Alexander, or Alexander of Tralles, a medical writer, was a native of Tralles, a city of Lydia, and lived about the middle of the sixth century. He is the author of a work, divided into twelve books, in which he treats of distempers as they occur from head to foot. He was the first that opened the jugular vein, and that used cantharides as a blister for the gout. Though he appears on the whole to have been a rational physician, yet there are passages in his writings that savour of enthusiasm and superstition. Dr Freind, in his History of Physick, styles him one of the most valuable authors since the time of Hippocrates. See likewise Dr Milward's "Trallianus Reviscens;" or, an Account of Alexander Trallian, one of the Greek writers that flourished after Galen; being a supplement to Dr Freind's History of Physick." Lond. 1734, 8vo. The Greek text of his principal work was first published by Jac. Goupylus, Lond. 1548; fol. It was reprinted, and was then accompanied with a Latin version by Jo. Guinterius, Basil. 1556; 8vo. He is likewise the author of an epistle on worms, "De Lumbricis;" which was published, in Greek and Latin, by Mercurialis in his "Variae Lectiones," Venet. 1570, 4to.