5X THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 



anatomy of the genital organs. His physiological ideas were governed by the 

 usual conceptions of antiquity — four different life-elements localized in 

 corresponding main organs; they are therefore of no special interest. For the 

 rest, Herophilus was a great admirer of Hippocrates, whose views on dis- 

 eases and remedies he accepted without reserve. 



Contemporary and in competition with Herophilus was Erasistratus of 

 Cheos, a small island in the ^gean. His dates and personal history are as 

 unknown to us as those of Herophilus, and his writings were lost even in 

 late antiquity. According to a late and unconfirmed report he was the nephew 

 of Aristotle; it is certain that his teacher, Metrodorus, was the latter's con- 

 temporary and friend. Erasistratus began his career as court physician to the 

 Seleucides of Syria, but he was called thence to Alexandria, where he founded 

 a school of medicine. His anatomical works dealt chiefly with the circulatory 

 system. The heart he studied with care and gave its valves the names they 

 still bear. Further, he established the connexion between arteries and veins 

 and explained the bleeding from the arteries in wounds by the assumption 

 that their pneuma disappears, and in its stead the blood from the venous 

 system penetrates into the arteries and then flows from the wound. Again, 

 he investigated the lymphatic ducts and the secretion of chyle in live ani- 

 mals. He made important discoveries which increased the knowledge of the 

 nervous system; he distinguished between the motor and sensory nerves and 

 was the first to describe in detail the convolutions of the brain. As a physician 

 Erasistratus was more practical than Herophilus; he utterly scorned the Hip- 

 pocratic traditions, prescribed simple remedies, avoided venesection, and 

 strongly advocated a hygienic mode of life. 



Hostility bettveen the medical schools of Alexandria 

 This opposition between the two Alexandrian anatomists had fateful con- 

 sequences for science. They themselves impugned one another by polemics 

 and intrigue, while there existed a still greater hostility between the respec- 

 tive schools. The "Herophilites" drove their master's conservatism and re- 

 spect for Hippocrates to extreme limits, while the "Erasistratites" held up 

 to scorn and counteracted the virtues of the medical tradition. This was natu- 

 rally bound to prejudice science, and it was all the more disastrous as the 

 cultural conditions in Alexandria became in time seriously impaired. The 

 early enlightened Ptolemaic kings were succeeded by a line of degenerate 

 scoundrels who neglected the interests of learning as they neglected all their 

 other duties. The Museum declined, its grants were reduced, and the learned 

 often fell victims to the tyrants' whims. Thus finally Alexandria became a 

 provincial town within the great Roman Empire. The Museum certainly 

 survived, but without the encouragement which the native rulers had given 

 to it; it was eventually destroyed in a riot — the Alexandrine mob was known 

 as the most unruly in the whole of the Roman Empire — and in the end the 



