Herophilus and Erasistratus : a bibliographical demonstration in the Library of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, 16th March, 1893 / by James Finlayson.

Date:
1893
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Herophilus and Erasistratus : a bibliographical demonstration in the Library of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, 16th March, 1893 / by James Finlayson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    medicines the hands of the gods; he goes on to condemn the unnatural medicinal compounds made up of minerals, herbs, and products of earth and sea, all mixed up into one mass. Like Galen, we find Erasistratus impressed with the adapta- tions of means to ends in nature. In a passage of Plutarch's De Amove prolis (iii) this is argued, with the addition : * And, as Erasistratus says. Nature does nothing that is useless or worthless. Venesection versus Ligatures—Pharmacy. From the story of Antiochus and Stratonice we can see at once that Erasistratus was a man of the greatest shrewdness. Very probably, in his observation of medical practice, he had early become alive to the evils resulting from the abuse of venesection. It is as an opponent of bleeding that we hear of him so constantly from Galen, who, indeed, wrote a book against him in this respect, and another against his followers in Kome; in both of these he gives various quotations from the writings of Erasistratus. Instead of venesection, Erasis- tratus, and others, practised the use of ligatures to the limbs. This controversy comes up again and again in the writings of Galen. Referring to some opponents whom he flattered himself he had routed in argument, Galen adds, However, they at last ended by taking refuge in Erasistratus, stating that it was shown by him in his first book on Loss of Blood, that it was better to apply ligatures than to bleed. f The opposition of Erasistratus to venesection does not seem to have been so extreme as generally alleged, if we may trust a statement of Caelius Aurelianus, from which it appears that Erasistratus did advise the bleeding of patients. I * , . . ut ait Erasistratus uiliil habeat otiosimi aut frivolum.'' Compare Galen, KUhn's edition, Tom. IV, p. 722. t Galen, Kuhn's edition, Tom. II, p. 190. I Caelius Aurelianus, Morb. Chron., Lib. 11, cap. xiii: Si quidem [at quidem] Erasistratus phlebotomari praecepit patientes.