Æsculapius, like More’s Utopians, did not think it wise to bring to bear the art of healing in the case of any one who might not be restored to health and to usefulness to himself and others. Says Plato: “He thought medical treatment ill bestowed upon one who could not live in his regular round of duties, and so was of no use either to himself or to the State.”[141] The great philosopher accordingly regarded him as “a profound politician.” For, in his ideal state, this celebrated theorizer would have physicians “bestow their services on those only of the citizens whose bodily and mental constitutions are sound and good, leaving those that are otherwise, as to the state of their body, to die, and actually putting to death those who are naturally corrupt and incurable in soul.”[142] Some excellent reasons might be advanced in favor of such a harsh policy, but, while human love of life and human sympathy remain as now, it will never be brought into play.[143] As an ideal physician, Æsculapius could hardly have been an advocate of it.[144]
I may say a word about the charge of Pindar, that the efforts of Æsculapius to recall the dead to life were inspired by temptation with gold. The poet says:—
“Alas! that filthy gain can blind the wise!