Galen
Greek:
Î"αληνός,
Latin:
Claudius Galenus of Pergamum (
129-
200 AD), better known in
English as
Galen, was an ancient
Greek physician. His views dominated
European medicine for over a thousand years.
Galen was born in
Pergamum (modern-day
Bergama,
Turkey), the son of
Nicon, a wealthy architect. His interests were eclectic -
agriculture,
architecture,
astronomy,
astrology,
philosophy â€" until he finally concentrated on medicine.
By the age of twenty he had become a
therapeutes ("attendant" or "associate") of the god
Asclepius in the local temple for four years. After his father's death in
148 or
149, he left to study abroad in
Smyrna,
Corinth and
Alexandria over a period of twelve years. When he returned to Pergamum in
157, he worked as a physician in a
gladiator school for three or four years. During this time he gained much experience of
trauma and
wound treatment. He later regarded wounds as "windows into the body".
Galen performed many audacious operations that were not again used for almost two millennia, including brain and eye surgery. To perform
cataract surgery, Galen would insert a long needle-like instrument into the eye behind the lens. He would then pull it back slightly and remove the cataract. The slightest slip could cause permanent
blindness. Galen had set the standard for modern medicine in many different ways.
In
162, he moved to
Rome where he wrote extensively, lectured and publicly demonstrated his knowledge of
anatomy. He gained a reputation as an experienced physician and his practice had a widespread clientèle. One of them was the
consul Flavius Boethius who introduced him to the Imperial court where he became a court physician to Emperor
Marcus Aurelius. Later he also treated
Lucius Verus,
Commodus and
Septimius Severus. Reputedly, he spoke mostly Greek, which in the field of medicine was a more highly respected language than Latin at the time. He briefly returned to Pergamum during
166-
169.
Galen spent the rest of his life in the Imperial court, writing and experimenting. He performed
vivisections of numerous animals to study the function of the
kidneys and the
spinal cord. His favourite subject was the
Barbary ape. Reportedly he employed twenty scribes to write down his words. In
191, fire in the Temple of Peace destroyed some of his records. His exact date of death has traditionally been placed around the year
200, based on a reference from the
10th century Suda Lexicon. Some, however, have argued for dates as late as
216, on the basis that his last writings seem to be as late as
207.
Galen transmitted
Hippocratic medicine all the way to the
Renaissance. His
On the Elements According to Hippocrates describes the philosopher's system of
four bodily humours, blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm, which were identified with the four
classical elements, and in turn with the seasons. He created his own theories from those principles, and much of Galen's work can be seen as building on the Hippocratic theories of the body, rather than being purely innovative. In turn, he mainly ignored Latin writings of
Celsus, but accepted that the ancient works of
Asclepiades had sound theory.
Amongst Galen's own major works is a seventeen-volume
On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Human Body. He also wrote about philosophy and
philology, as well as extensively writing on anatomy. His collected works total twenty-two volumes, and he wrote a line a day for most of his life.
Galen's own theories, in accord with
Plato's, emphasized purposeful creation by a single Creator ("Nature" - Greek
phusis) - a major reason why later
Christian and
Muslim scholars could accept his views. His fundamental principle of life was
pneuma (air, breath) that later writers connected with the
soul. These writings on philosophy were a product of Galen's well rounded education, and throughout his life Galen was keen to emphasise the philosophical element to medicine.
Pneuma physicon (animal spirit) in the
brain took care of
movement,
perception, and
senses.
Pneuma zoticon (vital spirit) in the
heart controlled
blood and
body temperature. "Natural spirit" in the
liver handled
nutrition and
metabolism. However, he did not agree with the Pneumatist theory that air passed through the veins rather than blood.
Galen expanded his knowledge partly by experimenting with live animals. One of his methods was to publicly
dissect a living pig, cutting its
nerve bundles one at a time. Eventually he would cut a
laryngeal nerve (now also known as
Galen's Nerve) and the pig would stop squealing. He also tied the
ureters of living animals to show that
urine comes from the
kidneys, and severed spinal cords to demonstrate
paralysis. In addition to working with pigs, Galen also experimented with
barbary apes and goats, though he emphasised that he practised on pigs due to the fact that, in some respects, they are quite anatomically similar to humans. However, Galen was always keen to distance himself from the more manual, artisan elements of medicine. Public dissections were also a highly valuable way of disputing and disproving the biological theories of others, and were one of the main methods of academic medical learning in
Rome. It was quite common for large numbers of medical students to attend these public gatherings, which would sometimes turn into debates.
From the modern viewpoint, Galen's theories were partially correct, partially flawed. He demonstrated that
arteries carry blood, not air and made first studies about nerve functions, and the brain and heart. He also argued that the mind was in the brain, not in the heart as
Aristotle had claimed.
However, much of Galen's understanding is flawed from the modern point of view. He did not recognize
blood circulation and thought that
venous and
arterial systems were separate. This view did not change until
William Harvey's work in the
17th century. Since most of his knowledge of anatomy was based on dissection of pigs, dogs, and Barbary apes, he also assumed that
rete mirabile, a blood vessel plexus of
ungulates, also existed in the human body. He also resisted the idea of
tourniquets to stop bleeding and vigorously propagated
blood letting as a treatment.
Galen's authority dominated medicine all the way to the
16th century. Experimenters' disciples did not bother to experiment and studies of
physiology and anatomy stopped - Galen had already written about everything.
Blood letting became a standard medical procedure.
Vesalius presented the first serious challenge to his hegemony.
Much of medieval Islamic medicine drew on the works of the ancient Greeks, especially those elucidated by Galen, such as his expanded
humoral theory. Most of Galen's Greek writings were first translated to the
Syriac language by
Nestorian monks in the university of
Gundishapur,
Persia. Muslim scholars primarily in Baghdad translated the Syriac manuscripts into
Arabic, along with many other Greek classics. They became some of the main sources for
Arabian scholars such as
Avicenna,
Rhazes, and
Maimonides. Galen was known in Arabic as
Jalinos, and many people with that name today are considered to be descended from him
*
Galen*
Galen, university dayton*
Galen: A Biographical Sketch*
Greek Biology and Medicine by Henry Osborn Taylor (1922), scanned edition. Chapter 5 is devoted to
"The Final System: Galen".
*
Galen and the Greek-Helenic history of medicine*
misconceptions*
Jeanne Bendick -
Galen and the Gateway to Medicine ISBN 1883937752
