Week 10: Alexandrian Medicine Dissection

So what changed?

• Anatomy & Physiology: no major shifts from Classical Greek (CG) medical culture

  • Refinement of arguments due to more accurate anatomical knowledge

• Anatomy & Physiology in CG: not easily described with 1 dominant view

• Anatomy & Physiology in Alex. Med.: similar; examine concepts of seminal figures

• Herophilus & Erasistratus: “fathers of anatomy”

• Previously: dependency on animal dissection

What’s new?

Ø Unique opportunity for dissection & vivisection in Alexandria

Ø Suspension of traditional Egyptian restrictions on dissection (for a time)

Ø Greek view: body parts & person as separate entities —> person/ soul not disturbed

Ø Egyptian view: body is vessel for person/ soul after death, needs to be intact (to an

extent)

Ø Rise of Empiricists: dissection only practiced briefly during 3rd c BCE

Key figures

• Herophilus of Chalkedon (~275 BCE), court physician, student of Praxagoras

• Pioneer of dissection

• Why no taboo?

  • Personal choice; Pythagorian notion of body as vessel

  • Misunderstanding Egyptian embalming

  • Greek view of Egyptian subjects as sub-human (criminals??); possibly

  • Early Modern retrojection

Herophilus’ developments

• Identification of nerves as distinct organs (sensory & motor); named after cranium, liver, reproductive organs (still in use)

• Origin of the pulse

• 11 treatises (?); debated authorship, fragments, later quotes

• Galen: Herophilus’ division of medicine:

  • Knowledge of things related to health (anatomy & physiology)

  • Knowledge of things related to disease (disruptions of balance)

  • Knowledge of the neutrals (therapeutic measures; pharmacology, surgery, dietetics)

  • Herophilus Coined “systole” & “diastole” (movement of arteries; from Aristoxenus’ theory of time & meter?)

Key figures

Ø Erasistratus (~294 BCE)

Ø Alexandria, Seleucids (Antioch), Athens, Knidos

Ø Identified the cerebrum from cerebellum; ventricles and valves from the heart

Ø Division of medicine: therapeutics & semiotics (diagnostics) vs. etiology & physiology

Ø No extant works

Ø Disciples existed as “school” (~400 yrs); aka “Alexandrian physicians”

Take aways

• Movement away from supernatural causes of disease (similar to CG medicine)

• Disease = disruption in regular, impersonal system

• How did that work? Huge debate: humours vs movement of substances

• Precise observation & logic KEY

  • Connects iatros to gods

  • Treatises give him authority