rized his anatomists to make vivisections
both of animals, and also of criminals who had been condemned to death,
herein finding for himself that royal road in physiology which Euclid
once told him, at a dinner in the Museum, did not exist in geometry, and
defending the act from moral criticism by the plea that, as the culprits
had already forfeited their lives to the law, it was no injury to make
them serviceable to the interests of humanity. Herophilus had been
educated at Cos; his pathological views were those known as humouralism;
his treatment active, after the manner of Hippocrates, upon whose works
he wrote commentaries. His original investigations were numerous; they
were embodied, with his peculiar views, in treatises on the practice of
medicine; on obstetrics; on the eye; on the pulse, which he properly
referred to contractions of the heart. He was aware of the existence of
the lacteals, and their anatomical relation to the mesenteric glands.
Erasistratus, his colleague, was a pupil of Theophrastus and Chrysippus:
he, too, cultivated anatomy. He described the structure of the heart,
its connexions with the arteries and veins, but fell into the mistake
that the former vessels were for the conveyance of air, the latter for
that of blood. He knew that there are two kinds of nerves, those of
motion and those of sensation. He referred all fevers to inflammatory
states, and in his practice differed from the received methods of
Hippocrates by observing a less active treatment.

[Sidenote: Improvements in surgery and pharmacy.]

By these physicians the study of medicine in Alexandria was laid upon
the solid foundation of anatomy. Besides them there were many other
instructors in specialties; and, indeed, the temple of Serapis was used
for a hospital, the sick being received into it, and persons studying
medicine admitted for the purpose of familiarizing themselves with the
appearance of disease, precisely as in similar institutions at the
present time. Of course, under such circumstances, the departments of
surgery and pharmacy received many improvements, and produced many able
men. Among these improvements may be mentioned new operations, for
lithotomy, instruments for crushing calculi, for reducing dislocations,
etc. The active commerce of Egypt afforded abundant opportunity for
extending the materia medica by the introduction of a great many herbs
and drugs.

[Sidenote: Decline of Alexandrian medicine.]

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