Sera'pion
（
Σεραπίων), a physician of Alexandria (Galen,
Introd. 100.4. vol. xiv. p. 683), who lived in the third century B. C., after Herophilus, Erasistratus, and Philinus, and before Apollonius Empiricus, Glaucias, Heraclides of Tarentum, Menodotus, Sextus Empiricus (Gal.
l.c. ; Celsus,
De Med. i. praef. p. 5), and Crito (Galen,
De Compos. Medicam. sec. Gen. 6.4. vol. xiii. p. 883).
He belonged to the sect of the Empirici, and so much extended and improved the system of Philinus, that the invention of it is by some authors attributed to him (Cels.
l.c.). Dr. Mead, in his " Dissert. de Numis quibusdam a Smyrnaeis in Medicorum Honorem cusis" (Lond. 1724, 4to. p. 51), tries to prove that he was a follower of Erasistratus, because his name appears upon a medal discovered at Smyrna, where it is known that the school of Erasistratus flourished; but it is not at all certain that the physician is the person in whose henour the coin was struck. Serapion wrote against Hippocrates with much vehemence (Galen,
De Subfig. Empir. 100.13, vol. ii. p. 346, ed. Chart.), but neither this, nor any of his other works, are now extant.
He is several times mentioned and quoted by Celsus (5.28. 17, p. 115), Galen (
De Meth. Med. 2.7, vol. x. pp. 136, 143;
De Compos. Medicam. see. Loc. 10.2,
De Compos. Medicam. sec. Gen. 2.9, 6.4, vol. xiii. pp. 343, 509, 883 ;
De Rented. Parab. 2.17, vol. xiv. p. 450), Caelius Aurelianus (
De Morb. Acut. 2.6, 3.4, 8, 17, 21,
De Morb. Chron. 1.4. pp. 84, 195, 212, 246, 263, 322), Aetius (2.2. 96, 4.3. 11, 17, pp. 296, 747, 767), Paulus Aegineta (3.64, 4.25, 7.17, pp. 484, 515, 678), and Nicolaus Myrepsus (
De Compes. Medicam. 1.66, 10.149, pp. 374, 580), who have preserved some of his medical formulae, which are not of much value. (See Sprengel's
Gesch. der Arzneik. vol. i. ed. 1846.)
It may be useful to remark that this Serapion must not be confounded with either of the twô Arabic physicians of the same name. (See
Penny Cyclop.)
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W.A.G]
