The Shelves · Medicine

On Fevers, On Paralysis, Anatomy and other works

Known · Probablein Alexandria?Conjecturedvery likely classLegend · Told storya told story on its tag

◇ Doubted: where it was written is uncertain.

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I · The entry, in his form

In the table of Medicine

Conjecturedvery likely class

Erasistratus of Ceos

c. 304–250 BCE. Anatomist who distinguished sensory and motor nerves and described the heart's valves. Celsus pairs him with Herophilus at Alexandria; some scholars think he worked mainly at the Seleucid court in Antioch.

On Fevers, On Paralysis, Anatomy and other works

Opening words not preserved.

Length: not counted

◇ Doubted: where it was written is uncertain.

Above, his entry form, filled from what we know. Below, ours.

II · Does it survive? Where to read it

Survives in fragments

Was it in Alexandria?

Known · Probable

Probably held in the Library.

In the cupboard: no source names the Alexandrian copy, but its scholars' use of it makes one very likely.

Read it today

III · In the show

The show has not yet spoken of this work.

IV · Sources and the living entry

Ancient references (3)
  • Galen, On the Natural Faculties 2
  • Plutarch, Demetrius 38
  • Celsus, On Medicine, proem 23
Modern scholarship (2)
  • I. Garofalo (ed.), Erasistrati fragmenta (Pisa: Giardini, 1988).
  • V. Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2013)

Entry checked 31 Oct 2026 · no corrections · Suggest a correction ›

ON FEVERS, ON PARALYSIS, ANATOMY AND OTHER WORKS

Read what is told

The back of the tag: a story told of this work, in its teller's voice.

Legend: told story

The lovesick prince

Plutarch tells, nearly four centuries later, that Erasistratus found the cause of the Seleucid prince Antiochus's wasting illness by watching him whenever his stepmother Stratonice came into the room: he was in love with her.

Told by Plutarch, c. 100 CE, nearly four centuries later

What the evidence supports

Erasistratus's anatomy and his school are well attested through Galen. Whether he worked in Alexandria or at the Seleucid court is uncertain; the diagnosis is a romance.

Sources (2)
  • Plutarch, Demetrius 38
  • Galen, On the Natural Faculties 2
The Hall of Told Stories

Beside it in the cupboard