ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL OF ANATOMY-332 B.C. TO A.D. 200 49 



Of almost equal stature, if not actually so, was Erasistratus 

 (310-250 B.C.). It is not known where he was born and little is 

 known of his ancestry. Some historians have stated that he was 

 the grandson of Aristotle. Apparently, he was quite advanced in 

 years when he went to Alexandria to gratify his taste for anatomy. 

 He devoted himself almost exclusively to this study at the ex- 

 pense of his practice. 



Erasistratus was a diligent student, who like his contempo- 

 rary, dissected the human body publicly at the Alexandrian 

 school. He made many important discoveries and evinced a par- 

 ticular interest in the central nervous system. He catalogued 

 both sensory and motor nerves and traced both divisions to the 

 brain and spinal cord. 



Besides believing that the cerebrum is the seat of the intellect, 

 he advocated that there is a localization of nervous function there, 

 this being the first theoretical attempt in this direction. Some 

 of his attention, was given to the divisions and cavities of the 

 brain. The soul, he placed in the meninges (Corner, '19). Addi- 

 tional structures which he examined were the valves of the heart, 

 the trachea, which he named, and the lacteals, which he described 

 more fully than Herophilus. Some fourteen books of his were 

 known in medicine but only parts of their textual material have 

 survived in the writings of Aretaeus, Coelius, Aurelianus, Celsus, 

 Discorides, Pliny and others (Fisher, 1881a). 



These two renowned individuals were successful in assem- 

 bling two complete human skeletons which were all that was to 

 survive, anatomically speaking, at the Alexandrian school. For 

 many years and centuries, medical men and students, interested 

 in anatomy, made treks to Alexandria for the purpose of study- 

 ing these specimens. 



There is a gap in our knowledge about the status of anatomy 

 at Alexandria between 250 B.C. and A.D. 200. Galen (A.D. 

 130-200) stated that the three outstanding anatomists of his time 

 were Marinos, Quintos and Lycos, all of whom were attached to 

 the school of medicine. Marinos (fl. A.D. 130) wrote a text on 

 anatomy which was highly lauded by Galen but it failed to sur- 

 vive (Walsh, '27). Galen also mentioned one Numisianos as being 



