1 The Birth of Science - MSRI

128 5. Medicine and Other Empirical Sciences
thought that Herophilus in this cased relied not on human autopsies but
on bovine anatomy. However, as von Staden observes, the torcular shape
does occur in humans, though more rarely. 18
Now, the Greek term that Herophilus actually used is . 19 Its etymology
is dubious, but in any case not originally related to screws; the
early meanings were a large vat or trough, and a press of any sort. When
screw presses were invented, the term acquired that meaning as well.
Conceivably, Herophilus might have chosen the term before that invention
took place, in which case he would have had in mind “an object that
holds a certain amount of liquid”; but it would be a strange coincidence
if, among the dozens of nouns available for containers, he had selected
exactly the one that later came to mean the screw shape associated with
the structure being named (sometimes in man and always in the ox — and
Herophilus was probably even more familiar with bovine than with human
anatomy). 20 Thus it seems probable that when Herophilus chose the page 169
term it already had the sense of “screw press”.
We must conclude that probably at the time of Herophilus, in the first
half of the third century B.C., screw presses already existed. The absence of
references to this object (and to any other type of screw-nut combination)
in classical-age literature, together with Herophilus’ particular attention to
technological progress, suggests that the invention took place during this
time. The earliest surviving description of screw presses is from centuries
later, written by Heron of Alexandria, 21 while Pliny mentions them as a
novelty of his time. 22
All of this tends to confirm on the one hand that the technology Heron
describes actually dates from the third century B.C., 23 and on the other
Pliny’s unreliability: he presents as a recent invention every Hellenistic
product that had started being imported to Rome in the recent past.
5.4 The Scientific Method in Medicine
Turning now to the problem of the relationship between exact science and
medicine, it goes without saying that Herophilus’ intelligence, scholarship
18 [von Staden: H], p. 158.
19 This is stated in two passages of Galen (De anatomicis administrationibus 9.1 = [von Staden: H],
text 122a; De usu partium, iv, 6 = [von Staden: H], text 123).
20 Almost all anatomical knowledge before Herophilus was based on the ox. Bovine anatomy was
also well-known to priests, who sacrificed them. The religiously imposed bar to human dissection
had forced “physicians” to rely primarily on analogies between man and ox.
21 Heron, Mechanica, III, ii, 19–20.
22 Pliny, Natural history, XVIII, 317.
23 See pages 113–115.
Revision: 1.9 Date: 2002/09/14 19:12:01