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
Catalogue details

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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    Hei'ophilus and Erasistratus is perhaps made to look greater than it would otherwise have been. Charge of Human Vivisection against Herophilus and Erasistratus. The names of Herophilus and Erasistratus are often coupled also in another connection—namely, in the grave charge of their dissecting living men. The charge seems to rest entirely on the authority of Celsus and of Tertullian. The latter uses, as is his wont, such violent language, that if it stood alone it might almost be ignored, as it carries with it the suggestion of exaggeration and animus. He says {De Anima, cap. x):— Herophilus, that Physician, or Butcher \_aut lanius], who dissected six hundred persons in order that he might scrutinise nature: who hated man in order that he might gain knowledge: I know not whether he explored, clearly, all the internal parts of man : for death itself would change them from their state when alive, and, in his hands, not a simple death, but one leading to error from the very process of cutting up. In another passage {De Anima, cap. xxv), referring to methods of forcible delivery which involved the death of the infant, either in the process or before it was begun, he singles out Herophilus, from amongst others whom he names, as the dissector of adults also, and he contrasts him, apparently, with the milder Soranus {et majorum prosector Herophilus, et mitior ipse Soranus). Very different in tone, but equally clear as to the nature of the accusation, is the passage in Celsus:— As pains and various other disorders attack the internal parts they believe no person can apply proper remedies to those which he is ignorant of: and, therefore, that it is necessary to dissect dead bodies and examine their viscera and intestines, and that Herophilus and Erasistratus had taken far the best method for attaining that knowledge, who procured criminals out of prison, by royal per-