All sorts of magical powers were attributed to
Empedocles. The story of Pantheia whom he called back to life after a
thirty days' trance has long clung in the imagination. You remember
how Matthew Arnold describes him in the well-known poem, "Empedocles on
Etna"--
But his power
Swells with the swelling evil of this time,
And holds men mute to see where it will rise.
He could stay swift diseases in old days,
Chain madmen by the music of his lyre,
Cleanse to sweet airs the breath of poisonous streams,
And in the mountain-chinks inter the winds.
This he could do of old--(5)
a quotation which will give you an idea of some of the powers attributed
to this wonder-working physician.
(5) Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold, Macmillan & Co., 1898,
p. 440.
But of no one of the men of this remarkable circle have we such definite
information as of the Crotonian physician Democedes, whose story
is given at length by Herodotus; and his story has also the great
importance of showing that, even at this early period, a well-devised
scheme of public medical service existed in the Greek cities. It dates
from the second half of the sixth century B.C.--fully two generations
before Hippocrates.
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