Leonidas (physician)

Leonidas, (Greek: Λεωνίδας), a Greek physician who was a native of Alexandria, and belonged to the sect of the Episynthetici.^[1] As he is quoted by Caelius Aurelianus,^[2] and himself quotes Galen,^[3] he probably lived in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Of his writings, which appear to have been chiefly related to surgical subjects, nothing now remains but some fragments preserved by Aëtius^[4] and Paul of Aegina,^[5] from which we may judge that he was a skillful practictioner.

Leonidas followed Galen in advocating the excision of breast cancer via a wide cut through normal tissues, but recommended alternate incision and cautery, which became the standard for the next 15 centuries. He provided the first detailed description of a mastectomy, which included the first description of nipple retraction as a clinical sign of breast cancer, and advocated systemic "detoxification of the body".^[6]

Notes

1. Pseudo-Galen, Introd., c. 4, vol. xiv.; Caelius Aurelianus, De Morb. Acut., ii. 1
2. Caelius Aurelianus, De Morb. Acut., ii. 1
3. ap. Aëtius, iv. 2, 11
4. Aëtius, pp. 241, 397, 686-9, 691-2, 736, 741, 743, 799, 800, 802
5. Paul of Aegina, iv. 59, vi. 32, 44, 64, 67, 78

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "^{article name needed}". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.