It was maintained by the Egyptians that, besides the gods, there were many demons which communicated with mortals, and which were often rendered visible by certain ceremonies and songs; that genii exercised an habitual and powerful influence over every particle of matter; that thirty-six of these beings presided over the various members of the human body; and thus, by magical incantations, it might be strengthened, or debilitated, afflicted with, or delivered from disease. Thus, in every case of sickness, the spirit presiding over the afflicted part, was first duly invoked. But the magicians did not trust solely to their vain invocations; they were well acquainted with the virtues of certain herbs, which they wisely employed in their attempts at healing. These herbs were greatly esteemed: such, for instance, as the _cynocephalia_, or, as the Egyptians themselves termed the _asyrites_,[133] which was used as a preventive against witchcraft; and the nepenthes which Helen presented in a potion to Menelaus, and which was believed to be powerful in banishing sadness, and in restoring the mind to its accustomed, or even to greater, cheerfulness, were of Egyptian growth. But whatever may be the virtues of such herbs, they were used rather for their magical, than for their medicinal qualities; every cure was cunningly ascribed to the presiding demons, with which not a few boasted that they were, by means of their art, intimately connected. There can be no question, as attested by the earliest records, that the ancients were in possession of many potent remedies. Melampus of Argos, the most ancient Greek physician with whom we are acquainted, is reputed to have cured one of the Argonauts of barrenness, by exhibiting the rust of iron dissolved in wine, for the space of ten days. The same physician used hellebore as a purgative on the daughters of King Proteus, who were labouring under hypochondriasis or melancholy. Bleeding was also a remedy of very early origin, and said to have been first suggested by the hypopotamus or sea horse, which at a certain time of the year was observed to cast itself on the sea shore, and to wound itself among the rocks or stones, to relieve its plethora. Podalerius, on his return from the Trojan war, cured the daughter of Damaethus, who had fallen from a height, by bleeding her in both arms. Opium, the concrete juice of the poppy, was known in the earliest ages; and probably it was opium that Helen mixed with wine, and gave to the guests of Menelaus, under the expressive name of _Nepenthe_, to drown their cares, and encrease their hilarity. This conjecture, in a considerable degree, is supported from the fact, that Homer's Nepenthe was procured from the Egyptian Thebes, whence the tincture of opium, according to the nomenclature of the pharmacopeia about fifty years ago, and still known by this name in the older writers; and, if Dr. Darwin may be credited, the Cumaean Sybil