82 Rafael Karsteu. [N:o 1 



netrate into the body when we eat and cause all sorts of evils, 

 and can only be kept at a distance by ceremonial observances 

 which are directed not to pleasing the gods, but simply and 

 solely to beating of devils ^), Various mental and bodily dis- 

 turbances and sufferings were ascribed to the mj^sterious action 

 of these invisible tormentors. They are able to drive people 

 into madness 2) ; they cause blindness when penetrating into the 

 eyes ^). Rbeumatic pains are caused by a Ker that has at- 

 tached himself to a limb*). Various ills and calamities are 

 caused by the noisome swarm of the Keres ^). So closely did 

 the Greek mind connect diseases with these beings that xiqQi- 

 (paroL became a term applied to persons „who had died in 

 disease" ^), and that the Ker was sometimes identified not only 

 with disease '^) but also, as in many places in Homer, with 

 death itself. 



The medical practices of the Greeks provide further illu- 

 stration of this view, although we canuot enter into a close 

 examinamon of this point here. At a stage of culture where 

 diseases are accounted for by attacks of evil spirits, it naturally 

 follows that medicine is almost exclusively a matter of reli- 

 gion, mainl}^ consisting in attempts to get rid of these tor- 

 menting spirits in one way or another. This is iirst of all 

 the business of the sorcerer and „medicine-man", who by fair 

 means or foul, by conjurations and magical incantations, by 



^) Porphyrius ap. Euseb. Praep. Ev. IV, 23, 3. — Theophrastus, De 

 causis plant. V, 10, 4, says that „each locality has its own Keres, sorue coming 

 from the ground, sotne from the air, some from both", and in the Orphic 

 Lithica, 268. we read about Keres who attack the fields. For the rest I refer 

 to the statement in Miss Harrison's Prolegomena, Chapter V, where the nature 

 of the Greek Keres is examined in detail. 



-) Cf. Eurip. El. 1252: öeival ök Iti'iQ^s aal ycvvöiTtiöeg &€al iQox^^a- 

 Ti]aova^ éfifiavt'/ TiXavmfisvov. 



') Eurip. Phoen. 950: fitkatvav ytTjQ en ön/xaaiv [SaXrnv. 



*) Soph. Philoct. 4:2 : nujg yåg av vooGrv åvi^Q xiöXov yraXain. mfQt nQoa- 

 ^aiq uaxgäv ;' 



'^) Cf. Hesiod. Op. et Dies, 91: .... våncpLv ärsfj re xaycwv xat utsq 

 XaXenolo növoLO vovowv tågyaXémv uit åvåQdat xT/pas töaxav. See Hesych. s. v. 

 xfjgas. Cf. also Harrisoa Prolegomena, p. 168 and föll. 



*) Hesych. s. v. ■x^gicpaToi. öool vöaco TE&vi]xa(n. 



') Soph. Philoct. 116 i : xF/ga råvS' ånocpevyetv. Cf. Schol. Soph. 

 Trach. 133, 454. 



