Philotimus, (4th and 3rd centuries BC), an eminent Greek physician, a pupil of Praxagoras

Praxagoras

Praxagoras was an influential figure of medicine in ancient Greece. He was born on the Greek island of Kos in about 340 BC. Both his father, Nicarchus, and his grandfather were physicians...

, and a fellow pupil of Herophilus. He was also a contemporary of Erasistratus

Erasistratus

Erasistratus was a Greek anatomist and royal physician under Seleucus I Nicator of Syria. Along with fellow physician Herophilus, he founded a school of anatomy in Alexandria, where they carried out anatomical research...

, and is quoted by Heraclides of Tarentum

Heraclides of Tarentum

Heraclides of Tarentum, , was a Greek physician of the Empiric school who wrote commentaries on the works of Hippocrates....

, and therefore must have lived in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. Celsus

Aulus Cornelius Celsus

Aulus Cornelius Celsus was a Roman encyclopedist, known for his extant medical work, De Medicina, which is believed to be the only surviving section of a much larger encyclopedia. The De Medicina is a primary source on diet, pharmacy, surgery and related fields, and it is one of the best sources...

 mentions him as one of the eminent physicians of antiquity; and he is quoted by several of the ancient medical writers, viz. Caelius Aurelianus

Caelius Aurelianus

Caelius Aurelianus of Sicca in Numidia was a Roman physician and writer on medical topics. He is best known for his translation from Greek to Latin of a work by Soranus of Ephesus, On Acute and Chronic Diseases. He probably flourished in the 5th century, although some place him two or even three...

, Oribasius

Oribasius

Oribasius or Oreibasius was a Greek medical writer and the personal physician of the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate. He studied at Alexandria under physician Zeno of Cyprus before joining Julian's retinue. He was involved in Julian's coronation in 361, and remained with the emperor until...

, Aëtius

Aëtius Amidenus

Aëtius of Amida was a Byzantine physician and medical writer, particularly distinguished by the extent of his erudition. Historians are not agreed about his exact date...

, and very frequently by Galen

Galen

Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamon , was a prominent Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher...

.

He belonged to the Logical or Dogmatic school

Dogmatic school

The Dogmatic school of medicine was an ancient school of medicine in ancient Greece and Rome. They were the oldest of the medical sects of antiquity. They derived their name from dogma, a philosophical tenet or opinion, because they professed to follow the opinions of Hippocrates, hence they were...

, and wrote several medical works, of which only a few fragments remain. Athenaeus

Athenaeus

Athenaeus , of Naucratis in Egypt, Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourished about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD...

 quotes a work on Cookery, and another on Food, consisting of at least thirteen books; this later work is several times quoted by Galen. In an anatomical treatise which he wrote he pronounced the brain

Brain

The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...

 and the heart

Heart

The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...

 to be useless organs, and the former to be merely an excessive development and offshoot of the spinal marrow. Philotimus is quoted in various other parts of Galen's writings, and Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

 relates an anecdote of him. He is also quoted by the scholiast on Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

.