ABSTRACT

After the death of Hippocrates the Great, the science of medicine was still further perfected by his son-in-law, Polybus, one of the most renowned practitioners of the School of Cos. Dioxippus of Cos, a disciple of Hippocrates, is supposed to have written a treatise on medicine and books on prognosis, while Petronius is known to us from the writings of Celsus, who affirms that he lived before Erasistratus and Herophilus. Erasistratus had many disciples, of whom Galen mentions quite a number, but their fame was unequal. Among them may be enumerated Straton of Lampsacos, Xenophon of Cos, Ptolemaeus of Alexandria, a certain Chrysippus, Charidemus, Hermogenes, Artemidorus, Athenion, Apollonius of Memphis. Herophilus seems to have been quite as successful as a practitioner of medicine as he was as a teacher of anatomy. Studies have shown that Erasistratus and Herophilus derived their medical knowledge exclusively from Greece.