Outlines of the ancient history of medicine ; being a view of the progress of the healing art among the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Arabians / By D.M. Moir.

David Macbeth Moir

Date:: 1931 (sic) [i.e.1831]

Credit: Outlines of the ancient history of medicine ; being a view of the progress of the healing art among the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Arabians / By D.M. Moir. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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$Nicanor, raised him at once to renown and popular- ity but being of a speculative turn he abandoned practice, and relinquishing the honours with which lie was surrounded, returned to Alexandria, as af- fording the most ample opportunities of study. Like Herophilus his attention was at first chiefly directed to the brain, and the examination of its structure. According to Rufus he distinguished the nerves into those of sensation and those of motion'-1 —the former arising from the dura mater, the latter from the substance of the cerebrum. So we see that, like all his predecessors, he confounded the nerves with tendons and ligamentous membranes. It is remarked by Soranus, that Herophilus point- ed out vessels in the mesentery containing milk ; but his account is much less definite and exact than that of Erasistratus, who says, that it is only at par- ticular times they are so found, being at others quite empty.(3) He also pointed out the valves at the termination of the vena cava, and, according to Galen, believed them to he placed therefor the pur- pose- of preventing blood, that had once got to the heart, retrograding back to the vein.14' He believed with Herophilus, that the arteries were filled with air, and, indeed, makes that element one of the (l) Plutarch, Vila Demetrii, p. !K>7, Hoth Appian and Lucian mention the cure, but omit the name of the physician. De Hello Syr. c. 126. De Pes Syria, p. d'CJ. U) Rufus, ]). (;.-,. en Galen <lo Adminbb Anat. lib. vli. p. 184. |4) From lii:n these valves derived their appellation of T(iy\iixm$t G$