The Neurology of Erasistratus

Abstract

Erasistratus was born c. 325 B.C. on the island of Ceos (Chios), and died c. 250 B.C. He is remembered for his discoveries especially in physiology which were based on human and animal dissections and experiments. These discoveries provided new insights and additions to the Hippocratic corpus and Aristotelian concepts. Erasistratus, probably with Herophilus, discovered four ventricles as well as the convolutions of the cerebrum. He appreciated the separate neural pathways for motor and sensory functions and believed that the psychic pneuma was transmitted through motor nerves to muscles which contracted. He devised a corpuscular theory for physiological mechanisms of particle behaviour.