0"T' LAERT> "! - USP

78 ANCIENT TIMES.
Most remarkable of all is his recognition of the lacteal
vessels,* the functions of which he evidently could not
know or at most could only surmise: science had to wait
for this for nearly two thousand years. His attempts to
explain digestion and other physiological processes in a
mechanical way deserve also due recognition : and those
too made for the purpose of discovering the origin of
diseases by pathological dissections.t
HEROPHILOS and ERASISTRATOS were undoubtedly
assisted in their anatomical investigations by much impor-
' tant work previously done, as by that of DlOKLES of
Karystus whom GALEN mentions with praise:J but above
all they owe their extraordinary results to the circumstance
that the Egyptian Kings placed at their disposal, in any '
quantity they wished,'human subjects for dissection. They
even had the opportunity of opening living men ! Criminals ' j
from the prisons were handed over to them for this purpose
" so that they could study the particular organs during life
in regard to position, colour, form, size, disposition, hard­
ness, softness, smoothness and superficial extent, their pro­
jections and their curvatures." They justified these vivi­
sections in this way, saying " it must be permitted to
sacrifice the lives of a few criminals if by doing so a per­
manent advantage accrues to the lives and health of many
worthy men." Their opponents replied to this " that it is
not only a cruel practice and degrades the healing art, which
should serve as a blessing to mankind, not as a torture, but
is also superfluous, since the people whose abdomens have
been ripped up, diaphragms cut away, and thoracic cavities
opened, die before it is possible to make scientific experi- 1
ments on them."§ The pupils and followers of these two
* GALEN op. cit. T. ii, 649. iv, 718.
f GALEN op. cit. T. xix, 373.—CELSUS: Proem, and. iii, 21.—DIOSKORIDES,
Ed. C Sprengel, Lips. 1830, T. ii, p. 72. C/ELIUS AURELIANUS • de chron. iii, 1
8. v; 10.
X GALEN op. cit. T. ii, 282, 716.
§ CELSUS: Proem.—TURTULLIAN : de anima, C. 10.