in Ath., Deipn., 1d [epitome]). A strong contrast was the career of He ̄rophilos, whose dissec-
tions of the human cadaver at the Mouseion (Longrigg 1993: 179), along with those by
E, established details about the human body that were standard until the
European Renaissance. A single ancient source (all others are derivative) claims that
the Alexandrian anatomists vivisected living men (C, pr. 23 – 26), which leaves this
aspect of Alexandrian anatomy and physiology in the realm of controversial uncertainty
(Scarborough 1976: 11; von Staden 1989: 29–30, 144–153).
None of He ̄rophilos’ writings has survived intact, so one depends on excerpts (sometimes
lengthy, sometimes short) in G, R E, S, and others, diligently
gathered, edited, translated, and analyzed by von Staden. Quotations from six or seven
works survive: (1) On Anatomy in at least four books (T63–129 and 136–142 von Staden),
which considered dissection techniques, the liver, anatomy of the brain and features of the
skull, the nerves and their function after generally exiting from the brain and spinal column,
the eye and its chiasmatic pair of optic nerves, bones and cartilages of the larynx including
the hyoid bone and styloid process, the viscera (stomach, parts of the small intestine, the
large intestine and its omentum), male and female reproductive organs, anatomy of the
veins and arteries, and perhaps the bones in general (represented by a short fragment from
Rufus’ Anatomical Nomenclature); (2) On Pulses (“vascular physiology”: T144–188); (3) Midwifery
or Gynecology (T193–204 with 105–114 [female reproductive anatomy] and 247 [abortion]);
(4) Against Common Opinions (203–204), an innovative collection of doxographical and his-
toriographical information about earlier Greek medico-philosophical tenets (von Staden
1999: 144–149); (5) Regimen (T230, probably linked with the Gymnastics of T227–229);
Therapeutics (T231–259, with 248–259 compound drugs as devised by He ̄rophilos); and
(6) On Eyes (T260 from A A 7.48). He ̄rophilos may have written an
uncertainly-titled Hippokratic Exegesis (T261–275).
He ̄rophilos’ discovery of the anatomy and function of the nerves ranks as a signal
achievement in medical history: not only did he demonstrate structural affinities among
parts of the brain and the sprouting from the brain of ten of the cranial nerves, he was also
the first to distinguish between what we call “sensory” and “voluntary” or “motor” nerves
(Solmsen 1961: 185); he was the first to observe the 4th ventricle of the brain, and the
surface convolutions (“inward foldings”) of the cerebrum, noting that humans had many
more than animals; he was the first to describe accurately the human liver and its
accompanying vessels; he discovered the ovaries in the female, likening them by analogy to
the male testicles, and he seems to have observed the Fallopian tubes but did not deduce
their reproductive function; he traced a good portion of the vascular system, described the
valves in the heart as well as its four chambers, described the venous cavities of the skull (the
largest of the sinuses at the base of the skull still bears his name), and his observations,
dissections (discovering that the eye had four membranes) and theories about the eye, its
twin optic nerves that crossed each other at a point we still call the optic chiasma, led He ̄rophi-
los to think that sight and vision were conducted by the pneuma in these large, possibly
tubular, neura – a “transmission” theory of sensation that had millennially long influence
(the pneuma ultimately derived from breathing). Having observed that the lungs contract
and dilate in a quadripartite cycle, he could posit that respiration occurred from the normal
habit of the lungs to do so. In On Pulses, He ̄rophilos formulated the notions of diastole ̄
(“dilation”) and sustole ̄ (“contraction”) among the arteries, resulting from the dunamis
(“power” or “faculty”) of the heart which thereby pulled into the arteries a mix of blood
and pneuma (Harris 1973: 180), while the veins had only blood.
HE ̄ROPHILOS OF KHALKE ̄DO ̄N