King but to keep his word. History fails to state whether or not the lady made any objection to the transfer. As Antiochus lived to reign for many years after the murder of his father, it is safe to assume that he recovered his health.
This brief tale, the truth of which is not disputed by any of the authorities, reveals Erasistratus to have been a clever diagnostician, to have possessed a profound knowledge of human nature, and to have been a man of exceptional courage; in short, he was a physician admirably fitted to act as the founder and leader of one of the two great medical schools of Alexandria. The following account may suffice to convey some idea of his career after he became established at the latter city.
At the beginning of his residence in Alexandria, Erasistratus, like his great rival Herophilus, devoted his energies to anatomical and physiological researches. These two men evidently realized to the full how important it was to medicine, if it were to make a substantial advance beyond the point to which Hippocrates and his followers had already carried it, that a more complete understanding of the structure and working of the human body should be obtained; and their efforts in this direction were greatly aided by the enlightened views of the kings of Egypt, the Ptolemies, who did everything in their power to furnish these two investigators with all the human dissecting material they could use to advantage. They even went so far as to allow them the privilege of utilizing, for scientific purposes, the living bodies of imprisoned criminals, "in order that they might in this way learn the location, color, shape, size, construction, hardness, softness, smoothness, nature of external surface, protuberances and recesses of the individual organs during life." The defense which they offered for permitting such vivisections was this: "It is permissible to sacrifice the lives of a few criminals if many worthy persons may thereby be permanently benefited in health, or have their lives prolonged." (Puschmann.) Those who were opposed to such examinations upon human beings expressed their disapproval in
