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Plastic Surgery and Greek Mythology

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Plastic Surgery and Greek Mythology HIS TORI CAL NOTES Plastic surgery and Greek mythology Achil leas Thoma MD FRCSC FACS Di vi sion of Plas tic and Re con struc tive Sur gery, De part ment of Sur gery, St Jo se ph’s Hos pi tal, McMas ter Uni ver sity, Ham il ton, On tario “Noth ing good and beau ti ful can be achieved with out sac ri fice” – Pro me theus reek my thol ogy is a col lec tion of the leg ends of the an - Gcient Greeks which starts with the crea tion of the uni - verse from chaos and cov ers the five ages of man. The an cient Greeks be lieved that the gods cre ated the hu man race not only once, but five times. They were the golden, sil ver, bronze, he roic and iron gen era tions (1). It was dur ing the he roic gen era tion that most of the fa - mous he roes of the an cient Greeks such as Hera cles (Her cu - les), Ja son (of the Ar go nauts) and Achil les came to the world. It is this par ticu lar pe riod with which Greek my thol ogy is most in volved. These sto ries came from vari ous sources such as an cient art works, ru ins of tem ples un earthed by ar che olo gists and the pot tery and sculp ture that fills the na tional mu se ums of many coun tries. Al though there are varia tions on the Greek myths, the gen er ally ac cepted ver sions are those found in Hom er’s ‘I liad’ and ‘O dy ssey’. Schol ars be lieve that Homer lived some where be tween 750 BC and 1000 BC. These two ep ics Fig ure 1) Achil les ban dag ing the in jured arm of his best friend Pa tro - are widely con sid ered to be the be gin ning of the Euro pean lit - clus era ture (1). Other sources in clude He siod, a writer of leg ends and myths who lived some where be tween 800 and 700 BC, Greek my thol ogy tells us about the in ter ac tion be tween and Apol lo nius of Rho des who fol lowed He siod by 400 gods and hu mans, he roes and mon sters. In con trast to the years. Un for tu nately, the works of Apol lo nius were lost in myths of other cul tures, Greek my thol ogy sur vived for over the fires of the fa mous li brar ies at Per ga mon and Al ex an dria. three mil len nia be cause the Greek gods had hu man traits with His works were re ferred to by the Ro man po ets Vir gil and which mor tals could iden tify. The Greeks imag ined their Ovid. gods to be flawed just like them selves. An other im por tant source of Greek my thol ogy is the When one reads the Greek my thol ogy, one is in trigued by Greek thea tre, in par ticu lar the sur viv ing works of the fa mous the simi lari ties be tween it and the Chris tian my thol ogy born play wrights Aeschy lus (525 BC to 456 BC), Sopho cles 1000 years later. For ex am ple, the myth of Pro me theus (496 BC to 406 BC) and Eurip ides (485 BC to 406 BC) (2). chained on the rocks and tor tured by an ea gle eat ing his liver which con tin ued to re gen er ate and pro long his pain for steal - This paper was presented in part at the 48th Annual Meeting of the ing the fire from Mount Olym pus to save man kind is remi nis - Canadian Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons, Ottawa, May cent of Je sus’ cru ci fix ion. This should not be sur pris ing, 28, 1994. how ever, as the ad vent of Chris ti an ity oc curred in the Hel le - Correspondence and reprints: Dr A Thoma, Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Department of Surgery, St Joseph’s Hospital, nis tic world where the Greek lan guage, cul ture and myths 208-220 James Street South, Hamilton, Ontario L8P 3A9. Telephone (905) were para mount. 523-0019, Fax (905) 523-0229 102 CAN J PLAST SURG VOL 3 NO 2 SUM MER 1995 Plas tic sur gery and Greek my thol ogy Al though most schol ars ac cept the Ho meric ver sion of the Chei ron, he re fused to treat his en emy. The cun ning Odys - Greek myths as of fi cial, many peo ple in the Medi ter ra nean seus (Ulys ses) took Achil les’ spear which had wounded Te - ba sin have their own ver sions. An ex am ple of this was found le phus and scraped some rust into the wound which caused it at the Olym pic games of Bar celona in Spain in 1992. Dur ing to heal im me di ately! Out of grati tude, Te le phus led the Greek the open ing cere mo nies there was a huge ef figy of Hera cles army the cor rect way to Troy this time. Thus, Te le phus, mar - (Her cu les) en ter ing the Olym pic sta dium. The peo ple of Bar - ried to Priam’s daugh ter (Priam was king of Troy), be trayed ce lona be lieve that it was Heracles who built their city. In the his father- in- law in or der to save his leg. Ho meric ver sion, there is no such men tion of this event. It is An other fa mous wound in Greek my thol ogy was a snake prob able that Bar ce lona was built dur ing Hera cles’ ex pe di - bite suf fered by Phi loc te tes, an other hero of the Greek army tion to ac com plish his tenth la bour which took him be yond which con quered Troy. This par ticu lar event oc curred on the Gi bral tar (pil lars of Hera cles) onto the At lan tic ocean to fetch is land of Lem nos just off shore from Troy. The Greeks left Gery on’s cat tle (3). him be hind on the is land since in his con di tion he was of no The an cient Greeks be lieved in the 12 Olym pian gods. use to them in the war. This in tro duced the con cept of spe ciali za tion. They did not The war was not go ing well for the Greeks, and the ora cle be lieve that one god could be om nipo tent and there fore they told them that Troy could not be taken with out Hera cles’ ar - iden ti fied their gods with par ticu lar tasks, ie, Po sei don, god rows which were safe guarded by Phi loc te tes. Odys seus of the seas, Ares, god of war, Athena, god dess of wis dom, brought Phi loc te tes to Troy and there in the Greek camp he Aph ro dite, god dess of love, etc. In re view ing the Greek my - was suc cess fully treated by Machaon, the son of As cle pius, thol ogy, one can find ref er ences rele vant to the spe cialty of and pro ceeded to fight in the war (5,7). plas tic sur gery. A fa mous scar in Greek my thol ogy was the one on the leg of Odys seus. Af ter the fall of Troy, Odys seus spent 10 years WOUND HEAL ING AND SCARS roam ing the seas be fore man ag ing to reach Ith aca. He dis - The scene de picted in Fig ure 1 is taken from a ky lix guised him self as a beg gar to en ter his pal ace in an at tempt to (drink ing ves sel) dated around 490 BC and housed in the An- get rid of the suit ors who had in ten tions on his wife, Pe - tiq uity Mu seum of Ber lin (4,5,6). It shows Achil les, one of nelope. His old wet nurse Eurycleia rec og nized her old mas - the he roes of the Tro jan war, ban dag ing the arm of his close ter by the scar on the leg while wash ing his feet. Odys seus friend Pa tro clus with a two-tailed ban dage. This is per haps begged her not to re veal his iden tity un til he got rid of his the old est pic to rial rep re sen ta tion of ban dag ing and wound ene mies (8). man age ment, since the event it de picts took place about 1000 BC. HAND SUR GERY At one stage of the Tro jan war, Achil les had a feud with The first ref er ence to hand sur gery is also found in Greek Aga mem non, the commander- in-chief, over a beau ti ful girl my thol ogy. Dur ing the bat tle of the Ti tans, Mother Earth was named Chry seis who had been given to Achil les as a prize of so en raged at Zeus for be ing harsh on her chil dren af ter his the war.
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