Did Herophilus name the prostate? disputed

Positions

1. Herophilus named it

   Popular histories credit Herophilus of Chalcedon, working in Alexandria about 300 BC, with naming the gland 'one who stands before'.

   Sources

   1. The Common Vein: history of the prostate Secondary dead link

2. His word meant something else

   Herophilus's term, known through Galen, was parastatai adenoeideis, 'glandular assistants'. Whether these were the prostate or the seminal vesicles is debated, and Latin prostatae has been described as a mistranslation of the Greek term for the seminal vesicles.

   Sources

   1. Wikipedia: Prostate Secondary
   2. Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek lexicon: adenoeides Secondary

3. The name is Renaissance

   The first plain description is Massa's (1536); Paré used the word in print by 1549 and du Laurens popularised it about 1600. On this view the modern name was fixed long after Alexandria.

   Sources

   1. Wikipedia: Prostate Secondary
   2. HistoryofMedicine.com: Niccolo Massa Secondary
   3. Online Etymology Dictionary: prostate Secondary

Evidence

The Greek root, prostates, 'one standing in front', is secure. What Herophilus himself wrote survives only as quoted by Galen (De usu partium 14.11), and the lexicon entry ties his adjective 'glandular' to accessory structures near the seminal ducts. Wikipedia's article on Herophilos does not mention the prostate. The specialist study of the term (Marx and Karenberg 2009) was not read for the kit.

Current standing

Unsettled, and the film says so: the Greeks are often given the credit, the Alexandrian anatomists seem to have used a different word, and the name was fixed much later. The safe statement is that tradition credits Herophilus.

All sources