The Legacy of Greece: Essays By: Gilbert Murray, W. R. Inge, J. Burnet, Sir T. L. Heath, D'arcy W. Thompson, Charles Singer, R. W. Livingston, A. Toynbee, A. E. Zimmern, Percy Gardner, Sir Reginald Blomfield
Philosophy
The Legacy of Greece: Essays By: Gilbert Murray, W. R. Inge, J. Burnet, Sir T. L. Heath, D'arcy W. Thompson, Charles Singer, R. W. Livingston, A. Toynbee, A. E. Zimmern, Percy Gardner, Sir Reginald Blomfield
Greece -- Civilization
We shall pass over the general course of later Greek medicine with great
rapidity. A definite medical school was established at Alexandria and
others perhaps at Pergamon and elsewhere. Athens, after the death of
Aristotle and his pupils, passes entirely into the background and is of
no importance so far as medicine is concerned. At Alexandria, where a
great medical library was collected, anatomy began to be studied and two
men whose discoveries were of primary importance for the history of that
subject, Erasistratus and Herophilus, early practised there. With
anatomy as a basis medical education could become much more systematic.
It is a very great misfortune that the works of these two eminent men
have disappeared. Of Herophilus fragments have survived embedded in the
works of Galen (A. D. 130-201), Caelius Aurelianus (fifth century), and
others. These fragments have been the subject of one of the earliest,
most laborious, and most successful attempts made in modern times to
reconstruct the lost work of an ancient author.[86] For Erasistratus our
chief source of information are two polemical treatises directed against
him by Galen. Recently, too, a little more information concerning the
works of both men has become available from the Menon papyrus.
[86] K. F. H. Marx, _Herophilus, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der
Medizin_, Karlsruhe, 1838.
It has been found possible to reconstruct especially a treatise on
anatomy by Herophilus with a considerable show of probability. He opened
by giving general directions for the process of dissection and followed
with detailed descriptions of the various systems, nervous, vascular,
glandular, digestive, generative, and osseous. There was a separate
section on the liver, a small part of which has survived. It is of his
account of the nervous system that we have perhaps the best record, and
it is evident that he has advanced far beyond the Hippocratic position.
In the braincase he saw the membranes that cover the brain and
distinguished between the cerebrum and cerebellum. He attained to some
knowledge of the ventricles of the brain, the cranial and spinal nerves,
the nerves of the heart, and the coats of the eye. He distinguished the
blood sinuses of the skull, and the _torcular Herophili_ (winepress of
Herophilus), a sinus described by him, has preserved his name in modern
anatomical nomenclature. He even made out more minute structures, such
as the little depression in the fourth ventricle of the brain, known to
modern anatomists as the _calamus scriptorius_, which still bears the
name which he gave it (καλαμος ὡ γραφομεν {kalamos hô graphomen}),
because it seemed to him, as Galen tells us, to resemble the pens then
in use in Alexandria.[87] We still use, too, his term _duodenum_
(δωδεκαδακτυλος εκφυσις {dôdekadaktylos ekphysis} = twelve-finger
extension), for as Galen assures us, Herophilus 'so named the first part
of the intestine before it is rolled into folds'.[88] The duodenum is a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account