A Day in Old Athens; a Picture of Athenian Life

fine physiques and handsome faces. Your typical Greek is fair in color and has very regular features. The youths do not m

in more artificially reared communities.[*] Nevertheless, the Athenians are certainly mortal, and subject to bodily ills, and the phys

thiness of the Greeks is found in the very rare mention

kind of herb poultice which would keep wounds from festering. Homer speaks of Asclepius; however, in early days he was not a god, but simply a skilful leach. Then as we approach historic times the physician's art becomes more regular. Asclepius is elevated into a separate and important deity, although it

table, imaginative state; and of the very human means employed to produce a satisfactory and informing dream.[+] Nevertheless it is a great deal to convince the patient that he is sure of recovery, and that nobody less than a god has dictated the remedies. The value of mental therapeutics is keenly appreciated. Attached to the temple are skilled physicians to "interpret" the dream, and opportunities for prolonged residence with treatment by baths, purgation, dieting, mineral waters, sea baths, all kinds of mild gymnastics, etc. Entering u

s, where the Asclepius cult seems

of blasphemous parody, in Aristophanes's "Plutus." (Significant passages

various Catholic pil

es) t

erybody has entire faith in them; for many lesser ills also they ar

a "regular private practitioner," and look about us. The office itself is a mere open shop in the front of a house near the Agora; and, like a barber's shop is something of a general lounging place. In the rear one or two young disciples (doctors in embryo) and a couple of

; probably they were mainly concerned with the health of t

yrian nard. He will gladly tell you that he is in no wise a fop, but that it is absolutely necessary to produce a pleasant personal impression upon his fastidious, irritable patients. Menon himself claims to have been a personal pupil of the great Hippocrates,[*] and about every other reputable Greek physician will make the same claim.

old man. He died in Thessaly in 357

this brotherhood has sworn is noble and not

and no others. I will prescribe such treatment as may be for the benefit of my patients, according to my best power and judgment, and preserve them from anything hurtful or mischievous. I will never, even if asked, administer poison, nor advise its use. I will never give a criminal draught to a woman. I will m

ed translation of t

ities" (revised editi

in dealing with wounds and sprains, such as are common in the wars or in the athletic games. He understands that Dame Nature is a great healer, who is to be assisted rather than coerced; and he dislikes resorting to violent remedies, such as bleedings and strong emetics. Ordinary fevers and the like he can attack with success. He has no modern an?sthetics or opium, but has a very insufficient substitute in mandragora. He can treat simple diseases of

er by the local physician to a traveling surgeon, who could p

of logic and rhetoric, to submit to disagreeable treatment; and for that end has taken lessons in informal oratory from Isocrates or one of his associates. Some of Menon's competitors (f

an, was sometimes thus hired. A truly Greek arti

andage them himself, perforce put up with the secondary skill and wisdom of the "disciples." The drug-mixing slaves are expected to salv

to sell his inexperience and his quack nostrums. Vendors of every sort of cure-all abound, as well as creatures who work on the superstitions and pretend to cure by charms and hocus-pocus. In the market there is su

Menedemos,

passed a Zeus

rble nor his Z

d-they burie

dream of the qua

es, slee

the phy

tes nev

t fatal

ater than 360 B.C., but they are perfectly in ke

o the Athenians. Constant exercise in the gymnasia, occasional service in the army, the absence of cramping and unhealthful office work, and a climat