Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

Private Life 163
Physicians
Basic first aid was practiced on the Greek battlefield from earliest
times. Homer tells us that the Greek army at Troy relied on
the services of two physician brothers named Machaon and Podaleirios,
sons of Asklepios, who came from Thessaly, the original
home of the healing god before he was elevated to godhead.
Machaon extracted an arrow from Menelaos’s midriff, sucked the
blood from his wound, and then applied “healing medicines that
Chiron [a centaur] had once generously given to his father” (The
Iliad 4.218f.). Homeric physicians were not employed full-time but
practiced medicine in a secondary capacity; Machaon had to be summoned
from the battlefield to attend Menelaos. Not until the late
sixth or early fifth century b.c.e. do we hear of professional physicians
in the Greek world. One of the most famous was Demokedes
of Krotona (a city in southwestern Italy), whose impressive career
is reported at length by Herodotos (3.129–37). Demokedes had a
truly international reputation. After curing Dareios, king of Persia,
he was employed first by the Aiginetans, then by the Athenians,
and finally by Polykrates, tyrant of Samos. His salary increased
in line with his growing reputation. The Aiginetans offered him
60 minai for his services, the Athenians 100, and Polykrates 120.
(1 mina was equivalent to 100 drachmas, and 1 drachma was probably
the equivalent in the sixth century b.c.e. of at least two days’
pay). Demokedes’ career indicates that, as early as the beginning of
the sixth century b.c.e., there were physicians who were prepared
to move from place to place in response to local demand. The Hippocratic
treatise entitled Airs, Waters, and Places, whose subject
is the effect of climate, water supply, and location on the general
health of a population, was probably written to assist physicians in
their travels. We know of no Greek state that provided free public
health service to its citizens, however. Public physicians, so designated,
probably received a retainer in return for residing within the
state’s territory for a fixed period of time but were free to charge
for their services. It is unlikely that they would have been able to
administer to the needs of more than a small fraction of the total
population.
The principal centers of medical learning and research were Krotona
in southern Italy, Kyrene in Libya, the island of Kos (in the eastern
Aegean), and Knidos on the west coast of Turkey. There were
no medical institutions in the modern sense of the word, however.
Physicians did not have to undergo any formal training. Nor did