Aristotle's successor at the Lyceum, Theophrastus, wrote a series of books on botany—the History of Plants—which survived as the most important contribution of antiquity to botany, even into the Middle Ages. Many of Theophrastus' names survive into modern times, such as carpos for fruit, and pericarpion for seed vessel.
Rather than focus on formal causes, as Aristotle did, Theophrastus suggested a mechanistic scheme, drawing analogies between natural and artificial processes, and relying on Aristotle's concept of the efficient cause. Theophrastus also recognized the role of sex in the reproduction of some higher plants, though this last discovery was lost in later ages.[29]
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Influence on Hellenistic medicine
For more details on this topic, see Medicine in ancient Greece.
Following Theophrastus, the Lyceum failed to produce any original work. Though interest in Aristotle's ideas survived, they were generally taken unquestioningly.[30] It is not until the age of Alexandria under the Ptolemies that advances in biology can be again found.
The first medical teacher at Alexandria Herophilus of Chalcedon, corrected Aristotle, placing intelligence in the brain, and connected the circulatory system to motion and sensation. Herophilus also distinguished between skin and arteries, noting that the latter pulse while the former do not.[31] Though a few modern atomists such as Lucretius challenged the teleological viewpoint of Aristotelian ideas about life, teleology (and after the rise of Christianity, natural theology) would remain central to biological thought essentially until the 18th and 19th centuries. Ernst Mayr claimed that there was "nothing of any real consequence in biology after Lucretius and Galen until the Renaissance."[32] Arist ...