Greek anatomist herophilus: the father of anatomy

Abstract

One of the most stirring controversies in the history of Anatomy is that Herophilus, an ancient Greek anatomist and his younger contemporary, Erasistratus, were accused of performing vivisections of living humans. However, this does not detract from the fact that Herophilus has made phenomenal anatomical observations of the human body which have contributed significantly towards the understanding of the brain, eye, liver, reproductive organs and nervous system. It is notable that he was the first person to perform systematic dissection of the human body and is widely acknowledged as the Father of Anatomy. He has been hailed as one of the greatest anatomists that ever lived, rivaled only by Andreas Vesalius who is regarded as the founder of modern human anatomy.

Herophilos, the great anatomist of antiquity

“…Herophilos established the distinction between arteries and veins and confirmed that the arteries had thicker walls than the veins [6,12] and maintained the idea that arteries carried blood rather than air. [16,17] He described the pulmonary artery which he denominated arterious vein and also described the pulmonary vein.…”

Promethean and Tityean hepatic regeneration, unveiling hepar's myth. Post mortem observation, surgical ascertainment, or just fiction?

“…We may assume that operations were performed into a certain depth for a massive bleeding to be avoided, but the fact that hepatic abscesses and malignancies were being operated and the patient had been enjoying a period of care, it seems that the healing, or even the growth (regeneration) of the hepar had been observed [16]. Alexandrian School though, may had gone a bit further as many scholars named its member as "butchers", who had been performing not only autopsies, but in many cases dissections even in alive human subjects [27]. th century AD), and many others wrote various treatises on "De Natura Hominis" (On the nature of human anatomy and physiology), documenting their opinion about hepar [22].…”

The Neuroanatomy of Herophilus

“…His original well-documented [2,8,9,15] depictions of the duodenum, liver, salivary glands, uterus, cardiac chambers are not repeated here.…”

“…We know he journeyed to Alexandria [8] to begin his education under Praxagoras of Cos [9], who had added to Aristotelian anatomy by differentiating arteries from veins and who first measured the pulse, using a water clock (clepsydra, κλεπσψδρα), thus pioneering objective measurements in medicine.…”