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MEDICAL TEACHING IN ROME. IOI
by RUEUS th VI " a ^
aIready been mentioned
liL.T ',
E P hesian > who was also the first to bring to
light the distinction of nerves into motor and sensory*
/he results obtained in anatomical investigation were
chiefly supported by dissection of the lower animals.
Only exceptionally, opportunities presented themselves
for studying human anatomy; and even in Alexandria,
where since the Ptolemies, freer views prevailed on this
subject, such opportunities in GALEN'S time occurred but
seldom^ Only the corpses of hostile soldiers, fallen on the
battle-field, of criminals who had been executed or were
found unburied, of stillborn children or children exposed
to die, were employed for this purpose.f Again, injuries
which were associated with laying bare of the soft parts
occasionally gave some information about the position of
organs. There was naturally no thought to be entertained
of vivisection in Rome, and CELSUS expressed accurately
the common sentiment when he wrote :—" The opening
of the living body I consider horrible and superfluous, that
of corpses on the contrary I hold to be necessary for
learnefs : for they must know the position and arrange­
ment of the different parts of the body. For the purpose
of learning these things corpses are more suitable than
living and wounded men."J GALEN narrates, that the
doctors who marched with the Roman army in the war
with Germany, received permission to dissect the corpses
of their fallen foes. Unfortunately, he adds, they were
unable to derive thence any addition to their knowledge
as they lacked the requisite preliminary acquaintance with
anatomy.§ On another occasion he informs us how by
chance he became possessed of two skeletons of which
one was obtained from a corpse which had been floated
out of its grave by a flooded stream, and the other was from
the body of a robber who had been slain in the moun-
* CEuvres de RUFUS, publie'es par CH. DAREMBERG et CH. EM. RUELLE,
Paris 1879, p. 153, 170.
f GALEN ii, 385. J CELSUS : Prsefat. § GALEN xiii, 604.