Editing Dissection (section)

===Classical antiquity===
Human dissections were carried out by the [[Ancient Greek medicine|Greek physicians]] [[Herophilos|Herophilus of Chalcedon]] and [[Erasistratus of Chios]] in the early part of the third century BC.<ref>{{Cite journal | last1=von Staden | first1=Heinrich | title=The discovery of the body: Human dissection and its cultural contexts in ancient Greece | journal=The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine | volume=65 | issue=3 | pages=223–241 | year=1992 | pmid= 1285450 | pmc=2589595 | author1-link=Heinrich von Staden (historian) }}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite journal|last=Brenna|first=Connor T. A.|date=2021|title=Bygone theatres of events: A history of human anatomy and dissection|journal=The Anatomical Record|volume=305 |issue=4 |language=en|pages=2–5|doi=10.1002/ar.24764|pmid=34551186 |s2cid=237608991 |issn=1932-8494|doi-access=free}}</ref> Before then, animal dissection had been carried out systematically starting from the fifth century BC.<ref>See Bubb 2022: 12. Claire Bubb. 2022. ''Dissection in Classical Antiquity: A Social and Medical History''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</ref> During this period, the first exploration into full human anatomy was performed rather than a base knowledge gained from 'problem-solution' delving.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |title=Human cadaveric dissection: a historical account from ancient Greece to the modern era |journal=Anatomy & Cell Biology |date=2015-09-01 |issn=2093-3665 |pmc=4582158 |pmid=26417475 |pages=153–169 |volume =48 |issue=3 |doi=10.5115/acb.2015.48.3.153 |first=Sanjib Kumar |last=Ghosh}}</ref> While there was a deep taboo in Greek culture concerning human dissection, there was at the time a strong push by the [[Ptolemaic Kingdom|Ptolemaic]] government to build [[Alexandria]] into a hub of scientific study.<ref name=":0" /> For a time, [[Roman law]] forbade dissection and autopsy of the human body,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aufderheide |first1=Arthur C. |title=The Scientific Study of Mummies |date=2003 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge, UK |isbn=978-0521177351 |page=5 |quote=Tragically, the prohibition of human dissection by Rome in 150 BC arrested this progress and few of their findings survived.}}</ref> so anatomists relied on the cadavers of animals or made observations of human anatomy from injuries of the living. [[Galen]], for example, dissected the [[Barbary macaque]] and other primates, assuming their anatomy was basically the same as that of humans, and supplemented these observations with knowledge of human anatomy which he acquired while tending to wounded gladiators.<ref name=":4" /><ref>Nutton, Vivian, 'The Unknown Galen', (2002), p. 89</ref><ref>Von Staden, Heinrich,  ''Herophilus'' (1989), p. 140</ref><ref>[[Philip Lutgendorf|Lutgendorf, Philip]], ''Hanuman's Tale: The Messages of a Divine Monkey'' (2007), p. 348</ref>

[[Aulus Cornelius Celsus|Celsus]] wrote in ''On Medicine I Proem 23'', "Herophilus and Erasistratus proceeded in by far the best way: they cut open living men - criminals they obtained out of prison from the kings and they observed, while their subjects still breathed, parts that nature had previously hidden, their position, color, shape, size, arrangement, hardness, softness, smoothness, points of contact, and finally the processes and recesses of each and whether any part is inserted into another or receives the part of another into itself."

[[Galen]] was another such writer who was familiar with the studies of Herophilus and Erasistratus.