Galen of Pergamon was the most influential ancient Greek physician after Hippocrates and is considered the father of pharmacology.
He developed medical tools for surgery and dissection and wrote many volumes of his discoveries and observations, and was one of the leading thinkers in medicine.
Galen was the first to attempt to formulate a classification of diseases and symptoms with a strong basis in anatomy. He was also the first to provide experimental proof of ureteric function.
Among his discoveries, he distinguished seven pairs of cranial nerves, described the valves of the heart and observed the structural differences between arteries and veins.
Early life
Also known as Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus or Galen (Γαληνός, 129-216 AD), the Roman-Greek physician was born in Pergamon, a Greek city in Anatolia. He was a physician, writer and philosopher whose work influenced greatly the medical world until the mid-17th century, enjoying the respect of Europeans and Arabs alike.
His father, Nicon, was a well to do architect. He had planned for his son to study philosophy or politics, the traditional pursuits of the cultured governing class into which he had been born.
However, While still in his teens c. 144-145, Galen became a therapeutes or ‘attendant’ of the healing god Asclepius, whose sanctuary was an important cultural center not only for Pergamon, but also for the entire Roman province of Asia.
Galen said that in a dream, Asclepius told Nicon to allow his son to study medicine, and for the next four years Galen studied under the distinguished physicians who gathered at the sanctuary of the god of medicine in Pergamon.
His father died in 148 or 149 and Galen at 19 found himself rich and independent. He chose to travel and further his medical education at Smyrna, Corinth and Alexandria. In 157 he returned to his native city with a prestigious appointment: physician to the gladiators.
From autumn 157 to autumn 161 the Greek physician gained valuable practical experience in trauma and sports medicine, and he continued to pursue his studies in theoretical medicine and philosophy.
By 161 Galen, now 32, decided that even though prosperous, Pergamon was still a provincial city that could not offer the opportunities his talents and ambition demanded. He left for Rome where he forged a glorious career in medicine.
Galen’s work in medicine and anatomy
Once in Rome, Galen practiced medicine and when a plague broke out, he found himself in the court of Marcus Aurelius with the emperor and his son Comodus as his most illustrious patients.
Treating severe injuries of the gladiators, he enhanced his knowledge of anatomy, physiology, trauma and sports medicine. But while human dissection was not considered during his time, Galen performed dissections on animals assuming that human organs were identical.
Galen regarded anatomy as the foundation of medical knowledge and he frequently dissected and experimented on such animals as the Barbary ape, pigs, sheep and goats. Even though his comparisons to human anatomy often failed, many of them were accurate. He wanted to experiment on human corpses but that was taboo in his time.
However, the inferences he made about human anatomy based on his dissections of animals often led him into errors. His anatomy of the uterus, for example, is largely that of the dog’s. According to Galen, blood is formed in the liver and is then carried by the veins to all parts of the body, where it is used up as nutriment or is transformed into flesh and other substances.
His precise descriptions and studies of neurological functions and anatomy also led to major breakthroughs. He used dissection to explore the anatomy of the brain and spinal cord, including the spinal nerves.
Galen also demonstrated the functions of nerves, along with many other aspects of the human body, including the eyes, tongue, larynx, and reproductive organs. In addition, his experiments with the kidneys showed that they were functionally related to the bladder.
Galen viewed the body as consisting of three connected systems: the brain and nerves, which are responsible for sensation and thought; the heart and arteries, responsible for life-giving energy; and the liver and veins, responsible for nutrition and growth.
The concept of disease
The Greek physician’s definition of disease was the impairment of bodily activities. This was the foundation of pathology, combining physiological and anatomical point of view.
Galen made progress in the anatomy of the eye by distinguishing the cornea, the sclera, the choroid, the capsula of the lens and the retina, as well as the structure covering the muscles of the eye and joining the individual elements of the eye with the orbital cavity and the skull.
As for the vision, he assumed the existence of a specific life force called pneuma, which reaches the eye from the brain through small channels in the optic nerve.
He also made strides in orthopedics and particularly in his observations on the spine. Based on his observations, derived from dissection and vivisection of animals, Galen established a pioneer model for the study of human spine. His research ended in an accurate description of the vertebral column and the spinal cord. He also described the course and the distribution of the nerves emerging from the spine.
Another one of Galen’s major pioneering works was his discussion on how to approach and treat psychological problems.
This was Galen’s early attempt at what would later be called psychotherapy. He wrote on how is 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.
A great body of texts
Galen may have produced more work than any author in antiquity.
His surviving texts represent nearly half of all the extant literature from ancient Greece. It has been reported that the Greek physician employed twenty scribes to write down his thoughts. He may have written as many as 500 treatises, and what has survived is thought to represent less than a third of his complete writings.
All of the extant Greek manuscripts of Galen were copied by Byzantine scholars.
After 750, Arab Muslims began to be interested in Greek scientific and medical texts for the first time, and had some of the Greek physician’s texts translated into Arabic, often by Syrian Christian scholars.
As a result, some texts of Galen exist only in Arabic translation, while others exist only in medieval Latin translations of the Arabic.
It is in Galen’s words that Greek medicine was handed down to subsequent generations, making Greek medical practice known to the world.
