Alexandria's Medical School

In “Deadly Confrontation,” published in the December 2025 issue of Black Sheep: Unique Tales of Terror and Wonder, Miriam tells us about going to Alexandria’s medical school to consult with Professor Jason, the leper-white, soldierly built medical examiner who conducted the autopsy on her client, Katerina, the perfumer:

My bearers’ boots hardly brushed the cobbles as they zigzagged through the clamorous streets. Nevertheless, it was already mid-afternoon by the time I reached the campus of the Museum and its medical school, a massive limestone building radiating the promise of wellness. With its storerooms, vivisection laboratories, lecture halls, treatment rooms, scholars’ dormitory, and refectory, the medical school was the professor’s home.

As the medical science of ancient Greece plunged into political decadence, scientific work was renewed in Alexandria, one of the only places where human dissection was permitted. And so, with the numerous sections on corpses, even vivisections on death row inmates, the first meaningful texts about human anatomy were written.

You don’t have to be dissected to learn anatomy, of course. Nor do you have to be murdered to understand Miriam’s scheme to identify Katerina’s murderer. But you should still pick up a copy of the December 2025 issue of Black Sheep: Unique Tales of Terror and Wonder. Just click here.