A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Ἡρόφιλος), one of the most celebrated physicians of antiquity, who is best known on account of his skill in anatomy and physiology, but of whose personal history few details have been preserved. He was a native of Chalcedon in Bithynia (Galen, Introd. vol. xiv. p. (683 [*](* In another passage (De Usu Part. 1.8. vol. iii. p. 21) he is called a Carthaginian, but this is merely a mistake (as has been more than once remarked), arising from the similarity of the names Χαλκηδόνιος and Καρχηδόριος.) and was a contemporary of the physician Philotimus, the philosopher Diodorus Cronos, and of Ptolemy Soter, in the fourth and third centuries B. C., though the exact year both of his birth and series, and death is unknown. He was a pupil of Praxagoras (Galen, De Meth. Med. 1.3. vol. x. p. 28), and a fellow-pupil of Philotimus (Galen, Ibid.), and settled at Alexandria, which city, though so lately founded, was rapidly rising into eminence under the enlightened government of the first Ptolemy. Here he soon acquired a great reputation, and was one of the first founders of the medical school in that city, which afterwards eclipsed in celebrity all the others, so much so that in the fourth century after Christ the very fact of a physician having studied at alexandria was considered to be a sufficient guarantee of his ability. (Amm. Mare. 22.16.) Connected with his residence here an amusing anecdote is told by Sextus Empiricus (Pyrrhon. Instit. 2.22. 245, ed. Fabric.) of the practical method in which he convinced Diodorus Cronus of the possibility of motion. That philosopher used to deny the existence of motion, and to support his assertion by the followingl dilemma :-- " If matter moves, it is either in the place where it is, or in the place where it is not; but it cannot move in the place where it is, and certainly not in the place where it is not; therefore it cannot move at all." He happened, however, to dislocate his shoulder, and sent for Herophilus to replace it, who first began by proving by his own argument that is was quite impossible that any luxation could have taken place; upon which Diodorus begged him to leave such quibbling for the present, and to proceed at once to his surgical treatment. He seems to have given his chief attention to anatomy, which he studied not merely from the dissection of animals, but also from that of human bodies, as is expressly asserted by Galen ( De Uieri Dissect. 100.5. vol. ii. p. 895). He is even said to have carried his ardor in his anatomical pursuits so far as to have dissected criminals alive,--a well-known accusation, which it seems difficult entirely to disbelieve, though most of his biographers have tried to explain it away, or to throw discredit on it; for (not to lay much stress on the evident exaggeration of Tertullian, who says (De Anima, 100.10. p. 757) that he dissected as many as six hundred), it is mentioned by Celsus (De Medic. i. praef. p. 6), quite as a well-known fact, and without the least suspicion as to its truth; added to which, it should be remembered, that such a proceeding would not be nearly so shocking to men's feelings two thousand years ago as it would be at present.

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