Anatomy, as a science, was first cultivated by the Greeks,—a people, whose enthusiastic ardour in the pursuit of knowledge prompted them to travel into dis tant countries, to collect and appropriate the wisdom of their inhabitants ; and whose ingenuity enabled them to carry to a wonderful degree of perfection every art and science with which they were thus made acquainted. Homer, one of their earliest writers, and their most celebrated poet, displays an extent and accuracy of ana tomical information, which, considering the period in which he lived, is altogether extraordinary. He is even supposed to have wounded his heroes, chiefly in order to chew his acquaintance with the animal structure, and with the situation of its different organs. The stone which Diomede threw at ./Eneas, not only broke the bone of his thigh, but tore the ligaments of the acetabulum; Merion was wounded in one of the large veins which return the blood to the heart ; and Ulysses meditated to strike the Cyclops just where the liver adheres to the diaphragm.
In the school of Pythagoras, the study of anatomy seems to have been prosecuted with considerable ar dour. Alcmeon, one of his pupils, is said to have dis sected with his own hands, and to have discovered cer tam passages which we find between the mouth and the ear ; Empedocics, another of that school, was the first who asserted, that all living bodies sprung originally from eggs ; and a third, Democritus of Abdera, em ployed much of his time in dissection, and is the first person on record who applied his observations to the explanation of the animal economy. His peculiar man ners, his fondness for solitude, and the singular nature of his studies, made his countrymen suspect Democri tus of mental derangement. They sent Hippocrates, therefore, to visit him in his retirement. He found the philosopher seated on a stone, under the ample shade of a plane tree, with a number of books arranged on each side, one on his knee, a pencil.in his hand, and several animals which he had been dissecting lying before him. His complexion was pale, and his countenance thought ful ; at times he laughed, at times shook his head, mused for a while, and then wrote ; then rose up and walked, inspected the animals, sat down, and wrote again. The subject which thus deeply occupied his attention was madness ; and the object of his dissections was to dis cover the scat and the nature of the bile, which he sup posed to be the cause of that distemper. Hippocrates observed him for some time in silent admiration ; ac knowledged the great importance of his inquiries ; and regretted that his own professional employments, and domestic cares, left him no leisure for indulging in similar pursuits.
From this confession, it may be supposed that Hip pocrates, prior to this time, had not devoted much of his attention to practical anatomy ; yet his writings evince, that the knowledge which he afterwards acquired was by no means inconsiderable. Ile has given a sum mary view of the bones ;* and, though inaccurate with regard to their number, he has well described many of their forms, articulations, and processes ; and speaks of a fluid secreted in the joints to facilitate their mo tion ;t and he mentions very frequently the ligaments by which they are connected. He attended likewise to the nature of the flesh, and was not ignorant of its divi sion into those fizscicuti called muscles. Ile has men tioned the spinal and the lumbar muscles,t and has given names to two that are inserted in the lower jaw.9 lie has also mentioned the beatings of the heart, which he expressly calls a strong muscled' From this language, had he said no more, we would naturally be led to con clude, that he knew the functions of these organs ; but, in other parts of his works he assigns a similar office to the ligaments, the tendons, and the nerves, which he includes under one name.
Although he has mentioned two nerves arising front the brain, and points at many which seem to come from the spinal marrow, with which he was acquainted, a sin gle expression cannot be found in his works, which in dicates any acquaintance with their use. This circum stance is the more extraordinary, as he makes the brain the seat of intelligence, and calls it the organ by which we see, hear, feel, and reason.
If the treatise ascribed to him, =fp, xavl'irc;, be genu ine, he seems to have examined the heart, and its ap pendages, with more attention. He takes notice of parts, the discovery of which has been assigned by many to more recent times ; and has often mentioned the course of its vessels in such a manner, that some have given him the honour of the most illustrious discovery in anatomy, the circulation of the blood. He does, in deed, speak of a circle of the blood, a zwave;64, and =e erohs atwiloc; and mentions a difficulty in fixing the place where one should begin in describing its vessels, as they form a circle without beglithing and without end. But so far from having any idea of the circulation of the blood, as known to Harvey, he imagined that the arteries contain air, and doubted whether the veins be gin in the liver, the heart, or the brain.