ANATOMY. 



cent Alexandrian library. This king and 

 his predecessor seem to have overcome 

 the religious scruples which forbade the 

 touch of the dead body, and gave up to 

 the physicians the bodies of those who had 

 forfeited their lives to the law. Nay, if 

 the testimony of several authors may be 

 believed, Herophilusand Erasistratus dis- 

 sected several unfortunate criminals alive. 

 There is, however, something in this prac- 

 tice so repugnant to every feeling of huma- 

 nity, that we ought probably to consider it 

 only as an exaggerated report of the novel 

 practice of dissecting the human subject. 

 The writings of these anatomists have not 

 descended to us: ourknoweledge of their 

 progress in anatomy is derived only from 

 a few extracts and noticeswhich occur in 

 the works of Galen ; but these prove them 

 to have made great advances in the know- 

 ledge of the structure of the human body. 



The Romans, in prosecuting their 

 schemes of universal conquest and domi- 

 nion, soon became acquainted with the 

 Greeks, and the intercourse of the two 

 nations was constantly increasing. Thus 

 the arts, the philosophy, and the manners 

 of the Greeks were introduced into Italy. 

 Military glory and patriotism,, which had 

 formerly been the ruling passion of the 

 Roman people, now gave way in some de- 

 gree to the soft arts of peace. The lead- 

 ing men of the Roman republic sought the 

 company and conversation of the learned 

 Greeks; thus literature and philosophy 

 were transported from the Greeks to the 

 Romans, and gave rise to the taste and ele- 

 gance of the Augustan age. In this way- 

 did conquered Greece triumph over the 

 unpolishedroughness of her conquerors. 



Grtecia captafcrum victorem cepit, et artes 

 IitiuUt atrretti Latio. 



Although Rome produced orators, poets, 

 philosophers, and historians which maybe 

 brought into competition with those of the 

 Greeks, to the eternal disgrace of their 

 empire it must be allowed that their his- 

 tory is hardly embellished with the name 

 of a single Roman who was great in science 

 or art, in painting or sculpture, in physic, 

 or in any branch of natural knowledge. 

 We cannot therefore introduce one Roman 

 into the history of anatomy. Pliny and 

 Celsus were mere compilers from the 

 Greeks. We may account for this appa- 

 rent neglect of anatomy among the Ro- 

 mans, as well indeed as for its slow pro- 

 gress among the Greeks, from some of 

 their religious tenets, as well asfromthe 

 notion already mentioned, of pollution be- 

 ing communicated byjtouching adead. bo- 



dy. It was believed, that the souls of the 

 unburied were not admitted into the a- 

 bodes of the dead, or, at least, that they 

 wandered for a hundred years along the 

 river Styx, before they were allowed to 

 cross it. Whoever saw a dead body was 

 obliged to throw some earth upon it, and 

 if he neglected to do so, he was obliged to 

 expiate his crime by sacrificing to Ceres. 

 It was unlawful for the pontifex maximus 

 not only to touch a dead body, but even 

 to look at it ; and the flamen of Jupiter 

 might not even go where there was a 

 grave. Persons who had attended a fu- 

 neral were purified by a sprinkling of wa- 

 ter from the hands of the priest, and the 

 house was purified in the same manner. 

 If any one (says Euripides, in Iphigenia) 

 pollutes his hands by a murder, by touch- 

 ing a corpse, or a woman who has lain in, 

 the altars of God are interdicted to him. 



There was no anatomist orphysiologist, 

 of sufficient reputation to attract our no- 

 tice, from the times of Herophilus and 

 Erasistratus to the age of Galen. This il- 

 lustrious character was born at Pergamus, 

 in- Asia Minor, about the 130th yearof the 

 Christian acra. No expense was spared in 

 his education ; after the completion of 

 which, he visited all the most famous 

 schools of philosophy which then existed; 

 and afterwards resided chiefly at Rome, 

 in the service ofthe emperors of that time, 



To all the knowledge which could be 

 derived from the writings of Hippocrates, 

 and the philosophical schools ofthe time, 

 Galen added the results of his own labours 

 and observations, and compiled from these 

 sources a voluminous system of medicine. 

 It is generally considered that the subjects 

 of his anatomical labours were chiefly 

 brutes ; and it is manifest from several 

 passages, that his descriptions are drawn 

 from monkeys. Indeed, he never express- 

 ly states that he has dissected the human 

 subject, although he says he has seen hu- 

 man skeletons. He must be accounted 

 the first who placed anatomical science on 

 a respectable footing ; and deserves our 

 gratitude for this, that he was the only 

 source of anatomical knowledge for about 

 ten centuries. The science declined with 

 Galen; his successors were contented with 

 copying him ; and there is no proof of a 

 dissection of any human body from Galen 

 to the emperor Frederick Q. We may 

 observe, that when uny man arrives at the 

 reputation of having carried his art far be- 

 yond all others, it seems to throw the rest 

 of the world into a kind of despair. Hope- 

 less of being able to improve theirart still 

 further, they do nothing. The great man, 

 who was at first only respectable, grows 



