Herophilus

Herophilus was born at Chalcedon, on the Bosporus opposite Byzantium, around 335 BC, and studied medicine under Praxagoras of Cos. He settled in Alexandria, the new Greek capital of Egypt under the Ptolemies, where for a short time the dissection of human bodies was permitted. Herophilus became the first physician known to dissect human corpses in a systematic way. He described the brain and its ventricles, distinguished nerves from tendons, separated the sensory from the motor nerves, and traced the eye, the liver, the reproductive organs and the first part of the small intestine, which he named for its length of twelve finger-breadths (the duodenum). He also studied the pulse and is said to have timed it with a water clock. None of his books survives; his work is known through later writers such as Galen and Celsus. Celsus and the Christian writer Tertullian reported that he and Erasistratus also cut open living condemned criminals, a charge that historians still debate. He died around 280 BC.

Faith: Faith not well documented. Source: Wikipedia

See also: Hippocrates · Galen · Celsus