Podalirius had a son Hippolochus, of whom the great Hippocrates was a descendant. Le Clerc devotes a chapter of his _History of Medicine_ to reflections on the antiquity of the practice of venesection, and speculates on the manner of its discovery. He says, the fact that Homer is silent on the subject makes neither for nor against the theory that it was known in his time; in such works as those of the poet he was under no obligation to specify particularly the remedies employed by the doctors. He speaks, for example, of soothing medicines and bitter roots without further definition. It would be as reasonable to agree that purgation was unknown from Homer’s silence on the matter. Homer knew something of the parts of the body where wounds are most fatal. He says (Book IV., l. 183), “The arrow fell in no such place as death could enter at,” and (Book VIII., l. 326), where the arrow struck the right shoulder ’twixt the neck and breast, “the wound was wondrous full of death.” He knew much of drugs and medicinal plants: φάρμακον (pharmakon) in the _Iliad_ is a remedy, an unguent or application, and is mentioned nine times; in the _Odyssey_ it is a drug or medicinal herb, and is referred to twenty times. In Book XI., Eurypylus, when wounded, is treated with the “wholesome onion,” a potion is confected with good old wine of Pramnius, with scraped goat’s-milk cheese and fine flour mixed with it. Later on in the same book, we read of the bruised, bitter, pain-assuaging root being applied to a wound; it was some strong astringent bitter plant, probably a species of geranium. Then in the _Odyssey_ (Book IV. 200) occurs the reference to nepenthe, a drug which has puzzled commentators exceedingly; some say it was poppy juice, others hashish; we have also the magic moly, which Mercury gave to Ulysses against the charms of Circe. By some this is thought to have been the unpoetical garlic, by others to be wild rue, such as Josephus refers to. It was more probably the mandrake. There is a very curious and important reference to sulphur, as a disinfectant fumigation in the _Odyssey_ (Book XXII. 481):— “Bring sulphur straight, and fire” (the monarch cries). “She hears, and at the word obedient flies, With fire and sulphur, cure of noxious fumes, He purged the walls and blood-polluted rooms.” This is precisely what the sanitary authorities do with fever dens at the present day. Homer several times refers to Machaon:— “And great Machaon to the ships convey. A wise physician, skilled our wounds to heal, Is more than armies to the public weal.” (_Iliad_, XI. 614.) With Podalirius, his brother, also a “famed surgeon,” he went to Troy with thirty ships. Homer calls them “divine professors of the healing arts” (_Iliad_, II. 728), and to them was committed the care of the medical work of the expedition.