Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Westernmedicinedocs4 6
Westernmedicinedocs4 6
said to be countless plagues ravaging the evil Earth. “Of themselves diseases come upon
men continually by day and by night, bringing mischief to mortals silently” (21). Zeus is
controlling all of these events. The violent and cruel individuals are punished by Zeus, at
times “even a whole city suffers for a bad man who sins…” (21). The issue here is that Zeus
threw down diseases at these people but also famine at the same time. The men would die
and the women could not have children, resulting in a chain effect of less population.
Similar to the last document, this is another instance of a Greek God invoking physical
harm (plague) upon the people. Medicine is clearly seen as a partially religious topic in
Ancient Greece. The document also speaks to the power that a god like Zeus has. “Zeus has
thrice ten thousand spirits, watchers of mortal men, and these keep watch on judgement
and deeds of wrong…” (21).
#6 Title: Violence and Healing in Homeric Greece
Approx Date: Seventh or eighth century BCE again since it is referring to the Iliad.
Civilization: The Ancient Greeks
Summary: This document covers a lot of anatomical information, specifically “the effects
of violent wounds, and their treatments…” (22). For being in ancient times, the ability to
tell how deep and severe a battle wound was is quite significant in terms of the future of
medicine. All of this knowledge makes readers start to wonder if Homer was a physician
himself. It is important to note that unlike document 4 where it was mainly focusing on
religion to cure diseases, this document focuses on treating wounds “by surgery and
painkilling herbs” (22).
What the document tells us: This document is broken down into two separate passages
from the Iliad. In the first passage, Menelaos is struck by an arrow that “struck the belt
that went tightly around him” (22). The belt was actually there to prevent arrows or darts,
but the arrow still managed to find its way through. It is obvious the attack could have
been very fatal if it were not for the belt as well as Menelaos kind of being thrown out of
the way. “She turned it from his skin as a mother whisks a fly from off her child” (22).
There was a wound present with blood flowing out of it. King Agamemnon saw this and
was initially afraid. Menelaos makes clear to him the attack is not as severe as it looks and
to not be alarmed. King Agamemnon tells Menelaos “…the surgeon shall examine your
wound and lay herbs upon it to relieve your pain” (22). At this point, we see the stark
difference from the first two documents because there is somewhat more practicality in the
practice of medicine (i.e. not totally religion). Machaon soon came into the picture and was
seen as the ultimate healer in this particular passage. He undid the belt, “wiped away the
blood and applied some soothing drugs” (23).
In the second passage, Menelaos is fighting and gets struck on his shield, but is protected
by it. Eventually Meriones “aimed a bronze-tipped arrow at him as he was leaving the field
and hit him on the right buttock” (23). This arrow ended up going through bone and into
Noah Riccelli
History of Western Medicine I
Dr. Rohrer
4 October 2020
the bladder. At this point, he is obviously deceased and bleeding heavily. It is interesting at
the end where it says “…but there was no ransom that could bring his dead son back to life
again” (23). This passage tells us simply a description of a deadly injury and includes some
anatomy. While the anatomy is relatively simple in today’s age, back that knowledge was
not readily understood. It also further backs the prediction that Homer may have been a
physician to know all of these anatomical things.