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 practitioner.
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".