Herophilus and Erasisratus: First Human Dissection
Herophilus and Erasistratus proceeded in by far the best way: they cut open living men - criminals they obtained out of prison from the kings and they observed, while their subjects still breathed, parts that nature had previously hidden, their position, color, shape , size, arrangement, hardness, softness, smoothness, points of contact, and finally the processes and recesses of each and whether any part is inserted into another or receives the part of another into itself. -Celsus, Roman Medical Writer, 1st Century AD ‘[Herophilus] that doctor, or rather butcher, who cut up innumerable human beings so that he could investigate nature’ - Tertullian, On the Soul, 2nd-3rd Century AD These two quotes from Roman writers show the change in opinion of dissection and those who perform them.
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In the first half of the third century B.C., two Greeks, Herophilus of Chalcedon and his Some dissections had been performed prior to Herophilus, but none recorded were for the purpose of scientific learning.
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