1 The Birth of Science - MSRI

5.2 Relationship Between Medicine and Exact Sciences 123
One gets the feeling that, if a person versed in anatomy or physiology
could read Herophilus’ treatises, he would have the same impression that
a mathematician has in reading Euclid or Archimedes: getting past the
differences between ancient and modern knowledge, he would recognize
these treatises as works in his own field. This impression would certainly
not be conveyed by the Hippocratic corpus, nor by Aristotle’s works, nor
by any other earlier text.
Herophilus also dealt with medicine proper: pathology, diagnosis and
therapy. He introduced what became for two thousand years one of the
main instruments of diagnosis: the measurement of the pulse. He noticed
the relationship between heart rate and body temperature, as well as the
variation of average heart rate with age. To measure the heart rate of his
patients, according to Marcellinus, he had a water “stopwatch” built that
could be adjusted for the age of the patient. 7 Since in those years, as we
saw on page 90, Ctesibius was building water clocks in Alexandria that
could be adjusted for the length of the day, there is no reason to doubt
Marcellinus’ report.
Without listing the many areas of Herophilean interest in pathology, we
mention only that he was the first physician to describe the symptoms of
mental illness. 8
As for therapeutics, Herophilus on the one hand declares the importance
of prevention, stressing for example the benefits of physical exercise,
and on the other prescribes treatments of various types: diets (which,
he says, are also important in prevention), simple medicines of plant, animal
or mineral origin, as well as complex formulations involving a dozen
or more ingredients in stated amounts. In an obvious allusion to the ageold
habit of entrusting healing to the gods, Herophilus says that “medicaments
are the hands of the gods”. 9 For some diseases, such as the cholera,
it is recorded that Herophilus gave up on treatment altogether, evidently page 164
having concluded from experience that it was all useless: this is perhaps
the best proof of how serious he was in his medicine. 9a
5.2 Relationship Between Medicine and Exact Sciences
The birth of exact science is contemporaneous with the qualitative leap
taken by medicine at the hands of Herophilus and his school, a leap so
7 Marcellinus, De pulsibus, 11 = [von Staden: H], text 182.
8 Caelius Aurelianus, Celeres vel acutae passiones, I, pref. 4–5 = [von Staden: H], text 211.
9 [von Staden: H], p. 417.
9a [von Staden: H], p. 422–423.
Revision: 1.9 Date: 2002/09/14 19:12:01