{{Short description|Greek physician (335–280 BC)}}
{{for|the man identified by Valerius Maximus as Herophilus|Pseudo-Marius}}
{{redirect|Europhiles|people with pro-European attitudes|Europhile}}
{{Infobox person
| name        = Herophilos of Chalcedon
| image       = Zaragoza - Antigua Facultad de Medicina - Medallón - Herófilo.jpg
| caption     = Medallion with a relief depicting Herophilus in the Old Faculty of Medicine of Zaragoza.
| birth_date  = {{circa|335}} BC
| birth_place = [[Chalcedon]], [[ancient Greece]]
| death_date  = {{circa|280}} BC<br/>(aged approximately 55)
| death_place = 
| occupation  = [[Physician]]
| era         = [[Classical Greece]]
}}
'''Herophilos''' ({{IPAc-en|h|ɪ|ˈ|r|ɒ|f|ɪ|l|ə|s}}; {{langx|grc|Ἡρόφιλος}}; 335–280 BC), sometimes [[Latin]]ised '''Herophilus''', was a [[Greece|Greek]] physician regarded as one of the earliest [[Anatomy|anatomists]]. Born in [[Chalcedon]], he spent the majority of his life in [[Alexandria]]. He was the first scientist to systematically perform scientific dissections of human cadavers. He recorded his findings in over nine works, which are now all lost. The [[Early Christianity|early Christian]] author [[Tertullian]] states that Herophilos vivisected at least 600 prisoners;<ref name="galen1">[https://books.google.com/books?id=CyK2oKiLDTAC Galen. On Semen. DeLacy P (trans.) Akademie Verlag, 1992. p. 147, line 22]{{Dead link|date=August 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> however, this account has been disputed by many historians.<ref name="scarborough">Scarborough [https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004418233/B9789004418233_s004.xml "Celsus on Human Vivisection at Ptolemaic Alexandria"], ''Clio Medica. Acta Academiae Internationalis Historiae Medicinae. Vol. 11'', 1976</ref> He is often seen as the father of anatomy.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Herophilus|encyclopedia=Britannica|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Herophilus}}</ref>

==Biography==
[[File:Herophilos (1906) - Veloso Salgado.png|300px|thumb|right|Herophilos (right) teaching Anatomy, 1906, by [[Veloso Salgado]] ([[Universidade Nova de Lisboa|NOVA Medical School]], [[Lisbon]])]]
Herophilos was born in [[Chalcedon]] in [[Asia Minor]] (now [[Kadıköy]], Turkey), c.&nbsp;335 BC. Not much is known about his early life other than he moved to Alexandria at a fairly young age to begin his schooling.

As an adult Herophilos was a teacher, and an author of at least nine texts ranging from his book titled ''On Pulses'', which explored the flow of [[blood]] from the [[heart]] through the [[arteries]], to his book titled ''Midwifery'', which discussed duration and phases of [[childbirth]]. In Alexandria, he practiced [[vivisection|dissections]], often publicly so that he could explain what he was doing to those who were fascinated<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Reverón |first=Rafael Romero |date=2015-08-31 |title=Herophilos, the great anatomist of antiquity |url=http://dergipark.gov.tr/doi/10.2399/ana.15.003 |journal=Anatomy |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=108–111 |doi=10.2399/ana.15.003}}</ref>. [[Erasistratus]] was his contemporary.  Together, they worked at a medical school in Alexandria that is said to have drawn people from all over the ancient world due to Herophilos's fame.

His works are lost but were much quoted by [[Galen]] in the second century AD. Herophilos was the first scientist to systematically perform scientific dissections of human cadavers.<ref>{{Cite journal | last1=von Staden | first1=Heinrich | title=The discovery of the body: Human dissection and its cultural contexts in ancient Greece | journal=The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine | volume=65 | issue=3 | pages=223–241 | year=1992 | pmid= 1285450 | pmc=2589595 | author1-link=Heinrich von Staden (historian) }}</ref> Dissections of human cadavers were banned in most places at the time, except for Alexandria. [[Aulus Cornelius Celsus|Celsus]] in ''De Medicina'' and the church leader [[Tertullian]] state that he [[Vivisection|vivisected]] at least 600 live prisoners,<ref name="galen1"/> though this has been contested as Herophilos appeared to have believed the arteries contained very little blood. It is unlikely that he would have held this belief if he had performed a vivisection.<ref name="scarborough"/>

[[File:Monde_hellénistique_en_-281_Alexandrie_Chalcedoine.png |thumb|upright=1.10|The Hellenistic world in 281]]
After the death of Herophilos in 280 BC, his anatomical findings lived on in the works of other important physicians, notably Galen<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ganz |first=J |date=2014 |title=Herophilus and vivisection: a re-appraisal |journal=History of Medicine}}</ref>. The Middle Ages witnessed the revival of an interest in medical studies, including human dissection and autopsy. Frederick II (1194–1250), the Holy Roman Emperor, decreed that any that were studying to be a physician or a surgeon must attend a human dissection, which would be held no less than every five years. Some European countries began legalizing the dissection of executed criminals for educational purposes in the late 13th and early 14th centuries<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ghosh |first=Sanjib Kumar |date=2015-09-22 |title=Human cadaveric dissection: a historical account from ancient Greece to the modern era |url=https://synapse.koreamed.org/articles/1071811 |journal=Anatomy & Cell Biology |publisher=Korean Association of Anatomists |volume=48 |issue=3 |pages=153–169 |doi=10.5115/acb.2015.48.3.153}}</ref>. Mondino de Luzzi carried out the first recorded public dissection around 1315. Dissecting with the purpose to gain knowledge about human anatomy continued in early modern times ([[Andreas Vesalius|Vesalius]]).

==Medical knowledge==
[[File:De Re Anatomica.jpg|thumb|upright=0.80|''De Re Anatomica'' (1559).]]
Herophilos emphasised the use of the experimental method in medicine, for he considered it essential to found knowledge on empirical bases. He was a forerunner of the [[Empiric school]] of medicine, founded by Herophilos's pupil [[Philinus of Cos]],<ref>Bernardino Fantini ''Western Medical Thought from Antiquity to the Middle Ages'' p 109</ref> which combined Herophilos's empirical impulses with critical tools borrowed from [[Pyrrhonism|Pyrrhonist]] philosophy. However, the Empirics found Herophilos wanting, mounting two chief attacks against him:

# that anatomy was useless to the therapeutic and clinical practice of medicine, as demonstrated by Herophilos's own acceptance of humoral pathology.
# it was useless and epistemologically unsound to try to find causal explanations from the evident to the non-evident.<ref>Bernardino Fantini ''Western Medical Thought from Antiquity to the Middle Ages'' p 91</ref>

Conventional medicine of the time revolved around the theory of the [[four humors]] in which an imbalance between bile, black bile, phlegm, and blood led to sickness or disease. [[Vein]]s were believed to be filled with blood and a mixture of air and water. Through dissections, Herophilus was able to deduce that veins carried only blood. After studying the flow of blood, he was able to differentiate between [[arteries]] and veins. He noticed that as blood flowed through arteries, they pulsed or rhythmically throbbed. He worked out standards for measuring a [[pulse]] and could use these standards to aid him in diagnosing sicknesses or diseases. To measure this pulse, he made use of a [[water clock]].

Herophilos's work on blood and its movements led him to study and analyse the [[brain]]. He proposed that the brain housed the intellect rather than the heart, an early statement of the [[cephalocentric hypothesis]]. He was the first person to differentiate between the [[cerebrum]] and the [[cerebellum]], and to place individual importance on each portion. He looked more in depth into the network of [[nerves]] located in the [[Human cranium|cranium]].

Herophilos was particularly interested in the eye. He described the [[optic nerve]] for seeing and the [[oculomotor nerve]] for eye movements. Through his dissection of the [[Human eye|eye]], he discovered its different sections and layers: the "skin" of the eyeball comprising the [[cornea]] (the clear part at the front of the eye through which light begins to be focussed into the eye) and [[sclera]] (the white of the eye), the [[Iris (anatomy)|iris]] (the colored part of the eye surrounding the [[pupil]]), the [[retina]] (containing the cells converting light into neural activity), and the [[choroid]] (a layer between the retina and the sclera comprising connective tissue and blood vessels nourishing the retina).<ref name = Staden1989 /><ref>Reverón, R. (2015). Herophilos, the great anatomist of antiquity. Anatomy, 9(2), 108-111. https://doi.org/10.2399/ana.15.003
https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/371071</ref> Herophilos used the term ''retiform'' to describe the retina, from its resemblance to a casting net, giving the origin of the modern term.<ref>Dobson, J. F. (1925). Herophilus of Alexandria. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 18, 19-32. https://doi.org/10.1177/003591572501801704</ref>

Further study of the cranium led Herophilos to describe the ''[[calamus scriptorius]]'', which he believed was the seat of the human [[Soul (spirit)|soul]].  Analysis of the nerves in the cranium allowed him to differentiate between nerves and blood vessels and to discover the differences between motor and sensory nerves. He believed that the sensory and motor nerves shot out from the brain and that the neural transmissions occurred by means of ''[[pneuma (ancient medicine)|pneuma]]''.  Part of Herophilos's beliefs about the human body involved the pneuma, which he believed was a substance that flowed through the arteries along with the blood. To make this consistent with medical beliefs at the time, Herophilos stated that diseases occurred when an excess of one of the four humors impeded the pneuma from reaching the brain.

[[File:Vesalius'_"Fabrica"_(1543).jpg|thumb|upright=0.85|''Fabrica'': first representation of the ovaries.]]
Herophilos also introduced many other scientific terms used to this day to describe anatomical phenomena. He was among the first to introduce the notion of conventional terminology, as opposed to use of "natural names", using terms he created to describe the objects of study, naming them for the first time. A [[confluence of sinuses]] in the skull was originally named ''torcular Herophili'' after him.  Torcular is a Latin translation of Herophilos's label, ''ληνός - lenos'', 'wine vat' or 'wine press'.<ref name="Staden1989">{{cite book|last=Staden|first=Heinrich von|title=Herophilus: The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria: Edition, Translation and Essays|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rGhlIfJZkVoC|access-date=17 November 2013|date=1989-04-20|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521236461|page=138}}</ref> He also named the [[duodenum]], which is part of the [[small intestine]]. Other areas of his anatomical study include the [[liver]], the [[pancreas]], and the alimentary tract, as well as the [[salivary gland]]s and genitalia.

Herophilos is credited with learning extensively about the physiology of the female reproductive system.  In his book ''Midwifery'', he discussed phases and duration of pregnancy as well as causes for difficult childbirth.  The aim of this work was to help midwives and other doctors of the time more fully understand the process of procreation and pregnancy. He is also credited with the discovery of the [[ovum]],<ref name="galen1"/><ref>Connell, S.&nbsp;M. "Aristotle and Galen on sex difference and reproduction: A new approach to an ancient rivalry". ''Studies In History and Philosophy of Science Part&nbsp;A'' 31(3): 405-27, September 2000</ref>  and was the first to make a scientific description of what would later be called [[Skene's gland]], for which in 2001 the term ''female prostate'' was accepted as a second term.<ref>{{cite web |last1=McVean |first1=Ada |title=Can Women Ejaculate? |url=https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/health-history/can-women-ejaculate-depends-who-you-ask |website=McGill - Office for Science and Society |publisher=McGill |access-date=19 December 2018}}</ref>

Herophilos believed that [[exercise]] and a healthy diet were integral to an individual's bodily health. He once said that "when health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot become manifest, strength cannot be exerted, wealth is useless, and reason is powerless".

==See also==
*[[Timeline of medicine and medical technology]]
*[[Alcmaeon of Croton]]
*[[Cephalocentric hypothesis]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=rGhlIfJZkVoC von Staden H. (ed. trans.) ''Herophilos: The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria''. Cambridge University Press, 1989] {{ISBN|978-0-521-23646-1}}
*Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawford, "Herophilos", ''The Oxford Classical Dictionary''. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) 699.
*"Herophilus", ''Encyclopedia of World Biography'', Supplement Vol. 25 Thomson Gale. (Michigan: Gale).
*Adrian Wills, "Herophilus, Erasistratus, and the birth of neuroscience", ''The Lancet''. (November 13, 1999): 1719 Expanded Academic ASAP. Gale, 30 Nov. 2008.
*"On the Localisation of the Functions of the Brain with Special Reference to the Faculty of Language", ''Anthropological Review'', Vol. 6, (Oct., 1868) 336.
* Galen. On the natural faculties. Brock A.&nbsp;J. (trans.) Heinemann, London 1916. p. xii, 233

==Further reading==
*{{cite book|last=Dean-Jones|first=Lesley|title=Women's bodies in classical Greek science|year=1994|publisher=Clarendon Press|location=Oxford|isbn=0-19-814767-8|edition=Revised}}
*{{cite book|last=Lloyd|first=G.&nbsp;E.&nbsp;R.|title=Greek science after Aristotle|year=1973|publisher=Norton|location=New York|isbn=0-393-04371-1|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/greekscienceafte00lloy}}
*{{cite book|last=Lloyd|first=G.&nbsp;E.&nbsp;R.|title=Science, folklore and ideology : studies in the life sciences in ancient Greece|year=1983|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=0-521-25314-4}}
*{{cite journal|last=Longrigg|first=James|title=Superlative achievement and comparative neglect: Alexandrian medical science and modern historical research|journal=History of Science |year=1981|volume=19|issue=45 pt 3|pages=155–200|doi=10.1177/007327538101900301|pmid=11610979|bibcode=1981HisSc..19..155L|s2cid=29991308 }}
*{{cite journal|last=Potter|first=Paul|title=Herophilus of Chalcedon: an assessment of his place in the history of anatomy|journal=Bulletin of the History of Medicine|year=1976|volume=50|issue=1|pages=45–60|pmid=769875}}
*{{cite journal|last=Solmsen|first=Friedrich|title=Greek Philosophy and the Discovery of the Nerves|journal=Museum Helveticum|year=1961|volume=18|pages=150–197}}
*{{cite book|last=von Staden|first=Heinrich|title=Jewish and Christian Self-Definition: Self-Definition in the Graeco-Roman World|year=1982|publisher=SCM Press|location=London|editor1-first=Ben&nbsp;F. |editor1-last=Meyer|editor2-first=E.&nbsp;P.|editor2-last=Sanders|chapter=Hairesis and Heresy}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:History of neuroscience]]
[[Category:Ancient Greek anatomists]]
[[Category:Ancient Chalcedonians]]
[[Category:4th-century BC Greek medical doctors]]
[[Category:335 BC births]]
[[Category:280 BC deaths]]
[[Category:Ancient ophthalmologists]]
[[Category:3rd-century BC Greek medical doctors]]