Galen
c. 129-c. 216
Greek Physician, Writer, and Philosopher
The work of Galen (Claudius Galenus) made him the primary authority on medical understanding and practice throughout the Middle Ages. Often described as the leading scientist of the time, he is particularly known for his contributions to physiology and often is noted as the father of experimental physiology. These contributions arose mainly from information he gathered during the many animal dissections he performed and from his insights and inferences regarding the functions of and relationships between various organs. Galen's reputation in the medical community was enhanced further by his role as physician to three Roman emperors, as well as by the more than 500 books and treatises he wrote about his findings and hypotheses.
Galen was born in Pergamum, off the east coast of the Aegean Sea in Asia Minor (present day Bergama, Turkey) in 129. In his early years, Galen was educated by his father, an architect, mathematician, and philosopher. When he turned 14, Galen began his studies at Pergamum, which continued for four years.
After Pergamum, Galen studied at Smyrna, at Corinth on the Greek Peninsula, and at Alexandria in Egypt. During this time, he also began writing and completed On the Movements of the Heart and Lung in Smyrna in 151. A strongly opinionated young man, Galen condemned those current-day teachers he felt were incompetent, calling them "ignoramuses" who presented "long, illogical lectures to crowds of 14-year-old boys who never got near the sick." In an effort improve the education of his fellow students, Galen began to write dictionaries on medicine and philosophy.
In 157 Galen moved back to Pergamum, where his interest in medicine continued. There he announced and demonstrated a self-described "cure for wounded tendons." The demonstration drew attention and helped him attain the position of chief physician to a troop of gladiators maintained by the high priest of Asia. Over the next three years, Galen treated their often massive injuries and gained new insights into the workings of the human body.
Galen left Pergamum for Rome in 162 when a war with the Galatians interrupted the gladiators' competitions, and thus his work. There he continued his studies, often publicly conducting demonstrations of anatomy and sharing his thoughts on medical treatments and on the workings of the human body, a topic that would eventually be called the field of physiology. He rose quickly in the medical profession because of his public demonstrations, his successes with rich and influential patients, and his great learning. His wealthy background, social contacts, and influential patrons also enhanced his reputation.
With his private and public studies and his understanding of physiology, Galen confirmed his belief in Hippocrates's hypothesis that health is governed by a balance of four bodily fluids, or humors. He became particularly interested in one humor, the blood. Not only did he establish that arteries carry blood instead of air, as previously thought, but he described how blood distributed food, or nutrition, to the organs in the body. Also during this period, Galen began a meticulous pharmacological investigation into the effects of various medicines on different illnesses, recording exactly how each medicine was made and the dosages given.
Galen returned to Pergamum briefly in 166, but returned to Rome in 169, where he served as physician to the emperor Marcus Aurelius and the later emperors Commodus and Septimius Severus. Galen was a prolific writer, producing about 500 tracts on medicine, philosophy, and ethics, many of which have survived in translated form. In his later years, he wrote two essays that listed all his works and provided a narrative of his career and evolution as a philosopher. Galen's life summaries represent one of the earliest recorded autobiographies of a scientist and possibly the first recorded bibliography.
The exact date of Galen's death is not known. Some scholars think that he died sometime after 210, but his Arab biographers asserted that he died in Rome in 216 or 217, at the age of 87. After his death, the Christian church accepted Galen as the standard authority on medicine throughout the Middle Ages. The ensuing lull in medical progress was broken more than 1,000 later, when scientists such as Andreas Vesalius (Belgian, 1514-1564) and the William Harvey (English, 1578-1657) began to follow Galen's premise that new knowledge and ideas are critical to the advancement of medical science.
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