Rufus

, the Ephesian, a physician and anatomist in the reign of the emperor Trajan, obtained great reputation by his extensive knowledge and experience. Galen esteemed him one of the most able of the physicians who had preceded bin:-. Rufus appears to have cultivated anatomy, by dissecting brutes, with great zeal and success. He traced the origin of the nerves in the brain, and considered some of them as contributing to motion, and others to sensation. He even observed the capsule of the crystalline lens |

in the eye. He considered the heart as the seat of life, and of the animal heat, and as the origin of the pulse, which he ascribed to the spirit of its left ventricle and of the arteries; and he remarked the difference in the capacity and thickness of the two ventricles. He deemed the spleen to be a very useless viscus, and his successors have never discovered its use. He examined very fully the organs of generation, and the kidnies and bladder; he has left, indeed, a very good treatise on the diseases of the urinary organs, and the methods of cure. He also wrote a work on purgative medicines, mentioning their different qualities, the countries from which they were obtained; and a little treatise on the names given by the Greeks to the different parts of the body. Galen affirms also that Rufus was the author of an essay on the tnateria medica, written in verse; and Suidas mentions a treatise of his on the ' atra bilis, with some other essays; but these are lost. What remains of his works are to be found in the “Artis medicse principes” of Stephens, and printed separately at London, Gr. and Lat. 4to, by W. Clinch, 172G. ¹