Homer a Cure for the Ague
.It was an old superstition that if the fourth book of the Iliad was laid under the head of a patient suffering from quartan ague it would cure him at once. Serēnus Sammonĭcus, preceptor of Gordian and a noted physician, vouchee for this remedy.
“Mæoniæ Iliados quartum suppone timenti.”—Præcepta de Medicina, 50.
⁂ The subject of this book is as follows: While Agamemnon adjudges that Menelāos is the winner, and that the Trojans were bound to yield, according to their compact, Pandăros draws his bow, wounds Menelaos, and the battle becomes general. The reason why this book was selected is because it contains the cure of Menelāos by Machāon, “a son of Æsculapius.”
