The Anatomists of Ancient Alexandria

Dissecting human cadavers is now routine in medical schools. First-year medical students learn about anatomy hands-on, thanks to people who willingly dedicate their bodies to science. But in the ancient Mediterranean world, cadaver dissection was far less common. Famous scholars such as Galen relied on anatomical descriptions that came from a brief and dark period in Hellenistic Egypt.

After Alexander the Great died in the fourth century BCE, his general Ptolemy took control of Egypt—creating a new dynasty that cultivated scholarship in the city of Alexandria. Historian James Longrigg argues that the Ptolemies may have empowered Alexandrian scholars to study anatomy through human dissection and vivisection.

Religious and moral attitudes in Greece mostly prevented routine human dissection, but the Ptolemies were authoritarian rulers, eager to elevate themselves and their empire. Their relentless support of scholarship may have created a permissive environment for the practice.

“It is alleged,” writes Longrigg, that “they even supplied criminals for vivisection from the royal gaols.”

This coincided with philosophical and cultural changes, Longrigg explains. Plato and Aristotle’s conceptions of the soul, for example, created a separation between a person and their corpse. But whatever their reasons and methods, we know that scholars like Herophilus and Erasistratus used human subjects to study anatomy, and their results had long-term impacts.

Herophilus described the brain, the nervous system, and the eye in unprecedented detail. Longrigg describes how Herophilus “demonstrated the origin and course of the nerves from the brain to the spinal cord” and “succeeded in tracing the optic nerves from brain to eye.” He dissected the eye itself, and gave names to its parts, including one part that he felt resembled a net. Later scholars Latinized his description in the term “retina.” Longrigg writes that Herophilus often used “expressions largely metaphorical in character and drawn mainly from everyday life,” many of which survive today as technical terminology.

Another Alexandrian anatomist, Erasistratus, studied the network of arteries and veins in the human body. He described their course through the body and the function of the heart. But he accepted older theories that the arteries contained “pneuma,” a sort of air essential to life. Longrigg explains that Galen may have disproved this through animal vivisection by tying off a section of artery and opening it up to show the blood inside.

Writers like Galen often reference Herophilus and Erasistratus, Longrigg explains, because they restricted themselves to animal dissection and vivisection. In fact, most of what we know about the Alexandrians come from other writers—including their critics. Because of this, we don’t know if the allegations of human vivisection are true. Longrigg highlights the challenges that historians face due to incomplete and indirect sourcing, though he believes the evidence from the critics should be taken seriously.

Either way, both practices declined after the Ptolemaic period. The dissection of human cadavers, however, eventually became integral to anatomy and medicine in the modern era. The dissection and vivisection of animals continued throughout history, often provoking strong visceral and moral reactions.

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