Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/69

 Cnossus in Crete, but hitherto no interpreter of this unknown language has been found. It is reasonable to expect, however, that in due time these Minoan records will be translated, that still other records belonging to this remote age will be discovered, and that much valuable information regarding the condition of medical knowledge in Greece during this long period will then be revealed to us. Strange as it may appear, the classical Greek writers seem to have possessed very little knowledge concerning this highly developed civilization at Cnossus. And yet, if we stop to consider the matter, their silence will appear less strange for the following reasons. Some great calamity (war, an earthquake, or a conflagration) must have destroyed many of the evidences of Minoan civilization besides those which are now being brought to light; then, also, several hundred years elapsed between the occurrence of this disaster and the classical period of Greek culture; and, finally, there is the fact that the knowledge of past historical events, when kept alive simply by tradition, slowly vanishes, until finally it becomes so vague as to possess very little value. The discoveries made in the Island of Crete and at Mycenae were not known to Daremberg when he wrote the lines quoted above, but he felt perfectly sure, from his knowledge of the laws of development in general, that a product so highly cultured as Homer could not have suddenly sprung into existence out of the apparent darkness and ignorance of the centuries immediately preceding his time.

''The State of Medical Knowledge at the Time of the Siege of Troy.''—It is from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey that our authoritative knowledge of the most ancient Greek medicine is derived. In the former work mention is made of Aesculapius and his two sons, Machaon and Podalirius, both of whom accompanied Agamemnon and the Greek host in their expedition against Troy. According to this author's account they served in the double capacity of surgeons to the army and valiant leaders of troops. In order that the reader may judge for himself just what is the nature of the evidence furnished by Homer with regard