The Anatomy Galen Used Came From a Brief, Dark Alexandrian Episode. Human Vivisection May Have Been Part of It.

The anatomical descriptions that the famous scholar Galen relied on came from a brief and dark period in Hellenistic Egypt. After Alexander the Great died in the fourth century BCE, his general Ptolemy took control of Egypt and created a dynasty that cultivated scholarship in Alexandria. Religious and moral attitudes in Greece mostly prevented routine human dissection, but the Ptolemies were authoritarian rulers eager to elevate themselves and their empire.

Historian James Longrigg argues that the Ptolemies may have empowered Alexandrian scholars to study anatomy through human dissection and vivisection. Their relentless support of scholarship may have created a permissive environment for the practice.