muscles by arteries and nerves enables them to contract and relax, displaying “voluntary”
motion. This theory of “eating + digestion + manufacture of blood by the liver + ready-
made food (blood) from the liver to the rest of the body” was adapted by Gale ̄n in his Natural
Faculties, and held until 1833 (Scarborough 1998: 222).
For Erasistratos, the laws of probability governed symptoms of disease and any applied
therapeutics, so that he opposed phlebotomy (Gale ̄n excoriates him for this), and any harsh
treatments. The etiology of disease emerges from the classification of matter (blood,
pneuma, other life-supporting liquids), usually absolutely (somehow) separate, but mixed in
disease; thus one has a plethora = too-much-blood-as-food in the veins, causing inflamma-
tion, in turn causing fevers, and swollen limbs (Dropsy [frr. 248 – 257 Garofalo]), unhealthy
states in the liver and the stomach, the Falling Sickness (epilepsy), and many more. The
mechanics of pathology: excess venous blood undergoes a “spill-over” (parempto ̄sis) into the
arteries through the invisible sunastomo ̄seis, which lessens the arterial “push” of “vital”
pneuma. Women do not have pathologies peculiar to females, except for matters obstet-
rical (He ̄rophilos had said the same), so that in Erasistratos’ Hygiene (frr. 115 – 167 Garofalo)
he urges a healthy life-style (regimen) to prevent plethora, and mild intervention to restore
displaced matter.
The Londiniensis medicus 33 (ed. Diels, 62–63 = Jones, 126–127) records an experiment by
Erasistratos to determine weight-loss in a fasting animal: “If one were to take a creature,
such as bird or something of the sort, and were to place it in a pot for some time without
giving it any food, and then were to weigh it with the excrement that visibly had been
passed, he will find that there has been a great loss of weight plainly because, perceptible
only to the reason, a copious emanation has taken place” (trans. Jones; cf. von Staden
1975).
Erasistratos’ writings were long available for discussion and citation, indicated by the
rather precise account of the epiglottis, esophagus, and trachea cited by Gellius 17.11. The
learned elite in 2nd c. Rome (in P’s Table-Talk) continued to debate P’s asser-
tion that food and drink went into the lungs, and from the comments in Gellius, Erasistratos’
correct description based on dissection remained controversial. Plato (and Plutarch) were
“authorities,” and Erasistratos’ medical mechanics fades before Gellius, “... who allows
the last word to the defense of Plato” (Holford-Strevens, 303).
Ed.: I. Garofalo, Erasistrati Fragmenta (1988) [incomplete]; see also the following: A.J. Brock, Galen on the
Natural Faculties (Loeb 1916); J.F. Dobson [trans., selected passages], “Erasistratus,” Proceedings of the
Royal Society of Medicine 20 (1927) 21–27 [= 825–832]; Wehrli 5 (1969); Furley and Wilkie (1984);
Brain (1986).
RE 6.1 (1907) 333–350, M. Wellmann; R. Major, A History of Medicine, 2 vols. (1954); L. Wilson,
“Erasistratus, Galen, and the Pneuma,” BHM 33 (1959) 293–314; Solmsen (1961); P.M. Fraser,
“The Career of Erasistratus of Ceos,” Rendiconti del Istituto Lombardo 103 (1969) 518–537; Fraser
(1972) 1.347–348, 2.503–504; DSB 4 (1972) 382–386, J. Longrigg; G.E.R. Lloyd, “A Note on
Erasistratus of Ceos,” JHS 95 (1975) 172–175; John Scarborough, “Celsus on Human Vivisection at
Ptolemaic Alexandria,” CM 11 (1976) 25–38; H. von Staden, “Experiment and Experience in
Hellenistic Medicine,” BICS 22 (1975) 178–199; W.D. Smith, “Erasistratus’ Dietetic Medicine,”
BHM 56 (1982) 399–409; John Scarborough, “Erasistratus, Student of Theophrastus?,” BHM 59
(1985) 515–517; Idem, Medical and Biological Terminologies, 2nd ed. (1998); L. Holford-Strevens,
Aulus Gellius: An Antonine Scholar and his Achievement, rev. ed. (2003).
John Scarborough
ERASISTRATOS OF IOULIS ON KEO ̄S