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THE TIME OF HIPPOKRATES.,
to die must also have attracted their attention. So too
may the glimpses into the structure of the body afforded by
external wounds have been not without result. Various
accounts point to the fact that there was no shrinking with
horror from opening and examining the human body*
Even if no scientific aims were pursued in these investigations,
evidence is nevertheless afforded that anatomical investigations
were possible. That these were actually undertaken
is an assumption of great probability in consequence of
certain remarks of ARISTOTLE and the Hippokratic writers
and above all in view of the extent of the anatomical knowledge
of that period. The author of the Hippokratic
treatise "on the joints" says incidentally of dislocation of
the spine that it is permitted in the dead, but not in the
living, to open the body by incision in order to reduce the
dislocation by the hand, and in the lecture " on the Heart "
the statement is made that this organ is to be withdrawn
from the body of a dead person for the purpose of examination
in the manner customary for a long time previously.t
A passage in the 5th book of the Epidemics speaks indeed
of a dissection which was undertaken for the purpose of
determining the origin and extent of a disease.^ Speaking
generally they appear to have confined themselves to
opening the thoracic and abdominal cavities; and the
position and form of the contained organs are fairly
correctly described. ARISTOTLE who on various occasions
drew comparisons between the structure of the human body
and that of the lower animals declared that the internal
organs of man were as yet but little known.§ Certainly,
the knowledge possessed by the doctors, of the Hippokratic
period, of the brain, nerves, vessels and even muscles was
scanty and deficient. On the other hand, the bones were
* PLINIUS: Hist. Nat, xi, 70.—VALER. MAXIM, i, 8, 15.—PAUSANIAS iv, 9.
—HEHODOT. ix, 83.
f HIPPOKRATES op. tit. T. iv, 198. vi, 16. ix, 88.—GALEN ii, 280.
X HIPPOKRATES op. cit. T. v, 224.—ARISTOTLE : de part, anim : iv, 2.
§ ARISTOTLE: Hist. anim. i, 16.