He, then, who ventured on the dissection of the human body, did so at great personal risk, and for more than 600 years after the foundation of Rome, no instance is known of the existence of any public professor of anatomy. About that time Archagathus, a Greek, practised surgery in Rome; and it appears that his use of the knife, and the actual cautery, was so abhorrent to the general feeling, that he was saluted with the opprobrious title of “Carnifex.” Even in later days the learned Tertullian classed anatomists and butchers together in a philippic he pronounced against Herophilus, whom he charged with having tried experiments on the living body. He commences:—“Herophilus, the physician, or butcher, whichever you please, who to become better acquainted with men, ripped them up alive,” &c. &c. Of this same Herophilus, who appears to have been a man of humour, as well as genius, there is an excellent story told:—A certain _Diodorus_, a contemporary philosopher and teacher of paradoxes, declared that there was no such thing as _motion_. “If a body _moves_,” says he, “it moves into the place where it _is_, _or_ into the place where it _is not_; now it does not move into the place where it _is_, for what is _in_ a place _remains_ there, and, consequently, one cannot say that _it moves_. It also cannot move in a place where _it is not_; and therefore, it does not move at all.” This acute gentleman having dislocated his arm, begged the services of Herophilus, who, smiling, said:—“Either the bone of your arm is moved into the place where it _was_, or into the place where it _was not_; now it cannot move, according to your principles, either in one place or another, consequently it is not displaced at all.” The poor teacher of paradoxes saw that Herophilus was laughing at him, and in an agony cried out:—“Leave, I pray you, _dialectics_ and _sophisms_ to me, and treat me according to the laws of medicine.” The inference that dissection was not openly allowed, will be strengthened by a short reference to the subject of the embalmment of the dead—the first mention of this custom is found in the 50th Chapter of Genesis; where, at the second verse, we read:—That “Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father, and the physicians embalmed Israel;” and at 26th verse of the same chapter it is written:—“So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old, and they embalmed him.”