Alexandrian Period Flashcards
Museum in Alexandria
Primary link between early Greek thought and Roman-Medieval periods
- Religious shrine and place of learning
Herophilus Circa
Contemporary of Euclid (300 BC)
- Probably the first to make public dissections of human subjects
- Recognized the brain as the centre of the nervous system
- Distinguished between sensory and motor nerves
- First to describe the duodenum
When was the Alexandrian period?
330-200 BC
Erasistratus
- 280 BC; continued work of Herophilus
- Atomist and follower of Democritus
- Observed convulsions in the brain
Important anatomical descriptions done by Erasistratus
- Described the action of the epiglottis preventing the entrance of food into the windpipe during swallowing
- First described valves between atria and ventricles
- Experimented on animals
What type of science was based during Roman domination?
Hellenistic: Greek era science
Included Greece but not Egypt
Who were the two major contributors to late Alexandrian biology?
Dioscorides and Galen
Pedanius Discorides
Father of pharmacology (1st century AD)
- Interested in the use of plants for medicinal purposes
- Published one of the earliest herbals
De materia medica
Herbal published by Dioscorides
- Stimulus for botanical research at the beginning of the Renaissance
Galenos
Physiologist (130-201 AD) that developed his own physiological system
- Believed blood and pneuma were the body’s essential ingredients
- Described the circulatory system in detail
- TELEOLOGIST
Galeno’s experiments
- Spinal cord transections in pigs
- Laryngeal innervation
- Muscle innervation/contraction
Celsus
Roman author (1st century AD) of De medicina - Earliest scientific work on medicine in Latin
What came with the domination of the Roman Empire?
The rise of Christianity and decline of science
