Galēnus
Claudius (
Κλαύδιος
Γαληνός). A celebrated Greek physician, born at Pergamus about A.D. 131. His
father gave him a liberal education. His anatomical and medical studies were commenced under
Satyrus, a celebrated anatomist; Stratonicus, a disciple of the Hippocratic School; and
Aeschrion, a follower of the Empirics. After the death of his father he travelled to
Alexandria, at that time the most famous school of medicine in the world. His studies were so
successfully pursued that he was publicly invited to return to his native country. At the age
of thirty-four he settled at Rome, where his celebrity became so great from the success of his
practice, and more especially from his great knowledge of anatomy, that he quickly drew upon
himself the jealousy of all the Roman physicians. He became physician to the emperor Marcus
Aurelius, and at the solicitation of many philosophers and men of rank, he commenced a
course of lectures on anatomy; but the jealousy of his rivals quickly compelled him to
discontinue them, and eventually to leave Rome altogether, being in daily fear of
assassination. Many particulars of his life may be gathered from his own writings; nothing is
known, however, about the period of his return home as well as that of his death. All that can
be learned is merely that he was still living in the reign of Septimius Severus.
Galen was a most prolific writer. Though several of his works were destroyed in the
conflagration of his dwelling, and others by the lapse of time, still the following
productions of his now exist in print:
1.
Eighty-three treatises, the genuineness of which is now well established.
2.
Nineteen of rather doubtful origin.
3.
Forty-five that are certainly spurious.
4.
Nineteen fragments, more or less extensive in size.
5.
Fifteen commentaries on the works of Hippocrates.
Among the productions of Galen that are of a philosophical character may be enumerated the
following: A treatise against Favorinus; a dissertation on the opinions of Hippocrates and
Plato; a commentary on the Timaeus of Plato, and several discourses on Dialectics. See Diels,
De Galeni Historia Philosopha (Bonn, 1870).
Operative surgery is the department of his profession which is least indebted to him; and
yet even here he has left some monuments of his boldness and ingenuity. He has described
minutely an operation performed by him upon the chest of a young man, by which he perforated
the breast-bone and laid bare the heart, in order to give vent to a collection of matter
seated in the thorax. The subject of ulcers is handled by him very scientifically in his book
De Methodo Medendi (
Θεραπευτικὴ Μέθοδος).
His commentaries on Hippocrates show his acquaintance with fractures and dislocations. The
subject of hygiene (
Ὑγιεινά) he treated at great length in
a work consisting of six books. His treatise
De Facultate Alimentorum
(
Περὶ Τροφῶν Δυνάμεως) contains very important
observations on the nature of foods, and furnishes an exposition of his opinion on the
subject of dietetics. Materia Medica and Pharmacy appear to have been the objects of his
particular study, and both are handled by him in several of his works. His treatise
De
Compositione Medicamentorum Secundum Locos (
Περὶ Συνθέσεως
Φαρμάκων τῶν κατὰ Τόπους) contains a copious list of pharmaceutical
preparations. Of all his works, none was long so much studied and commented upon as the one
entitled
Ars Medica (
Τέχνη Ἰατρική), a
general outline of medicine. In several works he gives an elaborate system of the arterial
pulses, which, as usual with his doctrines, was taken up by all subsequent writers; and
abridged expositions of it may be found in Philaretus, Paulus Aegineta, Actuarius, Rhazes,
and Avicenna. The best edition of Galen is that of Kühn, 20 vols.
(Leipzig,
1821-1833). See Daremberg,
Des Connaissances de Galien (Paris,
1841); the epitome in English by Coxe
(Philadelphia, 1846); Berdoe,
Origin and Growth of the Healing Art (London, 1893); and the
articles
Chirurgia;
Medicina.
