Galen: Difference between revisions
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Succeeding [[Hippocrates|Hippocrates]], the honor of Western rational medicine’s most illustrious historical figure goes to '''Galen''', born in Asia Minor in 130 CE, almost 600 years after the birth of Hippocrates. Galen, like Hippocrates, whom Galen regarded himself as Hippocrates’ intellectual heir, took as fundamental the idea that understanding disease required understanding the workings of the human body. He performed experiments, vivisected animals, and gave many popular public lectures and demonstrations. | |||
Galen advanced our knowledge of the formation and excretion of urine, of speech and respiration, and of the action of nerves and muscles | Galen advanced our knowledge of the formation and excretion of urine, of the mechanisms of speech and respiration, and of the action of nerves and muscles. He left posterity 22 volumes of work. | ||
Galen had no | Galen had no deficiency of hubris. He boasted that his voluminous writings contained all one needed ever to know about medicine. His reputation as the final words in medicine carried the day for the next 1400 years or so, to such an extent as to stifle further advances in the discovery of anatomy, physiology and the pathogenesis of disease during that period. His ideas influenced medical thinking even until the 20th century. “''At least until the 16th and 17th centuries, to know medicine was to know it as Galen wrote about it in the 2nd century.''”<ref name=nuland>Nuland SB. (2005) The Paradox of Galen. [http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=8128&pc=By%20Title Doctors: The History of Scientific Medicine Revealed Through Biography.] The Great Courses. The Teaching Company.</ref> That produced something of a set-back in the development of Western rational medicine. | ||
The classicist and Greek-to-English translator of many of Galen’s writings, Peter Singer, cautions us against blaming Galen as if he was “''....endowed with the capacity posthumously to bully his posterity, for the uncritical attitude towards him of his successors.''”<ref name=singer1997>Galen, translated by Peter N. Singer. (1997) Selected Works. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192839373. [http://books.google.com/books?id=cSLvpkg2oH4C Excerpts] | |||
*'''<u>Note:</u>''' One can appreciate Singer’s caution best in context: | |||
:*'''<u>Singer writes:</u>''' “If the name of Galen is mentioned at all today, it is seldom in tones of respect. His medical system is an outdated curiosity; his was the terrible dogmatism that held up the course of scientific research for centuries….But such judgements….are based upon a misconception as well as a fallacy: the former, to confuse ''Galenism'' | |||
—the regimented system of thought solidified in the Schools—with Galen; the latter, to blame Galen, as if endowed with the capacity posthumously to bully his posterity, for the uncritical attitude towards him of his successors. Galen lived in a period of public debate and conflict, of an almost chaotic intellectual diversity; a period as far removed from medieval systematization as from the scientific orthodoxy of our own time and, considered within that period, emerges as one of the most philosophically intriguing, and not just historically important, figures of antiquity.</ref> | |||
Galen’s reputation during his lifetime spread throughout the Roman Empire. He eventually became the personal physician of the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius (b. 121 CE, d. 180 CE; r. 161-180 CE). | Galen’s reputation during his lifetime spread throughout the Roman Empire. He eventually became the personal physician of the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius (b. 121 CE, d. 180 CE; r. 161-180 CE). | ||
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==The early Galen== | ==The early Galen== | ||
Galen entered the world in Pergamon, | Galen entered the world in Pergamon, a provincial city, extant in present day Turkey. Pergamon had existed before the time of Alexander the Great, and became a center of culture. It had a famous library containing some 200,000 books. Galen’s father, a wealthy architect, steered his son into a career in medicine following a ‘Hippocratic’ dream so advising him. He sent Galen to the Hippocratic school in Pergamon, a part of the Roman Empire. Galen’s interests, attested to in his own writings, included mathematics and philosophy, which he maintained and incorporated in his work throughout his career, as well as the writings of the Hippocratic physicians and of the history of medicine from before and after Hippocrates. | ||
Afterwards, in 152 CE, in his early 20s, Galen continued to study medicine in Alexandria, returning six years later, to become surgeon to the gladiators in the amphitheater at Pergamon. There he treated gladiators with all kinds of open wounds, of the head, chest, abdomen, muscles, and bones. Glimpsing the various parts of the interior of the body, he began to wonder how they worked and how they worked together — musing about function, or physiology. | |||
==References== | ==References== | ||
<references /> | <references /> | ||
Revision as of 18:20, 8 May 2008
Succeeding Hippocrates, the honor of Western rational medicine’s most illustrious historical figure goes to Galen, born in Asia Minor in 130 CE, almost 600 years after the birth of Hippocrates. Galen, like Hippocrates, whom Galen regarded himself as Hippocrates’ intellectual heir, took as fundamental the idea that understanding disease required understanding the workings of the human body. He performed experiments, vivisected animals, and gave many popular public lectures and demonstrations.
Galen advanced our knowledge of the formation and excretion of urine, of the mechanisms of speech and respiration, and of the action of nerves and muscles. He left posterity 22 volumes of work.
Galen had no deficiency of hubris. He boasted that his voluminous writings contained all one needed ever to know about medicine. His reputation as the final words in medicine carried the day for the next 1400 years or so, to such an extent as to stifle further advances in the discovery of anatomy, physiology and the pathogenesis of disease during that period. His ideas influenced medical thinking even until the 20th century. “At least until the 16th and 17th centuries, to know medicine was to know it as Galen wrote about it in the 2nd century.”[1] That produced something of a set-back in the development of Western rational medicine.
The classicist and Greek-to-English translator of many of Galen’s writings, Peter Singer, cautions us against blaming Galen as if he was “....endowed with the capacity posthumously to bully his posterity, for the uncritical attitude towards him of his successors.”[2]
Galen’s reputation during his lifetime spread throughout the Roman Empire. He eventually became the personal physician of the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius (b. 121 CE, d. 180 CE; r. 161-180 CE).
The early Galen
Galen entered the world in Pergamon, a provincial city, extant in present day Turkey. Pergamon had existed before the time of Alexander the Great, and became a center of culture. It had a famous library containing some 200,000 books. Galen’s father, a wealthy architect, steered his son into a career in medicine following a ‘Hippocratic’ dream so advising him. He sent Galen to the Hippocratic school in Pergamon, a part of the Roman Empire. Galen’s interests, attested to in his own writings, included mathematics and philosophy, which he maintained and incorporated in his work throughout his career, as well as the writings of the Hippocratic physicians and of the history of medicine from before and after Hippocrates. Afterwards, in 152 CE, in his early 20s, Galen continued to study medicine in Alexandria, returning six years later, to become surgeon to the gladiators in the amphitheater at Pergamon. There he treated gladiators with all kinds of open wounds, of the head, chest, abdomen, muscles, and bones. Glimpsing the various parts of the interior of the body, he began to wonder how they worked and how they worked together — musing about function, or physiology.
References
- ↑ Nuland SB. (2005) The Paradox of Galen. Doctors: The History of Scientific Medicine Revealed Through Biography. The Great Courses. The Teaching Company.
- ↑ Galen, translated by Peter N. Singer. (1997) Selected Works. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192839373. Excerpts
- Note: One can appreciate Singer’s caution best in context:
- Singer writes: “If the name of Galen is mentioned at all today, it is seldom in tones of respect. His medical system is an outdated curiosity; his was the terrible dogmatism that held up the course of scientific research for centuries….But such judgements….are based upon a misconception as well as a fallacy: the former, to confuse Galenism