Panacea

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Panacea (center) administering medicine to a girl (Picture of the Veronese physician J. Gazola as part of a larger woodcut, 1716)

In Greek mythology, Panacea (Greek Πανάκεια, Panakeia) was the goddess of healing. She was the daughter of Asclepius and Epione.

Panacea and her five sisters each performed a facet of Apollo's art: Panacea was the goddess of cures, Iaso was the goddess of recuperation, Hygieia was the goddess of disease prevention, Aceso was the goddess of recovery, and Aglaea was the goddess of natural beauty.

Panacea also had four brothers – Podaleirus, one of the two kings of Tricca, who had a flair for diagnostics, and Machaon, the other king of Tricca, who was a master surgeon (these two took part in the Trojan War until Machaon was killed by Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons); Telesphoros, who devoted his life to serving Asclepius; and Aratus, her stepbrother, who was a Greek hero and the patron/liberator of Sicyon.

Panacea was said to have a poultice or potion with which she healed the sick. This brought about the concept of the panacea in medicine.

A river in Thrace/Moesia was named after the goddess, and is still known as the river Panega (from Greek panakeia).

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