Read the work of Galen[694] _On Medical Schools_. The author,
discussing the schools that have been formed in the medical
profession, declares that the three chief are: the logical, which
he also calls dogmatic and analogistic; the empirical, also called
observant or memorial; the methodical. They differ in the method of
invention and in other respects. The dogmatic physician bases his art
upon the use of methods of reasoning for the discovery of remedies;
the empirical relies upon experiment and observation; the methodical,
while professing to employ both reasoning and experiment, makes no
careful use of either, and is rightly distinguished from the other
two.
The present work is divided into three sections. The first contains
a description of the empiric and dogmatic schools, and sets forth
the nature of each; the second introduces these two schools hotly
discussing their respective claims to superiority; the third
introduces the methodical school quarrelling with the other two, each
of them putting forward its own claims and endeavouring to overthrow
its rival. With this the third book ends.
It is evident that this work should be preferred to all other medical
writings, if one would learn which is the best school to belong to.
But it cannot properly be regarded as a medical work, but rather as a
philosophical introduction to medicine. The diction and composition
are pure and distinct; Galen everywhere pays especial attention to
these qualities, although in many works he confuses and obscures the
meaning of what he has written by overloading his treatises with
unseasonable discourses, digressions, and spun-out periods. These
seem, as it were, to chop up the context, and his tedious nonsense
makes the reader indifferent. The present treatise, however, is free
from these faults.