Greek anatomist herophilus: the father of anatomy

Introduction

The city of Alexandria, Egypt, founded by Alexander the Great and established by the mighty Ptolemaio Pharoahs, was home to many renowned philosophers and medical practitioners of that time. Alexandria housed the largest book repository in the world, with approximately 700,000 scrolls, many of which were libraries of prominent philosophers.

With a wealth of intellectual property residing in the libraries, it is little wonder why the famous Greek geographer, Strabo, termed the city as the 'greatest emporium in the world'. Of the Alexandrian texts, several were written by some of the finest anatomists of that time. Herophilus, in particular, was considered among the great physicians of Antiquity (Dobson 1925) and acknowledged by many as the Father of Anatomy (Wiltse & Pait, 1998).

Background

Born in 335 B.C. in the town of Chalcedon, Asia Minor, Herophilus (Fig. 1) is believed to have lived till 255 B.C. Little is known about the early phases of Herophilus' life, other than the fact that he took flight to Alexandria at a youthful age, to commence his education. Herophilus was thought to have been under the tutelage and guidance of Praxagoras of Cos (von Staden 1992), who had made significant contributions to Aristotelian anatomy by differentiating arteries from veins. He would subsequently continue his mentor's curiosity in the arterial pulse.

Having learnt from Praxagoras, Herophilus began practicing medicine in the city of Alexandria during the reign of the first two Ptolemaio Pharoahs. Through his fervent interest in the subject, his discoveries led him to become an acclaimed medical practitioner. Apart from plying his trade, he penned down at least eleven treaties, which unfortunately, were lost during the course of history. There was a great fire in the Alexandrian Library where his works were believed to be stored in 391 A.D. (Wills 1999). However, his anatomical knowledge has been passed down the generations, providing vital input towards understanding the brain, eye, liver, reproductive organs and nervous system.

Anatomical Discoveries of the Human Body

Herophilus is recognized as the first person to perform systematic dissection of the human body predating even Andreas Vesalius, (often regarded as the founder of modern human anatomy) (Prioreschi 1996; Wills 1999) despite the taboos that prevailed regarding desecration of the human body at that time (Prioreschi 2001). Since the time of Plato, it was believed that the body harbors a soul which upon death "is imprisoned in the body" (Tredennick 1954). In fact, dissection of the human body was permitted for only 30 to 40 years during the days of Herophilus before it was abandoned for the next 1800 years, restarting only in the mid-16th century (Wiltse & Pait, 1998). In established universities such as Oxford University, human anatomy was not taught until 1624; in the statutes of the University drawn up in 1636, one of the requirements for a license in surgery was that the person must have performed two anatomical dissections (Chaplin 1919). Even then, dissection was perceived as a "violent impulse" associated with "disemberment of people" and interestingly, the 'Murder Act' of 1752 in England allowed for the bodies of those executed for committing murder to be dissected by surgeons in place of a public display of the executed criminal being hanged on a gibbet (Sawday 1995).

Herophilus was also the earliest person to carry out the first known autopsies for characterizing the course of disease (Lassek 1958; Persaud 1984). He has made many phenomenal observations of the human body, some of which are listed below.

Controversy

The life of Herophilus as an anatomist, as successful as it were, was not short of controversy. Later physicians such as Cornelius Celsus and Galen charged both Herophilus and his contemporary, Erasistratus, with performing vivisection on condemned criminals awarded to them by the rulers of Alexandria (Magner 2005). Celsus, who did not witness the vivisections wrote 250 years after the death of Herophilus (Robinson 1931) that the criminals were dissected alive and "while they were yet breathing" (Scarborough 1976). Tertullian, writing in the next century, called Herophilus a "butcher" and implied that he cut up living people (Dobson 1925). It has been theorized that accusations of vivisections is the main reason why Herophilus has not received as much recognition for his scientific investigations of the human body as Hippocrates, Galen or Vesalius (Wiltse & Pait, 1998).

Conclusion

Herophilus' achievements have had ramifications up till this day, in which his works as an anatomist during that era have left him to be lauded as the 'Vesalius of Antiquity' (Magner 2005). Some of the terminologies attributed to him such as calamus scriptorius and torcula herophili are still in modern usage (Wills 1999). His aphorism, "Wisdom is indemonstrable, art uncertain, strength powerless, wealth useless and speech impotent if health be absent" (Dobson 1925) is a guiding principle in the management of diseases and development of health policies in prevailing times (Folch et al., 2003). As an anatomist, he may not even have reached the eminence of Leonardo da Vinci, the gifted painter whose scientific drawings of the human body have set him apart from any other artist (Bay & Bay, 2010). Nevertheless, the anatomical work of Herophilus is said to be rivaled by only that of Vesalius who produced the well-acclaimed De Humani Corporis Fabrica (Vesalius 1543; Wiltse & Pait, 1998). Herophilus well deserves to be called the Father of Anatomy.