CHAPTER

Introduction, synopsis
of chapters and the
1
Homeric question
Eric L Altschuler, MD, PhD, Metropolitan
Hospital, Associate Chief, Director of
Clinical Research, Department of Physical
Medicine and Rehabilitation, New York, NY,
United States, New York Medical College,
Clinical Associate Professor, Department of
Rehabilitation Medicine, Valhalla, NY, United
States

Who was Homer? That’s an easy question. He wrote the Iliad and Odyssey
a
. Others say that the same person did not write both epics. On this point
I agree strongly with one of Homer’s great English translators Richard
Lattimore who said in the introduction to his translation of the Odyssey
(Homer, 2007) that either Homer also wrote the Odyssey or someone who
had studied and knew the Iliad as intently and intimately as its author wrote
the Odyssey. (For more on this see Chapter 21).
What else do we know about Homer? Nothing. Yes. Nothing. We don’t
know where Homer was from, when he lived or even what dialect of Greek
he wrote in. We don’t know anything about Homer’s background or how
he lived and what work he might have done other than writing the two
epics. Similarly, we don’t know if the story of the siege of Troy in the
Iliad is an account of real happenings and we know nothing of Homer's
working methods.
The situation is worse than for Shakespeare as there is no literature or
historical written sources to which to compare Homer. Archaeology is not
helpful as we don’t know when Homer lived—​with proposed dates ranging
from 800 to 1200 BCE.
Ignorance about all these issues and along all these fronts comprise
what is known as the HOMERIC QUESTION. (We might further ask how
Homer supported himself while he was writing the epics.)
It seems hopeless to think that we can learn anything about Homer.
But we do have something to which to compare Homer. Human anatomy!
Human anatomy has not changed in the last 2800 years or 3200 years. First
catalogued in the 19th century by Fröhlich (Fröhlich, 1879) there are descrip-

a
Some people think they were written by a committee. Obviously proponents of this theory have never been on a
committee that issued a report.

1
2 Medicine in Homer

tions of more than 140 battle injuries in the Iliad. This has even led to sug-
gestions that Homer was a physician, indeed a surgeon ((MELCHIONDA,
1963), (MELCHIONDA, 1964), (Godquin, 1990)).
We can go further and try to surmise what level of experience as surgeon
Homer might have been: Homer not only shows an interest in battle inju-
ries but in doctors as well. As discussed in Chapter 3 quite a number are
mentioned in the Iliad. Two in particular stand out: Machaon, a surgeon and
his brother Podalirius a physician. Their father is the legendary Asclepius—​
he of the caduceus—​who himself was taught medicine by centaur Chiron.
Machaon is the Chief Surgeon among the Greek forces and Podalirius
the Chief Physician. Chiron also taught some medical skills to the great
warrior king Achilles (and Achilles taught his comrade Patroclus). This then
places Asclepius as the “Founding Dean” of Greek medicine. So Homer was
interested not only in injuries and medicine, but also, somehow, organized
medicine—​centuries before its known formal organization.Homer's respect
without jealousy or disillusionment of the medical hierarchy suggests he
was a senior surgical trainee or new junior qualified surgeon.
Further, the idea that Homer may have been a surgeon may immediately
give some insight into the composition of the Iliad. In Book 11 Machaon
himself is injured. The wise old man Nestor, King of Pylos, is called in to
help care for Machaon. (Nestor seems to have been quite literally “grand-
fathered” into the medical guild when they established the Board.) Now,
during wars doctors can be injured and someone needs to care for them.
But the possibility of survival of physicians in such circumstances can
be remote. However, "in Hollywood” the injured doctor being cared for
by someone else—​barber, officer, junior mate—​is de rigueur and a near
obligatory part of the plot, suggesting the Iliad is at least to some extent a
fictionalized telling of events.
Examination of Homer’s description of injuries, independent of the idea
that Homer may have been a surgeon, also yields insight into his poetic,
rhetorical style: Homer rarely mixes metaphors of real injuries with met-
aphoric concepts on heart, lungs and mind. Whereas, subtle combinations
and transmutations of these are the hallmark and indeed practically define
Shakespeare’s style.
Cataloging, describing, characterizing and analyzing the injuries in the
Iliad and the Odyssey leads one then naturally to consider the hypothesis
that Homer was a junior surgeon who had been embedded with a Greek
army on some war campaign.

In Chapter 2 I review Alwyn W Beasley MD's informative, intriguing,

inspiring and entertaining article (Beasley, 1972) about orthopaedics in
Homer. This is the article that got me interested in medicine in Homer
and is really the foundational article on the topic in the Twentieth century.
 Chapter 1 | Introduction, synopsis of chapte 3

In Chapter 3 orthopaedic surgeon Christos Kousterimpas briefly intro-

duces, surveys and discusses the physicians and many other medical per-
sonnel in the Iliad and the Odyssey.
In Chapter 4 I discuss the curious character Thersites, the only character
in the Iliad without a patronymic or country, his medical condition and
relation of this to Homer and the epics. In Chapter 5 I make suggestions
for which translations of Homer to use.
The second section Trauma in Homer is the heart of the book. In Chapter
6 orthopaedic surgeon Christos Kousterimpas gives an updated (Fröhlich,
1879) trauma registry for the Iliad. In Chapter 7 Koutserimpas supplies the
trauma registry for Homer's Odyssey and in Chapter 8 he describes and
discusses trauma medicine and treatment in Homer. In Chapters 9-​13
Tyler Lucas, MD, Chief of Orthopaedic Surgery at Metropolitan Hospital,
Anusha Lekshminarayanan, MD, a Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation
Medicine doctor from Westchester Medical Center and myself catalog and
analyze the injuries to the upper extremity (Chapter 9), thorax (Chapter
10), abdomen (Chapter 11) and lower extremity and pelvis (Chapter 12) in
the Iliad. In Chapter 13 the extremely lethality of injuries to the head and
neck in the Iliad is noted and cataloged. In Chapter 14 Dr. habil. Fabian
Horn, M.A. from the Department of Greek and Latin Philol at Ludwig-​
Maximilians-​Universität München discusses trauma injuries in Homer
from a classicist's point of view.
The third section Neurology, Toxicology, Genetics and Infectious
Disease in Homer covers non-​trauma aspects of medicine in Homer. In
the first chapter in the section (Chapter 15) Anusha Lekshminarayanan,
and I discuss exceptional cases of neurologic disease and neurotrauma in
Homer. In Chapter 16 I note and describe a case of antisocial personality
disorder (ASPD) in Homer. In Chapter 17 physician and biologist Andreas
Plaitakis discusses plants, poisons, potions and plagues in the Homeric
Epics. Chapter 18 isn’t exactly modern genetics but composer and electronic
music specialist Mehmet Oğuz Namal and I describe the eight-​generation
genealogy Homer gives for the Trojan royal family. (Oğuz also made the
Bach musical score examples in Chapter 21.)
The fourth and final section of the book Further Perspectives on Med-
icine in Homer dissects the Iliad (and Odyssey) from points of view other
than anatomy or medicine to further better understand and appreciate
the Epics and Homer.
In Chapter 19 Professor Mark Pagel, FRS from the University of Reading
uses genetic methods to try to date the composition of the Iliad and Odyssey.
In Chapter 20 examines the social ("Facebook") networks of characters in
the Iliad and the Odyssey. This is a fascinating approach to using the text of
the epics to provide insight into the stories and possibly Homer's approach
4 Medicine in Homer

to their composition. In Chapter 21 I explore the question of whether the

same writer wrote both the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Along with human anatomy another thing which hasn’t changed in 2800
years or 3200 years is women, men and their relationships. In Chapter 22
army veteran and PTSD survivor Simone Swartzentruber-​Emmons exam-
ines women, men and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Homer’s Iliad
with many surprising and powerful observations, analyses and conclusions.
(In Chapter 3 Therapy Manager/Practice Manager Manager Joti Melwani-​
Wong, PT, DPT looks at some of these relationships in the workplace.)
In the penultimate chapter (Chapter 23) combat veteran Greg Para “red
teams” the hypothesis that Homer was a surgeon deployed with a Greek
army vs. just having heard about war while sitting at some wine bar in Crete.
In the final chapter (Chapter 24) I summarize the findings in the book
and suggest topics and directions for future research.

Notes:
1-​Technical linguistic terms will be printed in ALL CAPS and then defined.
2-​The twenty-​four books of the Iliad (and Odyssey) traditionally have
been been denoted by the twenty-​four letters of the Greek alphabet with
upper case letters for the books of the Iliad (and lowercase letters for books
of the Odyssey) b . Some authors in this book use Greek letters to number
the books of the Iliad and the Odyssey while others use Arabic numbers.
These two conventions are displayed in Table 1.1. (Also, this provides a good
start and impetus to learning the Greek alphabet and Homeric Greek (see
Chapter 5)!).

b
See Chapter 5 for discussion of the ghostly traces of a twenty-​fifth letter of the alphabet.
 Chapter 1 | Introduction, synopsis of chapte 5

Table 1.1 Conventions for numbering the books of the Iliad and Odyssey
Iliad book (Arabic Greek Odyssey Greek name of Greek
numerals) letters book letters letter
1 A 1 α alpha
2 B 2 β beta
3 Γ 3 γ gamma
4 Δ 4 δ delta
5 E 5 ε epsilon
6 Z 6 ζ zeta
7 H 7 η eta
8 Θ 8 θ theta
9 I 9 ι iota
10 K 10 κ kappa
11 Λ 11 λ lambda
12 M 12 μ mu
13 N 13 ν nu
14 Ξ 14 ξ xi
15 O 15 ο omicron
16 Π 16 π pi
17 P 17 ρ rho
18 Σ 18 σ sigma
19 T 19 τ tau
20 Υ 20 υ upsilon
21 Φ 21 φ phi
22 Χ 22 χ chi
23 Ψ 23 ψ psi
24 Ω 24 ω omega
Author's own work.

REFERENCES
Beasley, A. W. (1972) “Homer and orthopaedics.,” Clinical orthopaedics and related research.
United States, 89, pp. 10–​6.
Fröhlich, H. (1879) Die Militär Medizin Homer’s. Stuttgart: Enke.
Godquin, B. (1990) “[Was Homer a surgeon?].,” Chirurgie; memoires de l’Academie de chirurgie.
France, 116(2), pp. 136–​43.
Homer (2007) The Odyssey of Homer. Translated by R. Lattimore. HarperCollins.
6 Medicine in Homer

MELCHIONDA, E. (1963) “[HOMER, A MILITARY PHYSICIAN? (I: THE ILIAD)].,” Annali

di medicina navale. Italy, 68, pp. 947–​72 CONTD.
MELCHIONDA, E. (1964) “[HOMER, A MILITARY PHYSICIAN?(I. THE ILIAD)].,” Annali di
medicina navale. Italy, 69, pp. 85-​111 CONCL.