A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

Smith, William

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. William Smith, LLD, ed. 1890

(Νυμφόδωρος), a Greek physician, who must have lived in or before the third century B. C., as he is mentioned by Heracleides of Tarentum (ap. Galen, Comment. in Hippocr. "De Artic." 4.40, vol. xviii. pt. i. p. 736). He was celebrated for the invention of a machine for the reduction of dislocations, called γλωσσόκομον, which was afterwards somewhat modified by Aristion, and of which a description is given by Oribasis (de Machinam. 100.24, p. 179, &c.). He is mentioned by Celsus along with several other eminent surgeons (8.20, p. 185), and is perhaps person quoted by Pliny, in the passages referred to in the preceding article.

Fabricius (Bibl. Gr. xiii. p. 351, 352, ed. vet.) and Haller (Bibl. Chirurg. and Bibl. Med. Pract.) suppose him to be the same person as Nymphodotus Ν̔υμφόδοτος) whose medical formulae are quoted by Andromachus (ap. Galen, de Compos. Miedicam. sec. Gen. 6.14, vol. xiii. p. 926), Aetius (3.1. §§ 45, 49, pp. 500, 504, 505, 506), and Paulus Aegineta (7.12, p. 665), and who must have lived in or before the first century after Christ; but this is quite uncertain.

[W.A.G]