The medicine and surgery of Homer / by Henry Dunbar.

  • Dunbar, Henry, -1883.
Date:
[1880]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The medicine and surgery of Homer / by Henry Dunbar. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    five times mortal. , . lyvit) (ignue), the ham (Lat. poplh; once in Iliad. Kpaoi-q (cradie) (Lat. cor), the heart; many times in Iliad and Odyssey ; once mortal in Iliad, Book xiii, 442; the only instance in which the heart was pierced. kv(stls (cystis), the bladder ; twice in Iliad, mortal. \aipbs (laimos), the throat; three times in Iliad, once in Odyssey; mortal. pafbs (mazos), the mamma; fourteen times in Iliad, three times in Odyssey; thirteen times mortal. pirunrov (metopon), the space between the eyes; twelve times in Iliad, four times in Odyssey; seven times mortal. pvekbs (myelos), marrow (Lat. medulla spinalis); twice in Iliad, twice in Odyssey; once mortal. o/x.0abbs (omphalos) (Lat. umbilicus), the navel; three tfmes in Iliad, not in Odyssey; three times mortal. o3as (ouas) (Lat. auris), the ear; twelve times in Iliad, eight times in Odyssey; seven times mortal. icpdabpbs (ophthalmos), the eye ; occurs repeatedly both in Iliad and in Odyssey; but as wounded five times; all mortal. irvetpuv (pneumon), the lung ; once in Iliad; mortal. irpcnrlSes (prapides), the diaphragm; four times in Iliad; twice mortal. arlpvov (sternum), the breast; sixteen times in Iliad, three times in Odyssey; three times mortal. tIvuv (tenon), a tendon ; seven times in Iliad, once in Odyssey ; four times mortal. 4>\l\p (phlebs), a vein ; once in Iliad (Book xiii, 546); mortal. XoXabes (cholades), the intestines; twice in Iliad; mortal. To these are added— apevdbvT] (sphendone), a sling bandage; once in Iliad (Book xiii, 600). (pdppaKov (pharmakon), a remedy or application, unguent, in Iliad nine times ; a drug or medicinal herb in Odyssey twenty times. It will be remarked that, in mentioning the blood that flows from the wounds of mortal men, Homer applies the word alpa (hasma); blood from the immortal gods has the word ix&p applied to it; this last is translated by some lexicographers as “ the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods”; by others, as “the fluid which distilled from the wounds of the gods, ichor”. I cannot do betLer, in bringing these remarks to a close, than give a quotation from the Observations on Homer's Battles, by the Rev. T. S. Watson, which will be found at the end of the fourth book of his edition of Pope’s Iliad. “Another cause of this variety is the difference of wounds that are given in the Iliad; they are by no means like the wounds described by most other poets which are commonly made in the self-same obvious places; the heart and head serve for all those in general who under- stand no anatomy; and sometimes, for variety, they kill even by wounds which are nowhere mortal but in their poems. As the whole human body is the subject of these, so nothing is more necessary to him who would describe them well than a thorough knowledge of its structure, even though the poet is not professedly to write of them as an anatomist; in the same manner as an exact skill in anatomy is necessary to those painters who would excel in drawing the naked body, though they are not to make every muscle as visible as in a book of chirurgery. It appears from so many passages in Homer that he was perfectly master of this science, that it would be needless to cite any in particular.”