Champions of the Dogmatist Ethic

In the wake of Alexander the Great’s crumbling empire, new ideas distinct from the ancient Greek practices were gaining acceptance. Herophilus and Erasistratus championed the “Dogmatist” medical ethic in 280 BCE Alexandria, and for the first time were granted permission by the king to perform a vivisection on a condemned criminal for purely scientific reasons. The Empirics, however, opposed dissection and vivisection saying they aren’t necessarily representative of dealing with an actual patient, and that instead of spending time theorizing, doctor’s should be focused on the needs of actual patients. In the 1^st CE the roman historian Cornelius Celsus portrays the debate in his medical encyclopedia De Medicina. Celsus portrays the criminal's

vivisection as a means for the surgeon the familiarize himself with common wounds in battle. The "wound-man" portrayed on the right is from De Medicini and portrays common injuries obtained in battle and was used as a reference for implementing wounds and practicing surgery. Celsus apparently approves of the act saying "nor is it, as most people say, cruel that in the execution of criminals, and but a few of them, we should seek remedies for innocent people of future ages." Though debatably brutish, the practice of human vivisection apparently played important roles in the evolution of human medical understanding. In Herophilus's treatise On Anatomy he was the first to distinguish nerves and further the difference between sensory and motor nerves, that the brain rather than the heart was the center of the nervous system, that perceiving pain depended on both brain and nerves, and revealed the presence of optical nerves and retina.