Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus
( el, Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; September 129 – c. AD 216), often
Anglicized
Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influenc ...
as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
,
surgeon and
philosopher in the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...
.
Considered to be one of the most accomplished of all
medical researchers of
antiquity, Galen influenced the development of various scientific disciplines, including
anatomy
Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having it ...
,
physiology
Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...
,
pathology
Pathology is the study of the causes and effects of disease or injury. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in ...
,
pharmacology, and
neurology
Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal ...
, as well as philosophy
and
logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premise ...
.
The son of
Aelius Nicon, a wealthy Greek architect with scholarly interests, Galen received a comprehensive education that prepared him for a successful career as a physician and philosopher. Born in the ancient city of
Pergamon
Pergamon or Pergamum ( or ; grc-gre, Πέργαμον), also referred to by its modern Greek form Pergamos (), was a rich and powerful ancient Greece, ancient Greek city in Mysia. It is located from the modern coastline of the Aegean Sea on a ...
(present-day
Bergama
Bergama is a populous district, as well as the center city of the same district, in İzmir Province in western Turkey. By excluding İzmir's metropolitan area, it is one of the prominent districts of the province in terms of population and is larg ...
,
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
), Galen traveled extensively, exposing himself to a wide variety of medical theories and discoveries before settling in
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
, where he served prominent members of Roman society and eventually was given the position of personal physician to several
emperors
An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...
.
Galen's understanding of anatomy and
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
was principally influenced by the then-current theory of the
four humors
Humorism, the humoral theory, or humoralism, was a system of medicine detailing a supposed makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers.
Humorism began to fall out of favor in the 1850s ...
: black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm, as first advanced by the author of ''On the Nature of Man'' in the
Hippocratic corpus
The Hippocratic Corpus (Latin: ''Corpus Hippocraticum''), or Hippocratic Collection, is a collection of around 60 early Ancient Greek medical works strongly associated with the physician Hippocrates and his teachings. The Hippocratic Corpus cove ...
. Galen's views dominated and influenced
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
medical science for more than 1,300 years. His anatomical reports were based mainly on the
dissection
Dissection (from Latin ' "to cut to pieces"; also called anatomization) is the dismembering of the body of a deceased animal or plant to study its anatomical structure. Autopsy is used in pathology and forensic medicine to determine the cause o ...
of
Barbary apes.
However, when he discovered that their facial expressions were too much like those of humans, he switched to other animals, such as
pig
The pig (''Sus domesticus''), often called swine, hog, or domestic pig when distinguishing from other members of the genus '' Sus'', is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is variously considered a subspecies of ''Sus s ...
s. The reason for using animals to discover the human body was due to the fact that dissections and
vivisection
Vivisection () is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure. The word is, more broadly, used as a pejorative catch-all term for experiment ...
s on humans were strictly prohibited at the time. Galen would encourage his students to go look at dead gladiators or bodies that washed up in order to get better acquainted with the human body. His anatomical reports remained uncontested until 1543, when printed descriptions and illustrations of human dissections were published in the seminal work ''
De humani corporis fabrica
''De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem'' (Latin, lit. "On the fabric of the human body in seven books") is a set of books on human anatomy written by Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) and published in 1543. It was a major advance in the history ...
'' by
Andreas Vesalius
Andreas Vesalius (Latinized from Andries van Wezel) () was a 16th-century anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, ''De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem'' (''On the fabric of the human body'' '' ...
where Galen's physiological theory was accommodated to these new observations. Galen's theory of the physiology of the
circulatory system
The blood circulatory system is a system of organs that includes the heart, blood vessels, and blood which is circulated throughout the entire body of a human or other vertebrate. It includes the cardiovascular system, or vascular system, tha ...
remained unchallenged until c. 1242, when
Ibn al-Nafis published his book ''Sharh tashrih al-qanun li’ Ibn Sina'' (''
Commentary on Anatomy in Avicenna's Canon
The ''Commentary on Anatomy in Avicenna's Canon'' is a manuscript written in the 13th century by the Arab physician Ibn al-Nafis. The manuscript was discovered in 1924 in the archives of the Prussian State Library in Berlin, Germany. It contains ...
''), in which he reported his discovery of
pulmonary circulation
The pulmonary circulation is a division of the circulatory system in all vertebrates. The circuit begins with deoxygenated blood returned from the body to the right atrium of the heart where it is pumped out from the right ventricle to the lungs. ...
.
Galen saw himself as both a physician and a philosopher, as he wrote in his treatise titled ''That the Best Physician Is Also a Philosopher''.
Galen was very interested in the debate between the
rationalist and
empiricist
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empir ...
medical sects, and his use of direct observation, dissection, and
vivisection
Vivisection () is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure. The word is, more broadly, used as a pejorative catch-all term for experiment ...
represents a complex middle ground between the extremes of those two viewpoints. Many of his works have been preserved and/or translated from the original Greek, although many were destroyed and some credited to him are believed to be spurious. Although there is some debate over the date of his death, he was no younger than seventy when he died.
Biography
Galen's Greek name (''Galēnós'') comes from the adjective (''galēnós'') 'calm'.
Galen describes his early life in ''On the affections of the mind''. He was born in September 129 CE.
His father,
Aelius Nicon, was a wealthy
patrician
Patrician may refer to:
* Patrician (ancient Rome), the original aristocratic families of ancient Rome, and a synonym for "aristocratic" in modern English usage
* Patrician (post-Roman Europe), the governing elites of cities in parts of medieval ...
, an architect and builder, with eclectic interests including philosophy, mathematics, logic, astronomy, agriculture and literature. Galen describes his father as a "highly amiable, just, good and benevolent man". At that time
Pergamon
Pergamon or Pergamum ( or ; grc-gre, Πέργαμον), also referred to by its modern Greek form Pergamos (), was a rich and powerful ancient Greece, ancient Greek city in Mysia. It is located from the modern coastline of the Aegean Sea on a ...
(modern-day
Bergama
Bergama is a populous district, as well as the center city of the same district, in İzmir Province in western Turkey. By excluding İzmir's metropolitan area, it is one of the prominent districts of the province in terms of population and is larg ...
,
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
) was a major cultural and intellectual centre, noted for its
library
A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...
, second only to that in Alexandria,
[Metzger BM. New Testament Studies: Philological, Versional, and Patristic. Brill 1980](_blank)
as well as being the site of a
large temple to the healing god
Asclepius
Asclepius (; grc-gre, Ἀσκληπιός ''Asklēpiós'' ; la, Aesculapius) is a hero and god of medicine in ancient Religion in ancient Greece, Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology. He is the son of Apollo and Coronis (lover of ...
. The city attracted both
Stoic
Stoic may refer to:
* An adherent of Stoicism; one whose moral quality is associated with that school of philosophy
*STOIC, a programming language
* ''Stoic'' (film), a 2009 film by Uwe Boll
* ''Stoic'' (mixtape), a 2012 mixtape by rapper T-Pain
*' ...
and
Platonic
Plato's influence on Western culture was so profound that several different concepts are linked by being called Platonic or Platonist, for accepting some assumptions of Platonism, but which do not imply acceptance of that philosophy as a whole. It ...
philosophers, to whom Galen was exposed at age 14. His studies also took in each of the principal philosophical systems of the time, including
Aristotelian and
Epicurean
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy founded around 307 BC based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. Epicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism. Later its main opponent became Stoicism.
Few writings by Epi ...
. His father had planned a traditional career for Galen in philosophy or politics and took care to expose him to literary and philosophical influences. However, Galen states that in around 145 his father had a dream in which the god
Asclepius
Asclepius (; grc-gre, Ἀσκληπιός ''Asklēpiós'' ; la, Aesculapius) is a hero and god of medicine in ancient Religion in ancient Greece, Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology. He is the son of Apollo and Coronis (lover of ...
appeared and commanded Nicon to send his son to study medicine.
Medical education
Following his earlier liberal education, Galen at age 16 began his studies at the prestigious local healing temple or
asclepeion
Asclepieia ( grc, Ἀσκληπιεῖον ''Asklepieion''; Ἀσκλαπιεῖον in Doric dialect; Latin ''aesculapīum'') were healing temples located in ancient Greece (and in the wider Hellenistic and Roman world), dedicated to Asclepius ...
as a θεραπευτής (''therapeutes'', or attendant) for four years. There he came under the influence of men like
Aeschrion of Pergamon
Aeschrion ( Gr. ) of Pergamon was a physician in the 2nd century AD. He was one of Galen's tutors, who says that he belonged to the sect of the Empirici, and that he had a great knowledge of pharmacy and materia medica. Aeschrion was the inven ...
, Stratonicus and Satyrus. Asclepiea functioned as spas or sanitoria to which the sick would come to seek the ministrations of the priesthood. Romans frequented the temple at Pergamon in search of medical relief from illness and disease. It was also the haunt of notable people such as the historian Claudius Charax, the orator
Aelius Aristides
Publius Aelius Aristides Theodorus ( grc-gre, Πόπλιος Αἴλιος Ἀριστείδης Θεόδωρος; 117–181 AD) was a Greek orator and author considered to be a prime example as a member of the Second Sophistic, a group of celebra ...
, the sophist
Polemo, and the consul
Cuspius Rufinus The gens Cuspia was a plebeian family of equestrian rank at ancient Rome. Few of its members obtained any of the higher offices of the Roman state, although Lucius Cuspius Camerinus attained the consulship in the time of Hadrian.
Members
* Publiu ...
.
Galen's father died in 148, leaving Galen independently wealthy at the age of 19. He then followed the advice he found in Hippocrates' teaching and traveled and studied widely including such destinations as
Smyrna
Smyrna ( ; grc, Σμύρνη, Smýrnē, or , ) was a Greek city located at a strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Due to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence, and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to promi ...
(now
Izmir),
Corinth
Corinth ( ; el, Κόρινθος, Kórinthos, ) is the successor to an ancient city, and is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part o ...
,
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
,
Cilicia
Cilicia (); el, Κιλικία, ''Kilikía''; Middle Persian: ''klkyʾy'' (''Klikiyā''); Parthian: ''kylkyʾ'' (''Kilikiyā''); tr, Kilikya). is a geographical region in southern Anatolia in Turkey, extending inland from the northeastern coa ...
(now
Çukurova
Çukurova () or the Cilician Plain (''Cilicia Pedias'' in antiquity), is a large fertile plain in the Cilicia region of southern Turkey. The plain covers the easternmost areas of Mersin Province, southern and central Adana Province, western Osman ...
),
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...
, and finally the great medical school of
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
, exposing himself to the various schools of thought in medicine. In 157, aged 28, he returned to Pergamon as physician to the gladiators of the High Priest of Asia, one of the most influential and wealthy men in Asia. Galen claims that the High Priest chose him over other physicians after he eviscerated an ape and challenged other physicians to repair the damage. When they refused, Galen performed the
surgery
Surgery ''cheirourgikē'' (composed of χείρ, "hand", and ἔργον, "work"), via la, chirurgiae, meaning "hand work". is a medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a person to investigate or treat a pat ...
himself and in so doing won the favor of the High Priest of Asia. Over his four years there, he learned the importance of diet, fitness, hygiene and preventive measures, as well as living anatomy, and the treatment of fractures and severe trauma, referring to their
wounds
A wound is a rapid onset of injury that involves lacerated or punctured skin (an ''open'' wound), or a contusion (a ''closed'' wound) from blunt force trauma or compression. In pathology, a ''wound'' is an acute injury that damages the epider ...
as "windows into the body". Only five deaths among the gladiators occurred while he held the post, compared to sixty in his predecessor's time, a result that is in general ascribed to the attention he paid to their wounds. At the same time he pursued studies in theoretical medicine and philosophy.
[Ustun C. Galen and his anatomic eponym: Vein of Galen. Clinical Anatomy Volume 17 Issue 6 454–457, 2004]
Rome
Galen went to
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
in 162 and made his mark as a practicing physician. His public demonstrations and impatience with alternative views on medicine brought him into conflict with other doctors practicing in the city.
When the
Peripatetic
Peripatetic may refer to:
*Peripatetic school, a school of philosophy in Ancient Greece
*Peripatetic axiom
* Peripatetic minority, a mobile population moving among settled populations offering a craft or trade.
*Peripatetic Jats
There are several ...
philosopher Eudemus became ill with
quartan fever
Quartan fever is one of the four types of malaria which can be contracted by humans.
It is specifically caused by the ''Plasmodium malariae'' species, one of the six species of the protozoan genus ''Plasmodium''. Quartan fever is a form of malaria ...
, Galen felt obliged to treat him "since he was my teacher and I happened to live nearby". He wrote: "I return to the case of Eudemus. He was thoroughly attacked by the three attacks of quartan ague, and the doctors had given him up, as it was now mid-winter." Some Roman physicians criticized Galen for his use of the
prognosis
Prognosis (Greek: πρόγνωσις "fore-knowing, foreseeing") is a medical term for predicting the likely or expected development of a disease, including whether the signs and symptoms will improve or worsen (and how quickly) or remain stabl ...
in his treatment of Eudemus. This practice conflicted with the then-current
standard of care
In tort law, the standard of care is the only degree of prudence and caution required of an individual who is under a duty of care.
The requirements of the standard are closely dependent on circumstances. Whether the standard of care has been b ...
, which relied upon
divination
Divination (from Latin ''divinare'', 'to foresee, to foretell, to predict, to prophesy') is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual. Used in various forms throughout histor ...
and
mysticism
Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...
. Galen retaliated against his detractors by defending his own methods. Garcia-Ballester quotes Galen as saying: "In order to diagnose, one must observe and reason. This was the basis of his criticism of the doctors who proceeded alogos and askeptos."
However, Eudemus warned Galen that engaging in conflict with these physicians could lead to his assassination. "Eudemus said this, and more to the same effect; he added that if they were not able to harm me by unscrupulous conduct they would proceed to attempts at poisoning. Among other things he told me that, some ten years before, a young man had come to the city and had given, like me practical demonstrations of the resources of our art; this young man was put to death by poison, together with two servants who accompanied him." When Galen's animosity with the Roman medical practitioners became serious, he feared he might be exiled or poisoned, so he left the city.
[D.E. Eichholz, 1951, ''Galen and His Environment, Greece & Rome'' 20 no. 59, Cambridge University Press, pp. 60–71]
Rome was engaged in foreign wars in 161;
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Latin: áːɾkus̠ auɾέːli.us̠ antɔ́ːni.us̠ English: ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good ...
and his colleague
Lucius Verus
Lucius Aurelius Verus (15 December 130 – January/February 169) was Roman emperor from 161 until his death in 169, alongside his adoptive brother Marcus Aurelius. He was a member of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty. Verus' succession together with ...
were in the north fighting the
Marcomanni
The Marcomanni were a Germanic people
*
*
*
that established a powerful kingdom north of the Danube, somewhere near modern Bohemia, during the peak of power of the nearby Roman Empire. According to Tacitus and Strabo, they were Suebian.
Origin
...
. During the autumn of 169 when Roman troops were returning to
Aquileia
Aquileia / / / / ;Bilingual name of ''Aquileja – Oglej'' in: vec, Aquiłeja / ; Slovenian: ''Oglej''), group=pron is an ancient Roman city in Italy, at the head of the Adriatic at the edge of the lagoons, about from the sea, on the river N ...
, a great plague broke out, and the emperor summoned Galen back to Rome. He was ordered to accompany Marcus and Verus to Germany as the court physician. The following spring Marcus was persuaded to release Galen after receiving a report that
Asclepius
Asclepius (; grc-gre, Ἀσκληπιός ''Asklēpiós'' ; la, Aesculapius) is a hero and god of medicine in ancient Religion in ancient Greece, Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology. He is the son of Apollo and Coronis (lover of ...
was against the project.
[R.J. Littman and M.L. Littman, 1973 Galen and the Antonine Plague, The American Journal of Philology 94 no. 3, pp. 243–255] He was left behind to act as physician to the imperial heir
Commodus
Commodus (; 31 August 161 – 31 December 192) was a Roman emperor who ruled from 177 to 192. He served jointly with his father Marcus Aurelius from 176 until the latter's death in 180, and thereafter he reigned alone until his assassination. ...
. It was here in court that Galen wrote extensively on medical subjects. Ironically, Lucius Verus died in 169, and Marcus Aurelius himself died in 180, both victims of the plague.
Galen was the physician to Commodus for much of the emperor's life and treated his common illnesses. According to Dio Cassius 72.14.3–4, in about 189, under Commodus’ reign, a pestilence occurred which at its height killed 2,000 people a day in Rome. This was most likely the same plague that struck Rome during Marcus Aurelius’ reign.
Galen was also physician to
Septimius Severus
Lucius Septimius Severus (; 11 April 145 – 4 February 211) was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna (present-day Al-Khums, Libya) in the Roman province of Africa (Roman province), Africa. As a young man he advanced thro ...
during his reign in Rome. He compliments Severus and
Caracalla
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born Lucius Septimius Bassianus, 4 April 188 – 8 April 217), better known by his nickname "Caracalla" () was Roman emperor from 198 to 217. He was a member of the Severan dynasty, the elder son of Emperor S ...
on keeping a supply of drugs for their friends and mentions three cases in which they had been of use in 198.
[
]
The Antonine Plague
The Antonine Plague was named after Marcus Aurelius’ family name of Antoninus. It was also known as the Plague of Galen and held an important place in medicinal history because of its association with Galen. He had first-hand knowledge of the disease, and was present in Rome when it first struck in 166, and was also present in the winter of 168–69 during an outbreak among troops stationed at Aquileia. He had experience with the epidemic, referring to it as very long lasting, and described its symptoms and his treatment of it. Unfortunately, his references to the plague are scattered and brief. Galen was not trying to present a description of the disease so that it could be recognized in future generations; he was more interested in the treatment and physical effects of the disease. For example, in his writings about a young man afflicted with the plague, he concentrated on the treatment of internal and external ulcerations. According to Niebuhr, "this pestilence must have raged with incredible fury; it carried off innumerable victims. The ancient world never recovered from the blow inflicted upon it by the plague that visited it in the reign of M. Aurelius."
The mortality rate of the plague was 7–10 percent; the outbreak in 165–168 would have caused approximately 3.5 to 5 million deaths. Otto Seeck
Otto Karl Seeck (2 February 1850 – 29 June 1921) was a German classical historian who is perhaps best known for his work on the decline of the ancient world. He was born in Riga.
He first began studying chemistry at the University of Dorpat but ...
believes that over half the population of the empire perished. J. F. Gilliam believes that the Antonine plague probably caused more deaths than any other epidemic during the empire before the mid-3rd century.[ Although Galen's description is incomplete, it is sufficient to enable a firm identification of the disease as ]smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
.
Galen notes that the exanthema
An exanthem is a widespread rash occurring on the outside of the body and usually occurring in children. An exanthem can be caused by toxins, drugs, or microorganisms, or can result from autoimmune disease.
The term exanthem is from the Greek ...
covered the victim's entire body and was usually black. The exanthem became rough and scabby where there was no ulceration. He states that those who were going to survive developed a black exanthem. According to Galen, it was black because of a remnant of blood putrefied in a fever blister that was pustular. His writings state that raised blisters were present in the Antonine plague, usually in the form of a blistery rash. Galen states that the skin rash was close to the one Thucydides
Thucydides (; grc, , }; BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientifi ...
described. Galen describes symptoms of the alimentary tract via a patient's diarrhea and stools. If the stool was very black, the patient died. He says that the amount of black stools varied. It depended on the severity of the intestinal lesions. He observes that in cases where the stool was not black, the black exanthema appeared. Galen describes the symptoms of fever, vomiting, fetid breath, catarrh
Catarrh is an exudate of inflamed mucous membranes in one of the airways or cavities of the body, usually with reference to the throat and paranasal sinuses. It can result in a thick exudate of mucus and white blood cells caused by the swelling o ...
, cough, and ulceration of the larynx and trachea.[
]
Later years
Galen continued to work and write in his final years, finishing treatises on drugs and remedies as well as his compendium of diagnostics and therapeutics, which would have much influence as a medical text both in the Latin Middle Ages and Medieval Islam
The Islamic Golden Age was a period of cultural, economic, and scientific flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 14th century. This period is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign ...
.
The 11th-century ''Suda
The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souidas ...
'' lexicon states that Galen died at the age of 70, which would place his death in about the year 199. However, there is a reference in Galen's treatise ''"On Theriac to Piso"'' (which may, however, be spurious) to events of 204. There are also statements in Arabic sources that he died in Sicily at age 87, after 17 years studying medicine and 70 practicing it, which would mean he died about 216. According to these sources, the tomb of Galenus in Palermo
Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...
was still well preserved in the tenth century. Nutton believes that ''"On Theriac to Piso"'' is genuine, that the Arabic sources are correct, and that the ''Suda'' has erroneously interpreted the 70 years of Galen's career in the Arabic tradition as referring to his whole lifespan. Boudon-Millot more or less concurs and favors a date of 216.
Medicine
Galen contributed a substantial amount to the understanding of pathology. Under the Hippocratic
Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of ...
bodily humors
Humorism, the humoral theory, or humoralism, was a system of medicine detailing a supposed makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers.
Humorism began to fall out of favor in the 1850s ...
theory, differences in human moods come as a consequence of imbalances in one of the four bodily fluids
Body fluids, bodily fluids, or biofluids, sometimes body liquids, are liquids within the human body. In lean healthy adult men, the total body water is about 60% (60–67%) of the total body weight; it is usually slightly lower in women (52-55%). ...
: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. Galen promoted this theory and the typology of human temperaments. In Galen's view, an imbalance of each humor corresponded with a particular human temperament (bloodsanguine, black bilemelancholic, yellow bilecholeric, and phlegmphlegmatic). Thus, individuals with sanguine temperaments are extroverted and social; choleric people have energy, passion, and charisma; melancholics are creative, kind, and considerate; and phlegmatic temperaments are characterised by dependability, kindness, and affection.[Mark Grant, 2000, Galen on Food and Diet, Routledge]
Galen was also a skilled surgeon, operating on human patients. Many of his procedures and techniques would not be used again for centuries, such as the procedures he performed on brains and eyes. To correct cataract
A cataract is a cloudy area in the lens of the eye that leads to a decrease in vision. Cataracts often develop slowly and can affect one or both eyes. Symptoms may include faded colors, blurry or double vision, halos around light, trouble w ...
s in patients, Galen performed an operation similar to a modern one. Using a needle-shaped instrument, Galen attempted to remove the cataract-affected lens of the eye. His surgical experiments included ligating the arteries of living animals. Although many 20th century historians have claimed that Galen believed the lens to be in the exact center of the eye, Galen actually understood that the crystalline lens is located in the anterior aspect of the human eye.
At first reluctantly but then with increasing vigor, Galen promoted Hippocratic teaching, including venesection
In medicine, venipuncture or venepuncture is the process of obtaining intravenous access for the purpose of venous blood sampling (also called ''phlebotomy'') or intravenous therapy. In healthcare, this procedure is performed by medical labor ...
and bloodletting
Bloodletting (or blood-letting) is the withdrawal of blood from a patient to prevent or cure illness and disease. Bloodletting, whether by a physician or by leeches, was based on an ancient system of medicine in which blood and other bodily flu ...
, then unknown in Rome. This was sharply criticized by the Erasistrateans, who predicted dire outcomes, believing that it was not blood but ''pneuma
''Pneuma'' () is an ancient Greek word for "breath", and in a religious context for "spirit" or "soul". It has various technical meanings for medical writers and philosophers of classical antiquity, particularly in regard to physiology, and is a ...
'' that flowed in the veins. Galen, however, staunchly defended venesection in his three books on the subject and in his demonstrations and public disputations. Galen's work on anatomy remained largely unsurpassed and unchallenged up until the 16th century in Europe. In the middle of the 16th century, the anatomist Andreas Vesalius
Andreas Vesalius (Latinized from Andries van Wezel) () was a 16th-century anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, ''De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem'' (''On the fabric of the human body'' '' ...
challenged the anatomical knowledge of Galen by conducting dissections on human cadavers. These investigations allowed Vesalius to refute aspects of Galen's theories regarding anatomy.
Anatomy
Galen's interest in human anatomy ran afoul of Roman law that prohibited the dissection of human cadavers since roughly 150 BCE. Because of this restriction, Galen performed anatomical dissections on living (vivisection
Vivisection () is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure. The word is, more broadly, used as a pejorative catch-all term for experiment ...
) and dead animals, mostly focusing on primate
Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...
s. Galen believed that the anatomical structures of these animals closely mirrored those of humans. Galen clarified the anatomy of the trachea
The trachea, also known as the windpipe, is a Cartilage, cartilaginous tube that connects the larynx to the bronchi of the lungs, allowing the passage of air, and so is present in almost all air-breathing animals with lungs. The trachea extends ...
and was the first to demonstrate that the larynx
The larynx (), commonly called the voice box, is an organ in the top of the neck involved in breathing, producing sound and protecting the trachea against food aspiration. The opening of larynx into pharynx known as the laryngeal inlet is about ...
generates the voice. In one experiment, Galen used bellows to inflate the lungs of a dead animal. Galen's research on physiology
Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...
was largely influenced by previous works of philosophers Plato and Aristotle, as well as from the physician Hippocrates. He was one of the first people to use experiments as a method of research for his medical findings. Doing so allowed him to explore various parts of the body and its functions.
Among Galen's major contributions to medicine was his work on the circulatory system
The blood circulatory system is a system of organs that includes the heart, blood vessels, and blood which is circulated throughout the entire body of a human or other vertebrate. It includes the cardiovascular system, or vascular system, tha ...
. Before Galen's research, it was believed that the arteries carry oxygen rather than blood. He was the first to recognize that there are distinct differences between venous
Veins are blood vessels in humans and most other animals that carry blood towards the heart. Most veins carry deoxygenated blood from the tissues back to the heart; exceptions are the pulmonary and umbilical veins, both of which carry oxygenated b ...
(dark) and arterial
An artery (plural arteries) () is a blood vessel in humans and most animals that takes blood away from the heart to one or more parts of the body (tissues, lungs, brain etc.). Most arteries carry oxygenated blood; the two exceptions are the pul ...
(bright) blood. In addition to these discoveries, Galen postulated much more about the nature of the circulatory system
The blood circulatory system is a system of organs that includes the heart, blood vessels, and blood which is circulated throughout the entire body of a human or other vertebrate. It includes the cardiovascular system, or vascular system, tha ...
. He believed that blood originated in the liver, which follows the teachings of Hippocrates. The liver converted nutrients gathered from ingested food into blood to be used in the circulatory system
The blood circulatory system is a system of organs that includes the heart, blood vessels, and blood which is circulated throughout the entire body of a human or other vertebrate. It includes the cardiovascular system, or vascular system, tha ...
. The blood created in the liver would eventually flow unidirectionally into the right ventricle of the heart via the great vein. Galen also proposed a theory on how blood receives oxygen from the lungs to be distributed throughout the body. He declared that the venous artery carried air from the lungs into the left ventricle of the heart to mix with created blood from the liver. This same venous artery allowed for an exchange of waste products from the blood back into the lungs to be exhaled. In order to receive air from the lungs in the left ventricle, the new blood needed to get there from the right ventricle. Thus, Galen asserted that there are small holes in the septum dividing the left and right sides of the heart; these holes allowed the blood to pass through easily to receive air and exchange the aforementioned waste products. Although his anatomical experiments on animal models led him to a more complete understanding of the circulatory system, nervous system
In biology, the nervous system is the highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its actions and sensory information by transmitting signals to and from different parts of its body. The nervous system detects environmental changes th ...
, respiratory system
The respiratory system (also respiratory apparatus, ventilatory system) is a biological system consisting of specific organs and structures used for gas exchange in animals and plants. The anatomy and physiology that make this happen varies grea ...
, and other structures, his work contained scientific errors. Galen believed the circulatory system to consist of two separate one-way systems of distribution, rather than a single unified system of circulation. He believed venous blood to be generated in the liver, from where it was distributed and consumed by all organs of the body. He posited that arterial blood originated in the heart, from where it was distributed and consumed by all organs of the body. The blood was then regenerated in either the liver or the heart, completing the cycle. Galen also believed in the existence of a group of blood vessels he called the rete mirabile
A rete mirabile (Latin for "wonderful net"; plural retia mirabilia) is a complex of arteries and veins lying very close to each other, found in some vertebrates, mainly warm-blooded ones. The rete mirabile utilizes countercurrent blood flow within ...
in the carotid sinus. Both of these theories of the circulation of blood were later (beginning with works of Ibn al-Nafis published ca. 1242) shown to be incorrect.[Furley, D, and J. Wilkie, 1984, ''Galen On Respiration and the Arteries'', Princeton University Press, and Bylebyl, J (ed), 1979, ''William Harvey and His Age'', Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press]
Galen was also a pioneer in research about the human spine. His dissections and vivisections of animals led to key observations that helped him accurately describe the human spine, spinal cord
The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular structure made up of nervous tissue, which extends from the medulla oblongata in the brainstem to the lumbar region of the vertebral column (backbone). The backbone encloses the central canal of the spi ...
, and vertebral column
The vertebral column, also known as the backbone or spine, is part of the axial skeleton. The vertebral column is the defining characteristic of a vertebrate in which the notochord (a flexible rod of uniform composition) found in all chordata, ...
. Galen also played a major role in the discoveries of the Central Nervous System
The central nervous system (CNS) is the part of the nervous system consisting primarily of the brain and spinal cord. The CNS is so named because the brain integrates the received information and coordinates and influences the activity of all par ...
. He was also able to describe the nerves that emerge from the spine, which is integral to his research about the nervous system. Galen went on to be the first physician to study what happens when the spinal cord is transected on multiple different levels. He worked with pigs and studied their neuroanatomy
Neuroanatomy is the study of the structure and organization of the nervous system. In contrast to animals with radial symmetry, whose nervous system consists of a distributed network of cells, animals with bilateral symmetry have segregated, defin ...
by severing different nerves either totally or partially to see how it affected the body. He even dealt with diseases affecting the spinal cord and nerves. In his work ''De motu musculorum'', Galen explained the difference between motor
An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy.
Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...
and sensory nerve
A sensory nerve, or afferent nerve, is a general anatomic term for a nerve which contains predominantly somatic afferent nerve fibers. Afferent nerve fibers in a sensory nerve carry sensory information toward the central nervous system (CNS) fr ...
s, discussed the concept of muscle tone
In physiology, medicine, and anatomy, muscle tone (residual muscle tension or tonus) is the continuous and passive partial muscle contraction, contraction of the muscles, or the muscle's resistance to passive stretch during resting state.O’Sull ...
, and explained the difference between agonists
An agonist is a chemical that activates a Receptor (biochemistry), receptor to produce a biological response. Receptors are Cell (biology), cellular proteins whose activation causes the cell to modify what it is currently doing. In contrast, an ...
and antagonists
An antagonist is a character in a story who is presented as the chief foe of the protagonist.
Etymology
The English word antagonist comes from the Greek ἀνταγωνιστής – ''antagonistēs'', "opponent, competitor, villain, enemy, riv ...
.
Galen's work on animals led to some inaccuracies, most notably his anatomy of the uterus which largely resembled a dog's. Though incorrect in his studies of human reproduction and reproductive anatomy, he came very close to identifying the ovaries as analogous to the male testes. Reproduction
Reproduction (or procreation or breeding) is the biological process by which new individual organisms – "offspring" – are produced from their "parent" or parents. Reproduction is a fundamental feature of all known life; each individual or ...
was a controversial topic in Galen's lifetime, as there was much debate over if the male was solely responsible for the seed, or if the woman was also responsible.
Through his vivisection practices, Galen also proved that the voice was controlled by the brain. One of the most famous experiments that he recreated in public was the squealing pig: Galen would cut open a pig, and while it was squealing he would tie off the recurrent laryngeal nerve, or vocal cords, showing they controlled the making of sound. He used the same method to tie off the ureters to prove his theories of kidney and bladder function. Galen believed the human body had three interconnected systems that allowed it to work. The first system that he theorized consisted of the brain and the nerves, responsible for thought and sensation. The second theorized system was the heart and the arteries, which Galen believed to be responsible for providing life-giving energy. The last theorized system was the liver and veins, which Galen theorized were responsible for nutrition and growth. Galen also theorized that blood was made in the liver and sent out around the body.
Localization of function
One of Galen's major works, ''On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato'', sought to demonstrate the unity of the two subjects and their views. Using their theories, combined with Aristotle's, Galen developed a tripartite soul consisting of similar aspects. He used the same terms as Plato, referring to the three parts as rational, spiritual, and appetitive. Each corresponded to a localized area of the body. The rational soul was in the brain, the spiritual soul was in the heart, and the appetitive soul was in the liver. Galen was the first scientist and philosopher to assign specific parts of the soul to locations in the body because of his extensive background in medicine. This idea is now referred to as localization of function. Galen's assignments were revolutionary for the time period, which set the precedent for future localization theories.
Galen believed each part of this tripartite soul controlled specific functions within the body and that the soul, as a whole, contributed to the health of the body, strengthening the "natural functioning capacity of the organ or organs in question". The rational soul controlled higher level cognitive functioning in an organism, for example, making choices or perceiving the world and sending those signals to the brain. He also listed "imagination, memory, recollection, knowledge, thought, consideration, voluntary motion and sensation" as being found within the rational soul. The functions of "growing or being alive" resided in the spirited soul. The spirited soul also contained our passions, such as anger. These passions were considered to be even stronger than regular emotions, and, as a consequence, more dangerous. The third part of the soul, or the appetitive spirit, controlled the living forces in our body, most importantly blood. The appetitive spirit also regulated the pleasures of the body and was moved by feelings of enjoyment. This third part of the soul is the animalistic, or more natural, side of the soul; it deals with the natural urges of the body and survival instincts. Galen proposed that when the soul is moved by too much enjoyment, it reaches states of "incontinence" and "licentiousness", the inability to willfully cease enjoyment, which was a negative consequence of too much pleasure.
In order to unite his theories about the soul and how it operated within the body, he adapted the theory of the pneuma, which he used to explain how the soul operated within its assigned organs, and how those organs, in turn, interacted together. Galen then distinguished the vital pneuma, in the arterial system, from the psychic pneuma, in the brain and nervous system. Galen placed the vital pneuma in the heart and the psychic pneuma within the brain. He conducted many anatomical studies on animals, most famously an ox, to study the transition from vital to psychic pneuma. Although highly criticized for comparing animal anatomy to human anatomy, Galen was convinced that his knowledge was abundant enough in both anatomies to base one on the other.
In his treatise ''On the usefulness of the parts of the body'', Galen argued the perfect conformation of each part of the body and its strict pertinence with its function founded the needy role of an intelligent creator. His creationism
Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism is 't ...
was anticipated by the anatomical examples of Socrates
Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...
and Empedocles
Empedocles (; grc-gre, Ἐμπεδοκλῆς; , 444–443 BC) was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a native citizen of Akragas, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for originating the cosmogonic theory of the fo ...
.
Philosophy
Although the main focus of his work was on medicine, anatomy, and physiology, Galen also wrote about logic and philosophy. His writings were influenced by earlier Greek and Roman thinkers, including Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
, Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
, the Stoics
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asserting that th ...
, and the Pyrrhonists
Pyrrho of Elis (; grc, Πύρρων ὁ Ἠλεῖος, Pyrrhо̄n ho Ēleios; ), born in Elis, Greece, was a Greek philosopher of Classical antiquity, credited as being the first Greek Philosophical skepticism, skeptic philosopher and found ...
. Galen was concerned to combine philosophical thought with medical practice, as in his brief work ''That the Best Physician is also a Philosopher'' he took aspects from each group and combined them with his original thought. He regarded medicine as an interdisciplinary field that was best practiced by utilizing theory, observation, and experimentation in conjunction.
Galen combined his observations of his dissections with Plato’s theory about the soul. Plato believed that the body and the soul were separate entities, rivaling the Stoics. Plato proclaimed that the soul is immortal, so it must exist before one is born, beyond the human body. This influenced Galen’s thinking that the soul had to be acquired because the soul does not always reside within the human body. Plato's influence in Galen’s model showed itself most prominently in what Galen dubbed arterial blood, which is a mixture of nutritious blood from the liver and the vital spirit (the soul) which was attained from the lungs. The vital spirit within this medium was necessary for the body to function and eventually completely absorbed. This process was then repeated indefinitely, according to Galen, so that the body could be replenished with the soul, or the vital spirit.
Several schools of thought existed within the medical field during Galen's lifetime, the main two being the Empiricists and Rationalists (also called Dogmatists or Philosophers), with the Methodists being a smaller group. The Empiricists emphasized the importance of physical practice and experimentation or "active learning" in the medical discipline. In direct opposition to the Empiricists were the Rationalists, who valued the study of established teachings in order to create new theories in the name of medical advancements. The Methodists formed somewhat of a middle ground, as they were not as experimental as the Empiricists, nor as theoretical as the Rationalists. The Methodists mainly utilized pure observation, showing greater interest in studying the natural course of ailments than making efforts to find remedies. Galen's education had exposed him to the five major schools of thought (Platonists, Peripatetics, Stoics, Epicureans, Pyrrhonists), with teachers from the Rationalist sect and from the Empiricist sect.
Opposition to the Stoics
Galen was well known for his advancements in medicine and the circulatory system, but he was also concerned with philosophy. He developed his own tripartite soul model following the examples of Plato; some scholars refer to him as a Platonist. Galen developed a theory of personality based on his understanding of fluid circulation in humans, and he believed that there was a physiological basis for mental disorders.[King, D. Brett (2009). The Roman Period and the Middle Ages. In King, D. B., Viney, W., Woody, W. D. (Eds.) A History of Psychology: Ideas and Context (4th ed., pp. 70–71) Boston, Massachusetts: Pearson Education, Inc.] Galen connected many of his theories to the pneuma
''Pneuma'' () is an ancient Greek word for "breath", and in a religious context for "spirit" or "soul". It has various technical meanings for medical writers and philosophers of classical antiquity, particularly in regard to physiology, and is a ...
and he opposed the Stoics
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asserting that th ...
' definition of and use of the pneuma.
The Stoics, according to Galen, failed to give a credible answer for the localization of functions of the psyche, or the mind. Through his use of medicine, he was convinced that he came up with a better answer, the brain. The Stoics only recognized the soul as having one part, which was the rational soul and they claimed it would be found in the heart. Galen, following Plato's idea, came up with two more parts to the soul.
Galen also rejected Stoic propositional logic and instead embraced a hypothetical syllogistic which was strongly influenced by the Peripatetics and based on elements of Aristotelian logic.
Psychology
Mind–body problem
Galen believed there is no sharp distinction between the mental and the physical. This was a controversial argument at the time, and Galen agreed with some Greek philosophical schools in believing that the mind and body were not separate faculties. He believed that this could be scientifically shown. This was where his opposition to the Stoics became most prevalent. Galen proposed organs within the body to be responsible for specific functions. According to Galen, the Stoics' lack of scientific justification discredited their claims of the separateness of mind and body, which is why he spoke so strongly against them. There is an intense scholarly debate about soul-body relations in Galen’s psychological writings. In his brief treatise ''Quod animi mores'', Galen says both that the soul “follows” the mixtures of the body, and that the soul is a bodily mixture. Scholars have offered ways of reconciling these claims, arguing for a materialist reading of Galen’s philosophy of mind. According to this materialist reading, Galen identifies the soul with the mixtures of the body.
Psychotherapy
Another one of Galen's major works, ''On the Diagnosis and Cure of the Soul's Passion,'' discussed how to approach and treat psychological problems. This was Galen's early attempt at what would later be called psychotherapy
Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome pro ...
. His book contained directions on how to provide counsel to those with psychological issues to prompt them to reveal their deepest passions and secrets, and eventually cure them of their mental deficiency. The leading individual, or therapist, had to be a male, preferably of an older, wiser, age, as well as free from the control of the passions. These passions, according to Galen, caused the psychological problems that people experienced.
Published works
Galen may have produced more work than any author in antiquity, rivaling the quantity of work issued from Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Af ...
.[Kotrc RF, Walters KR. A bibliography of the Galenic Corpus. A newly researched list and arrangement of the titles of the treatises extant in Greek, Latin, and Arabic. Trans Stud Coll Physicians Phila. 1979 December;1(4):256–304] So profuse was Galen's output that the surviving texts represent nearly half of all the extant literature
Ancient literature comprises religious and scientific documents, tales, poetry and plays, royal edicts and declarations, and other forms of writing that were recorded on a variety of media, including stone, stone tablets, papyri, palm leaves, and ...
from ancient Greece. It has been reported that Galen employed twenty scribe
A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing.
The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promi ...
s to write down his words. Galen may have written as many as 500 treatises,[James E. McClellan III; Harold Dorn. ]
Science and Technology in World History: An Introduction
'. JHU Press; 14 April 2006. . p. 92. amounting to some 10 million words. Although his surviving works amount to some 3 million words, this is thought to represent less than a third of his complete writings. In 191, a fire in the Temple of Peace destroyed many of his works, in particular treatises on philosophy.
Because Galen's works were not translated into Latin in the ancient period, and because of the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, the study of Galen, along with the Greek medical tradition as a whole, went into decline in Western Europe during the Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...
, when very few Latin scholars could read Greek. However, in general, Galen and the ancient Greek medical tradition continued to be studied and followed in the Eastern Roman Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
, commonly known as the Byzantine Empire. All of the extant Greek manuscripts of Galen were copied by Byzantine scholars. In the Abbasid period (after 750) Arab Muslims
Arab Muslims ( ar, العرب المسلمون) are adherents of Islam who identify linguistically, culturally, and genealogically as Arabs. Arab Muslims greatly outnumber other ethnoreligious groups in the Middle East and North Africa. Arab Mu ...
began to be interested in Greek scientific and medical texts for the first time, and had some of Galen's texts translated into Arabic, often by Syrian Christian scholars (see below). As a result, some texts of Galen exist only in Arabic translation, while others exist only in medieval Latin translations of the Arabic. In some cases scholars have even attempted to translate from the Latin or Arabic back into Greek where the original is lost. For some of the ancient sources, such as Herophilus
Herophilos (; grc-gre, Ἡρόφιλος; 335–280 BC), sometimes Latinised Herophilus, was a Greek physician regarded as one of the earliest anatomists. Born in Chalcedon, he spent the majority of his life in Alexandria. He was the first sci ...
, Galen's account of their work is all that survives.
Even in his own time, forgeries and unscrupulous editions of his work were a problem, prompting him to write ''On his Own Books''. Forgeries in Latin, Arabic or Greek continued until the Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
. Some of Galen's treatises have appeared under many different titles over the years. Sources are often in obscure and difficult-to-access journals or repositories. Although written in Greek, by convention the works are referred to by Latin titles, and often by merely abbreviations of those. No single authoritative collection of his work exists, and controversy remains as to the authenticity of a number of works attributed to Galen. As a consequence, research on Galen's work is fraught with hazard.
Various attempts have been made to classify Galen's vast output. For instance Coxe (1846) lists a Prolegomena, or introductory books, followed by 7 classes of treatise embracing Physiology (28 vols.), Hygiene (12), Aetiology (19), Semeiotics (14), Pharmacy (10), Blood letting (4) and Therapeutics (17), in addition to 4 of aphorisms, and spurious works.[ Coxe, John Redman]
''The Writings of Hippocrates and Galen. Epitomised from the Original Latin translations''. Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston, 1846
/ref> The most complete compendium
A compendium (plural: compendia or compendiums) is a comprehensive collection of information and analysis pertaining to a body of knowledge. A compendium may concisely summarize a larger work. In most cases, the body of knowledge will concern a s ...
of Galen's writings, surpassing even modern projects like the ''Corpus Medicorum Graecorum
Corpus is Latin for "body". It may refer to:
Linguistics
* Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts
* Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files
* Corpus linguistics, a branch of linguistics
Music
* ...
'', is the one compiled and translated by Karl Gottlob Kühn
Karl Gottlob Kühn (12 July 1754, in Spergau – 19 June 1840, in Leipzig) was a German physician and medical historian.
He studied medicine at the University of Leipzig, earning his doctorate in 1783 with the dissertation thesis "De forcibus obs ...
of Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
between 1821 and 1833. This collection consists of 122 of Galen's treatises, translated from the original Greek into Latin (the text is presented in both languages). Over 20,000 pages in length, it is divided into 22 volumes, with 676 index pages. Many of Galen's works are included in the ''Thesaurus Linguae Graecae
The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) is a research center at the University of California, Irvine. The TLG was founded in 1972 by Marianne McDonald (a graduate student at the time and now a professor of theater and classics at the University of Cal ...
'', a digital library of Greek literature started in 1972. Another useful modern source is the Frenc
Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de médecine
(BIUM).
Legacy
Late Antiquity
In his time, Galen's reputation as both physician and philosopher was legendary,[Nutton V. "Galen in the eyes of his contemporaries". ''BHM'' 58(3) fall 1984 315–24] the emperor Marcus Aurelius describing him as "Primum sane medicorum esse, philosophorum autem solum" (first among doctors and unique among philosophers ''Praen 14: 660''). Other contemporary authors in the Greek world confirm this including Theodotus the Shoemaker, Athenaeus
Athenaeus of Naucratis (; grc, Ἀθήναιος ὁ Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; la, Athenaeus Naucratita) was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of th ...
and Alexander of Aphrodisias
Alexander of Aphrodisias ( grc-gre, Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Ἀφροδισιεύς, translit=Alexandros ho Aphrodisieus; AD) was a Peripatetic school, Peripatetic philosopher and the most celebrated of the Ancient Greek Commentaries on Aristo ...
. The 7th-century poet George of Pisida went so far as to refer to Christ as a second and neglected Galen. Galen continued to exert an important influence over the theory and practice of medicine until the mid-17th century in the Byzantine and Arabic worlds and Europe.[Arthur John Brock (translator), ''Introduction. Galen. On the Natural Faculties''. Edinburgh 1916] A few centuries after Galen, Palladius Iatrosophista stated in his commentary on Hippocrates that Hippocrates sowed and Galen reaped.
Galen summarized and synthesized the work of his predecessors, and it is in Galen's words (Galenism) that Greek medicine was handed down to subsequent generations, such that Galenism became the means by which Greek medicine was known to the world. Often, this was in the form of restating and reinterpreting, such as in Magnus of Nisibis' 4th-century work on urine, which was in turn translated into Arabic. Yet the full importance of his contributions was not appreciated until long after his death. Galen's rhetoric and prolificity were so powerful as to convey the impression that there was little left to learn. The term Galenism has subsequently taken on both a positive and pejorative meaning as one that transformed medicine in late antiquity yet so dominated subsequent thinking as to stifle further progress.
After the collapse of the Western Empire the study of Galen and other Greek works almost disappeared in the Latin West. In contrast, in the predominantly Greek-speaking eastern half of the Roman empire (Byzantium), many commentators of the subsequent centuries, such as Oribasius
Oribasius or Oreibasius ( el, Ὀρειβάσιος; c. 320 – 403) was a Greek medical writer and the personal physician of the Roman emperor Julian. He studied at Alexandria under physician Zeno of Cyprus before joining Julian's retinue. He ...
, physician to the emperor Julian who compiled a ''Synopsis'' in the 4th century, preserved and disseminated Galen's works, making them more accessible. Nutton refers to these authors as the "medical refrigerators of antiquity". In late antiquity, medical writing veered increasingly in the direction of the theoretical at the expense of the practical, with many authors merely debating Galenism. Magnus of Nisibis was a pure theorist, as were John of Alexandria
John of Alexandria (fl. 600-642) was a Byzantine medical writer who lived in Alexandria, in present-day Egypt.
He is thought to be the author of a commentary on Galen's ''De sectis'', a Latin version of which survives in several manuscripts. He ...
and Agnellus of Ravenna with their lectures on Galen's ''De Sectis''. So strong was Galenism that other authors such as Hippocrates began to be seen through Galen's eyes, while his opponents became marginalised and other medical sects such as Asclepiadism slowly disappeared.
Greek medicine was part of Greek culture, and Syrian Christians came in contact with it while the Eastern Roman Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
(Byzantium) ruled Syria and western Mesopotamia, regions that were conquered in the 7th century by the Arabs
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Wester ...
. After 750, these Syrian Christians made the first translations of Galen into Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
and Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
. From then on, Galen and the Greek medical tradition in general became assimilated into the medieval and early modern Islamic Middle East. Job of Edessa is said to have translated 36 of Galen's works into Syriac, some of which were later translated into Arabic by Hunain ibn Ishaq
Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi (also Hunain or Hunein) ( ar, أبو زيد حنين بن إسحاق العبادي; (809–873) was an influential Nestorian Christian translator, scholar, physician, and scientist. During the apex of the Islamic A ...
.
Medieval Islam
Galen's approach to medicine became and remains influential in the Islamic world. The first major translator of Galen into Arabic was the Arab Christian Hunayn ibn Ishaq
Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi (also Hunain or Hunein) ( ar, أبو زيد حنين بن إسحاق العبادي; (809–873) was an influential Nestorian Christian translator, scholar, physician, and scientist. During the apex of the Islamic ...
. He translated (c. 830–870) 129 works of "Jalinos" into Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
. Arabic sources, such as Muhammad ibn Zakarīya al-Rāzi (AD 865–925), continue to be the source of discovery of new or relatively inaccessible Galenic writings. One of Hunayn's Arabic translations, ''Kitab ila Aglooqan fi Shifa al Amrad'', which is extant in the Library of Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine & Sciences, is regarded as a masterpiece of Galen's literary works. A part of the Alexandrian compendium of Galen's work, this 10th-century manuscript comprises two parts that include details regarding various types of fevers (Humyat) and different inflammatory conditions of the body. More important is that it includes details of more than 150 single and compound formulations of both herbal and animal origin. The book provides an insight into understanding the traditions and methods of treatment in the Greek and Roman eras. In addition, this book provides a direct source for the study of more than 150 single and compound drugs used during the Greco-Roman period.
As the title of ''Doubts on Galen'' by al-Rāzi implies, as well as the writings of physicians such as Ibn Zuhr
Abū Marwān ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr ( ar, أبو مروان عبد الملك بن زهر), traditionally known by his Latinization of names, Latinized name Avenzoar (; 1094–1162), was an Arab Islamic medicine, physician, surgeon, and poet ...
and Ibn al-Nafis, the works of Galen were not accepted unquestioningly, but as a challengeable basis for further inquiry
An inquiry (also spelled as enquiry in British English) is any process that has the aim of augmenting knowledge, resolving doubt, or solving a problem. A theory of inquiry is an account of the various types of inquiry and a treatment of the ...
. A strong emphasis on experiment
An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into Causality, cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome oc ...
ation and empiricism
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empir ...
led to new results and new observations, which were contrasted and combined with those of Galen by writers such as al-Rāzi, Ali ibn Abbas al-Majusi
'Ali ibn al-'Abbas al-Majusi ( fa, علی بن عباس مجوسی; died between 982 and 994), also known as Masoudi, or Latinisation (literature), Latinized as Haly Abbas, was a Persian people, Persian physician and psychologist from the Islami ...
, Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi
Abū al-Qāsim Khalaf ibn al-'Abbās al-Zahrāwī al-Ansari ( ar, أبو القاسم خلف بن العباس الزهراوي; 936–1013), popularly known as al-Zahrawi (), Latinised as Albucasis (from Arabic ''Abū al-Qāsim''), was ...
, Ibn Sina
Ibn Sina ( fa, ابن سینا; 980 – June 1037 CE), commonly known in the West as Avicenna (), was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, philosophers, and writers of the Islamic G ...
(Avicenna), Ibn Zuhr and Ibn al-Nafis. For example, Ibn al-Nafis' discovery of the pulmonary circulation
The pulmonary circulation is a division of the circulatory system in all vertebrates. The circuit begins with deoxygenated blood returned from the body to the right atrium of the heart where it is pumped out from the right ventricle to the lungs. ...
contradicted the Galenic theory on the heart.
The influence of Galen's writings, including humorism, remains strong in modern Unani medicine
Unani or Yunani medicine (Urdu: ''tibb yūnānī'') is Perso-Arabic traditional medicine as practiced in Muslim culture in South Asia and modern day Central Asia. Unani medicine is pseudoscientific. The Indian Medical Association describes Un ...
, now closely identified with Islamic culture, and widely practiced from India (where it is officially recognized) to Morocco.
Maimonides
Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah ...
was influenced by Galen, whom he cited most often in his medical works, and whom he considered to be the greatest physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
of all time. In India many Hindu physicians studied Persian and Urdu languages and learnt Galenic medicine. This trend of studies among Hindu physicians began in 17th century and lasted until the early 20th century (Speziale 2018).
Middle Ages
From the 11th century onwards, Latin translations of Islamic medical texts began to appear in the West, alongside the Salerno
Salerno (, , ; nap, label= Salernitano, Saliernë, ) is an ancient city and ''comune'' in Campania (southwestern Italy) and is the capital of the namesake province, being the second largest city in the region by number of inhabitants, after ...
school of thought, and were soon incorporated into the curriculum at the universities of Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
and Montpellier
Montpellier (, , ; oc, Montpelhièr ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of ...
. From that time, Galenism took on a new, unquestioned authority, Galen even being referred to as the "Medical Pope of the Middle Ages". Constantine the African
Constantine the African ( la, Constantinus Africanus; died before 1098/1099, Monte Cassino) was a physician who lived in the 11th century. The first part of his life was spent in Ifriqiya and the rest in Italy. He first arrived in Italy in the c ...
was amongst those who translated both Hippocrates and Galen from Arabic. In addition to the more numerous translations of Arabic texts in this period, there were a few translations of Galenic works directly from the Greek, such as Burgundio of Pisa
Burgundio of Pisa, sometimes erroneously styled "Burgundius", was a 12th century Italian jurist. He was an ambassador for Pisa at Constantinople in 1136. He was a professor in Paris, and assisted at the Lateran Council in 1179, dying at a very ad ...
's translation of ''De complexionibus''. Galen's works on anatomy and medicine became the mainstay of the medieval physician's university curriculum, alongside Ibn Sina's ''The Canon of Medicine
''The Canon of Medicine'' ( ar, القانون في الطب, italic=yes ''al-Qānūn fī al-Ṭibb''; fa, قانون در طب, italic=yes, ''Qanun-e dâr Tâb'') is an encyclopedia of medicine in five books compiled by Persian physician-phi ...
'', which elaborated on Galen's works. Unlike pagan Rome, Christian Europe did not exercise a universal prohibition of the dissection and autopsy of the human body and such examinations were carried out regularly from at least the 13th century. However, Galen's influence was so great that when dissections discovered anomalies compared with Galen's anatomy, the physicians often tried to fit these into the Galenic system. An example of this is Mondino de Liuzzi
Mondino de Luzzi, or de Liuzzi or de Lucci,The family name is spelled variously: Liucci, Lucci, Luzzi or Luzzo (Latin: de Luciis, de Liuccis, de Leuciis); the ''dei'' may be contracted to ''de'' or ''de''. SeeGiorgi, P.P. (2004) "Mondino de' Li ...
, who describes rudimentary blood circulation in his writings but still asserts that the left ventricle should contain air. Some cited these changes as proof that human anatomy had changed since the time of Galen.
The most important translator of Galen's works into Latin was Niccolò di Deoprepio da Reggio, who spent several years working on Galen. Niccolò worked at the Angevin Court during the reign of king Robert of Naples
Robert of Anjou ( it, Roberto d'Angiò), known as Robert the Wise ( it, Roberto il Saggio; 1276 – 20 January 1343), was King of Naples, titular King of Jerusalem and Count of Provence and Forcalquier from 1309 to 1343, the central figure of Ita ...
. Among Niccolò's translations is a piece from a medical treatise by Galen, of which the original text is lost.
Renaissance
The first edition of Galen's complete works in Latin translation was edited by Diomede Bonardo of Brescia and printed at Venice by Filippo Pinzi in 1490.
The Renaissance, and the fall of the Byzantine Empire
The Fall of Constantinople, also known as the Conquest of Constantinople, was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Empire. The city fell on 29 May 1453 as part of the culmination of a 53-day siege which had begun o ...
(1453), were accompanied by an influx of Greek scholars and manuscripts to the West, allowing direct comparison between the Arabic commentaries and the original Greek texts of Galen. This New Learning and the Humanist
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "humani ...
movement, particularly the work of Linacre, promoted '' literae humaniores'' including Galen in the Latin scientific canon, ''De Naturalibus Facultatibus'' appearing in London in 1523. Debates on medical science now had two traditions, the more conservative Arabian and the liberal Greek. The more extreme liberal movements began to challenge the role of authority in medicine, as exemplified by Paracelsus
Paracelsus (; ; 1493 – 24 September 1541), born Theophrastus von Hohenheim (full name Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim), was a Swiss physician, alchemist, lay theologian, and philosopher of the German Renaissance.
He w ...
' symbolically burning the works of Avicenna and Galen at his medical school in Basle
, french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese
, neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS), ...
. Nevertheless, Galen's pre-eminence amongst the great thinkers of the millennium is exemplified by a 16th-century mural in the refectory of the Great Lavra
The Monastery of Great Lavra ( el, Μονή Μεγίστης Λαύρας) is the first monastery built on Mount Athos. It is located on the southeastern foot of the Mount at an elevation of . The founding of the monastery in AD 963 by Athanasiu ...
of Mt Athos
Mount Athos (; el, Ἄθως, ) is a mountain in the distal part of the eponymous Athos peninsula and site of an important centre of Eastern Orthodox monasticism in northeastern Greece. The mountain along with the respective part of the penin ...
. It depicts pagan sages at the foot of the Tree of Jesse
The Tree of Jesse is a depiction in art of the ancestors of Jesus Christ, shown in a branching tree which rises from Jesse of Bethlehem, the father of King David. It is the original use of the family tree as a schematic representation of a ge ...
, with Galen between the Sibyl
The sibyls (, singular ) were prophetesses or oracles in Ancient Greece.
The sibyls prophesied at holy sites.
A sibyl at Delphi has been dated to as early as the eleventh century BC by PausaniasPausanias 10.12.1 when he described local traditi ...
and Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
.
Galenism's final defeat came from a combination of the negativism of Paracelsus and the constructivism of the Italian Renaissance anatomists, such as Vesalius
Andreas Vesalius (Latinized from Andries van Wezel) () was a 16th-century anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, ''De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem'' (''On the fabric of the human body'' '' ...
in the 16th century. In the 1530s, the Flemish anatomist and physician Andreas Vesalius took on a project to translate many of Galen's Greek texts into Latin. Vesalius' most famous work, ''De humani corporis fabrica'', was greatly influenced by Galenic writing and form. Seeking to examine critically Galen's methods and outlook, Vesalius turned to human cadaver dissection as a means of verification. Galen's writings were shown by Vesalius to describe details present in monkeys but not in humans, and he demonstrated Galen's limitations through books and hands-on demonstrations despite fierce opposition from orthodox pro-Galenists such as Jacobus Sylvius. Since Galen states that he is using observations of monkeys (human dissection was prohibited) to give an account of what the body looks like, Vesalius could portray himself as using Galen's approach of description of direct observation to create a record of the exact details of the human body, since he worked in a time when human dissection was allowed. Galen argued that monkey anatomy was close enough to humans for physicians to learn anatomy with monkey dissections and then make observations of similar structures in the wounds of their patients, rather than trying to learn anatomy only from wounds in human patients, as would be done by students trained in the Empiricist model. The examinations of Vesalius also disproved medical theories of Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
and Mondino de Liuzzi
Mondino de Luzzi, or de Liuzzi or de Lucci,The family name is spelled variously: Liucci, Lucci, Luzzi or Luzzo (Latin: de Luciis, de Liuccis, de Leuciis); the ''dei'' may be contracted to ''de'' or ''de''. SeeGiorgi, P.P. (2004) "Mondino de' Li ...
. One of the best known examples of Vesalius' overturning of Galenism was his demonstration that the interventricular septum
The interventricular septum (IVS, or ventricular septum, or during development septum inferius) is the stout wall separating the ventricles, the lower chambers of the heart, from one another.
The ventricular septum is directed obliquely backwar ...
of the heart was not permeable, as Galen had taught (''Nat Fac III xv''). However, this had been revealed two years before by Michael Servetus in his fateful "''Christianismi restitutio''" (1553) with only three copies of the book surviving, but these remaining hidden for decades; the rest were burned shortly after its publication because of persecution of Servetus by religious authorities.
Michael Servetus
Michael Servetus (; es, Miguel Serveto as real name; french: Michel Servet; also known as ''Miguel Servet'', ''Miguel de Villanueva'', ''Revés'', or ''Michel de Villeneuve''; 29 September 1509 or 1511 – 27 October 1553) was a Spanish th ...
, using the name "Michel de Villeneuve" during his stay in France, was Vesalius
Andreas Vesalius (Latinized from Andries van Wezel) () was a 16th-century anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, ''De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem'' (''On the fabric of the human body'' '' ...
' fellow student and the best Galenist at the University of Paris, according to Johann Winter von Andernach
Johann Winter von Andernach (born Johann Winter; 1505 – 4 October 1574) was a German Renaissance physician, university professor, humanist, translator of ancient, mostly medical works, and writer of his own medical, philological and humanities w ...
, who taught both. In the Galenism of the Renaissance, editions of the ''Opera Omnia'' by Galen were very important, beginning from the Aldine Press
The Aldine Press was the printing office started by Aldus Manutius in 1494 in Venice, from which were issued the celebrated Aldine editions of the classics (Latin and Greek masterpieces, plus a few more modern works). The first book that was dat ...
' editio princeps In classical scholarship, the ''editio princeps'' (plural: ''editiones principes'') of a work is the first printed edition of the work, that previously had existed only in manuscripts, which could be circulated only after being copied by hand.
For ...
in Venice in 1525. It was followed in Venice in 1541–1542 by the Giunta. There were fourteen editions of the book from that date until 1625. Just one edition was produced from Lyon between 1548 and 1551. The Lyon edition has commentaries on breathing and blood streaming that correct the work of earlier renowned authors such as Vesalius
Andreas Vesalius (Latinized from Andries van Wezel) () was a 16th-century anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, ''De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem'' (''On the fabric of the human body'' '' ...
, Caius or Janus Cornarius
Janus Cornarius (''ca.'' 1500 – March 16, 1558) was a Saxon humanist and friend of Erasmus. A gifted philologist, Cornarius specialized in editing and translating Greek and Latin medical writers with "prodigious industry,"P.S. Allen, ''Opus Ep ...
. "Michel De Villeneuve" had contracts with Jean Frellon for that work, and the Servetus scholar-researcher Francisco Javier González Echeverría presented research that became an accepted communication in the International Society for the History of Medicine
The International Society for the History of Medicine is a non profit international society devoted to the academic study of the history of medicine, including the organization of international congresses. The Society was founded in 1920 in Belgiu ...
, which concluded that Michael De Villeneuve (Michael Servetus
Michael Servetus (; es, Miguel Serveto as real name; french: Michel Servet; also known as ''Miguel Servet'', ''Miguel de Villanueva'', ''Revés'', or ''Michel de Villeneuve''; 29 September 1509 or 1511 – 27 October 1553) was a Spanish th ...
) is the author of the commentaries of this edition of Frellon, in Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
.
Another convincing case where understanding of the body was extended beyond where Galen had left it came from these demonstrations of the nature of human circulation and the subsequent work of Andrea Cesalpino
Andrea Cesalpino ( Latinized as Andreas Cæsalpinus) (6 June 1524 – 23 February 1603) was a Florentine physician, philosopher and botanist.
In his works he Taxonomy (biology), classified plants according to their fruits and seeds, rather th ...
, Fabricio of Acquapendente and William Harvey
William Harvey (1 April 1578 – 3 June 1657) was an English physician who made influential contributions in anatomy and physiology. He was the first known physician to describe completely, and in detail, the systemic circulation and proper ...
. Some Galenic teaching, such as his emphasis on bloodletting
Bloodletting (or blood-letting) is the withdrawal of blood from a patient to prevent or cure illness and disease. Bloodletting, whether by a physician or by leeches, was based on an ancient system of medicine in which blood and other bodily flu ...
as a remedy for many ailments, however, remained influential until well into the 19th century.
Contemporary scholarship
Galenic scholarship remains an intense and vibrant field, following renewed interest in his work, dating from the German encyclopedia '' Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft''.
Copies of his works translated by Robert M. Green are held at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland.
In 2018, the University of Basel
The University of Basel (Latin: ''Universitas Basiliensis'', German: ''Universität Basel'') is a university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest surviving universit ...
discovered that a mysterious Greek papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
with mirror writing
Mirror writing is formed by writing in the direction that is the reverse of the natural way for a given language, such that the result is the mirror image of normal writing: it appears normal when it is reflected in a mirror. It is sometimes u ...
on both sides, which was at the collection of Basilius Amerbach
Basilius Amerbach (1 December 1533 – 25 April 1591) was a lawyer, professor and collector from Basel. He was the only son of Bonifacius Amerbach.
He began to study law in 1552 at the University of Tübingen. In 1553 he studied at the Univers ...
, a professor of jurisprudence
Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning a ...
at the University of Basel in the 16th century, is an unknown medical document of Galen or an unknown commentary on his work. The medical text describes the phenomenon of ‘hysterical apnea’.
See also
* Abascantus
Abascantus (Greek: Ἀβάσκαντος) was a physician of Lugdunum, who probably lived in the 2nd century AD. He is mentioned several times by Galen, who has also preserved an antidote invented by him against the bite of serpents. The name app ...
* Galenic formulation
Galenic formulation deals with the principles of preparing and compounding medicines in order to optimize their absorption. Galenic formulation is named after Claudius Galen, a 2nd Century AD Greek physician, who codified the preparation of drugs ...
* Timeline of medicine and medical technology
This is a timeline of the history of medicine and medical technology.
Antiquity
* 3300 BC – During the Stone Age, early doctors used very primitive forms of herbal medicine.
* 3000 BC – Ayurveda The origins of Ayurveda have been traced back ...
* History of medicine
The history of medicine is both a study of medicine throughout history as well as a multidisciplinary field of study that seeks to explore and understand medical practices, both past and present, throughout human societies.
More than just histo ...
Notes
Sources
:: ''The works of Galen are listed in Galenic corpus The Galenic corpus is the collection of writings of Galen, a prominent Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire during the second century CE. Several of the works were written between 165–175 CE.
Description
Galen produced ...
.''
* Algra K (ed.) ''The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy''. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Boudon-Millot V (ed. and trans.) ''Galien: Introduction générale; Sur l'ordre de ses propres livres; Sur ses propres livres; Que l'excellent médecin est aussi philosophe''
Paris: Les Belles Lettres. 2007,
* Brodersen K. ''Galenos, Die verbrannte Bibliothek: Peri Alypias''. Marix, Wiesbaden 2015,
Debru A. "Galen on Pharmacology: Philosophy, History, and Medicine : Proceedings of the Vth International Galen Colloquium", Lille, 16–18 March 1995 Brill, 1997
Dunn PM. ''Galen (AD 129–200) of Pergamun: anatomist and experimental physiologist''. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed. 2003 Sep;88(5):F441–443.
Everson S. (ed.) ''Language''. Cambridge University Press, 1994
French RK. ''Medicine Before Science: The Rational and Learned Doctor from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment''. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Gleason MW. ''Shock and Awe: The Performance Dimension of Galen’s Anatomy Demonstrations''. Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics January 2007
* Gleason MW. ''Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome''. Princeton 1995
Hankinson RJ (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Galen. CUP 2008
* Hankinson R.J. ''Cause and explanation in ancient Greek thought''. Oxford University Press, 1998,
*
* Johannes Ilberg
Johannes Ilberg (10 July 1860, Magdeburg – 20 August 1930, Leipzig) was a German educator and classical philologist who was the author of numerous works on ancient Greek medicine. His father, Hugo Ilberg (1828-1883), was a '' Gymnasium'' dire ...
. "Aus Galens Praxis. Neue Jahrbücher für das Klassische Altertum", Geschichte und Deutsche Literatur 15: 276–312, 1905
* Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman
Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman is an Indian scholar of Unani medicine. He founded Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences in 2000. He had earlier served as Professor and chairman, Department of Ilmul Advia at the Ajmal Khan Tibbiya Colleg ...
(ed.). ''Jawami Kitab Al-Nabd Al-Saghir by Galen'' (2007)
Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine & Sciences
Aligarh, India;
* Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman (ed.). ''Kitab fi Firaq al Tibb by Galen'' (2008)
Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine & Sciences
Aligarh, India;
* Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman (ed.). ''Kitab al Anasir by Galen'' (2008)
Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine & Sciences
Aligarh, India;
* Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman (ed.). ''Kitab al Mizaj of Galen'' (2008)
Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine & Sciences
Aligarh, India,
* Kotrc RF, Walters KR. "A bibliography of the Galenic Corpus. A newly researched list and arrangement of the titles of the treatises extant in Greek, Latin, and Arabic". Trans Stud Coll Physicians Phila. 1979 December;1(4):256–304
* ttps://books.google.com/books?id=NrEeAAAAIAAJ Metzger BM. New Testament Studies: Philological, Versional, and Patristic. Brill, 1980
Muhaqqiq M. Medical Sects in Islam. al-Tawhid Islamic Journal, vol. VIII, No.2
* Nutton V. "Roman Medicine, 250 BC to AD 200, and Medicine in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages", in Lawrence C.(ed.) ''The Western Medical Tradition: 800–1800 A.D.'' 1995
Nutton V. ''Ancient Medicine''. Routledge, 2004
Osler W. ''The Evolution of Modern Medicine'' 1913. Plain Label Books 1987. Chapter II: Greek Medicine
* Peterson DW. "Observations on the chronology of the Galenic Corpus". Bull Hist Med 51(3): 484, 1977
* Siegel RE. ''Galen's System of Physiology and Medicine'', Basel 1968 (this text is not regarded highly by most Galen scholars)
* Siegel RE. ''Galen on Sense Perception, His Doctrines, Observations and Experiments on Vision, Hearing, Smell, Taste, Touch and Pain, and Their Historical Sources''. Karger, Basel 1970 (this text is not regarded highly by most Galen scholars)
* Siegel RE. ''Galen on Psychology, Psychopathology, and Function and Diseases of the Nervous System'' 1973 (this text is not regarded highly by most Galen scholars)
Smith WG. ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology''. J Walton 1849
* Stakelum JW, ''Galen and the Logic of Proposition'', Rome, Angelicum, 1940
* Taylor HO. ''Greek Biology And Medicine''. Marshall Jones 1922. Chapter 5: The Final System – Galen
* Temkin O. ''Galenism: Rise and Decline of a Medical Philosophy''. Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1973
''The Cambridge Ancient History'': Second Edition. XI The High Empire A.D. 70–192 Cambridge University Press, 2000
''Thesaurus Linguae Graecae'': TLG
van der Eijk P. ''Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity: Doctors and Philosophers on Nature, Soul, Health and Disease''. Cambridge University Press, 2005
Watson PB. ''Marcus Aurelius Antoninus''. Harper & brothers, 1884
Further reading
*
* Boudon-Millot, V. ''Introduction Générale, Sur L’ordre de ses Propres Livres, Sur ses Propres Livres, Que L’excellent Médecin est Aussi Philosophe'' Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2007.
* Garcia Ballester, Luis. 2002. G''alen and Galenism. Theory and Medical Practice from Antiquity to the European Renaissance.'' Collected Studies Series 710. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Variorum.
* Gilbert, N. Ward. 1960. ''Renaissance Concepts of Method.'' New York: Columbia University Press.
* Gill, Christopher, Tim Whitmarsh, and John Wilkins, eds. 2012. ''Galen and the World of Knowledge.'' Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
* Kudlien, Fridolf, and Richard J Durling. 1991. ''Galen's Method of Healing: Proceedings of the 1982 Galen Symposium.'' Leiden: E.J. Brill.
* Lloyd, G. E. R. 1991. ''Methods and Problems in Greek Science.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* Mattern, Susan P. 2013. ''The Prince of Medicine: Galen In the Roman Empire.'' New York: Oxford University Press.
* Nutton, Vivian. 2004. ''Ancient Medicine.'' London and New York: Routledge.
* Rocca, Julius. 2003. ''Galen on the Brain: Anatomical Knowledge and Physiological Speculation in the Second Century A.D.'' Studies in Ancient Medicine 26. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill.
* Rosen, Ralph M. 2013. “Galen on Poetic Testimony” In ''Writing Science: Medical and Mathematical Authorship in Ancient Greece.'' Edited by M. Asper, 177–189. Berlin: De Gruyter.
* Rosen, Ralph M. 2013. “Galen, Plato, and the Physiology of Eros." In ''Eros'' Edited by E. Sanders, C. Carey and N. Lowe, 111–127. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* Sarton, George. 1954. ''Galen of Pergamon.'' Lawrence: University of Kansas Press.
* Schlange-Schöningen, H. ''Die römische Gesellschaft bei Galen. Biographie und Sozialgeschichte'' (= ''Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte'', Bd. 65) Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003
* Walzer, Richard. 1949. ''Galen On Jews and Christians.'' London: Oxford University Press.
* Fabrizio Speziale. ''Culture persane et médecine ayurvédique an Asie du Sud'', Leiden – Boston, E. J. Brill, Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science. Texts and Studies, 2018. .
Primary sources
*
*
External links
*
at the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum
Corpus is Latin for "body". It may refer to:
Linguistics
* Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts
* Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files
* Corpus linguistics, a branch of linguistics
Music
* ...
with links to digitized editions, manuscripts and modern translations.
*
*
*
Galen
entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''IEP'') is a scholarly online encyclopedia, dealing with philosophy, philosophical topics, and philosophers. The IEP combines open access publication with peer reviewed publication of original pape ...
Classicsindex: Galen
Works by Galen at Perseus Digital Library
Gerhard Fichtner, Galen bibliography
University of Virginia: Health Sciences Library. Galen
The Empire's Physician: Prosperity, Plague, and Healing in Ancient Rome
NYU's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World
* ttps://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-223895/Galen-of-Pergamum Nutton V. Galen of Pergamum, Encyclopædia Britannica
Pearcy L. Galen: A biographical sketch. Medicina Antiqua
* ttp://robl.de/galen/galen.htm Galenus von Pergamon – Leben und Werk. ''Includes alphabetical list of Latin Titles''*
Galien's works
digitized by th
see its digital librar
Galeni opera varia – Mscr.Dresd.Db.93
Digital Version of the Manuscript at the Saxon State and University Library, Dresden (SLUB)
''(Commentary on Hippocrates' On the Nature of Man; On the Natural Faculties; Exhortation to Study the Arts: To Menodotus; On Diagnosis from Dreams)''
Website with a study on the ''Opera Omnia of Galen'' by the galenist Michael de Villanueva, and also the first description of the pulmonary circulation
The pulmonary circulation is a division of the circulatory system in all vertebrates. The circuit begins with deoxygenated blood returned from the body to the right atrium of the heart where it is pumped out from the right ventricle to the lungs. ...
in his Manuscript of Paris in 1546.
* ''Claudii Galeni opera omnia'' in ''Medicorum graecorum opera quae exstant, editionem curavit D. Carolus Gottlob Kühn, Lipsiae prostat in officina libraria Car. Cnoblochii'', 1821–1833 i
20 volumines
''Discussion of Galens on BBC Radio 4's programme "In Our Time"''.
Digital edition: Galeni septima Classis (1550)
by the University and State Library Düsseldorf
The University and State Library Düsseldorf (german: Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Düsseldorf, abbreviated ULB Düsseldorf) is a central service institution of Heinrich Heine University. Along with Bonn and Münster, it is also one of th ...
The Galen Syriac Palimpsest – On the Mixtures and Powers of Simple Drugs
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129 births
216 deaths
2nd-century births
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