Melampus was a shepherd to whom we owe, as legend tells us, hellebore
(Gr. Melampodion) and iron as medicines. Melampus studied nature
closely, and, when young, brought up by hand some young serpents, who
were dutifully grateful for the cares he had bestowed on them. One day,
finding him asleep, two of them crept to his ears and so effectively
cleaned them with their tongues that when he woke he found he could
easily make out the language of birds, and hear a thousand things which
had previously been hidden from man. Thus he became a great magician.
In tending his goats he observed that whenever they ate the black
hellebore they were purged. Afterwards, many of the women of Argos were
stricken with a disease which made them mad. They ran about the fields
naked, and believed they were cows. Among the women so afflicted were
the three daughters of Proetus, the king of Argos. Melampus undertook
to cure the three princesses, and did so by giving them the milk of
the goats after they had eaten the hellebore. His reward was one of
them for his wife and a third of the kingdom. Another cure effected
by Melampus was by his treatment of Iphiclus, king of Phylacea, who
greatly desired to beget children. Melampus gave him rust of iron in
wine, and that remedy proved successful. This was the earliest Vinum
Ferri. Melampus is supposed to have lived about 1380 B.C.