More mythical than the story of Æsculapius, or even of Orpheus, who was also alleged to have discovered some of the secrets of medicine, is the legend of Prometheus who stole fire from heaven for the benefit of mankind. According to the older mythologists Prometheus was the same as Magog, and was the son of Japhet. Æschylus is the principal authority on his tradition. After recounting many other wonderful things he had done for humanity, the poet makes him say, “One of the greatest subtilties I have invented is that when any one falls ill, and can find no relief; can neither eat nor drink, and knows not with what to anoint himself; when for want of the necessary remedies he must perish; then I showed to men how to prepare healing medicine which should cure all maladies.” Or as Dean Plumptre has rendered it:-- If any one fell ill There was no help for him nor healing balm, Nor unguent, nor yet potion; but for want Of drugs they wasted till I showed to them The blendings of all mild medicaments Wherewith they ward the attacks of sickness sore. In other words, Prometheus was the first pharmacist. MELAMPUS. Melampus was a shepherd to whom we owe, as legend tells us, hellebore (Gr. Melampodion) and iron as medicines. Melampus studied nature closely, and, when young, brought up by hand some young serpents, who were dutifully grateful for the cares he had bestowed on them. One day, finding him asleep, two of them crept to his ears and so effectively cleaned them with their tongues that when he woke he found he could easily make out the language of birds, and hear a thousand things which had previously been hidden from man. Thus he became a great magician. In tending his goats he observed that whenever they ate the black hellebore they were purged. Afterwards, many of the women of Argos were stricken with a disease which made them mad. They ran about the fields naked, and believed they were cows. Among the women so afflicted were the three daughters of Proetus, the king of Argos. Melampus undertook to cure the three princesses, and did so by giving them the milk of the goats after they had eaten the hellebore. His reward was one of them for his wife and a third of the kingdom. Another cure effected by Melampus was by his treatment of Iphiclus, king of Phylacea, who greatly desired to beget children. Melampus gave him rust of iron in wine, and that remedy proved successful. This was the earliest Vinum Ferri. Melampus is supposed to have lived about 1380 B.C. GLAUCUS.