No writer of either ancient or modern times can compare with Claudius
Galenus probably in the abundance of his output, but certainly in
the influence he exercised over the generations that followed him.
For fifteen hundred years the doctrines he formulated, the compound
medicines he either introduced or endorsed, and the treatments he
recommended commanded almost universal submission among medical
practitioners. In Dr. Monk’s Roll of the College of Physicians, mention
is made of a Dr. Geynes who was admitted to the Fellowship of the
College in 1560, “but not until he had signed a recantation of his
error in having impugned the infallibility of Galen.”[2] This was at
the time when to deny Galen meant to follow Paracelsus, and the contest
was fiercer just then than at any time before or since.
[Illustration:
There is of course no authentic likeness of Galen in
existence. The Royal College of Physicians possesses
an unquestionably antique bust, copied in Pettigrew’s
Medical Portraits (and illustrated in the margin), which
is traditionally credited with being a representation of
the Physician of Pergamos. It was presented to the College
by Lord Ashburton, to whom it was presented by Alexander
Adair, who had acquired it from his relative Robert Adair,
principal surgeon to the British forces at the siege of
Quebec. This Robert Adair was a man of considerable eminence
in his profession, and is described as a man of character
and a scholar. Beyond this very slight evidence there is no
authority for the presumption that the bust was intended for
Galen. The other portrait is copied from the diploma of the
Pharmaceutical Society, but this is not said to have any
history. With these may be compared the portrait given on the
title page of the first London Pharmacopœia. The conclusion
will probably be reached that we have no idea what manner of
man the eminent physician was.
]
Galen was born at Pergamos, in Asia Minor, A.D. 131, and died
in the same city between A.D. 200 and 210. His father was an
architect of considerable fortune, and the son was at first destined to
be a philosopher, but while he was going through his courses of logic,
Nicon (the father) was advised in a dream to direct the youth’s studies
in the direction of medicine. It will be seen directly that Galen’s
career was a good deal influenced by dreams.
Nothing was spared to obtain for the youth the best education
available, though his father died when he was 21. After exhausting the
Pergamos teachers, Galen studied at Smyrna, Corinth, and Alexandria.
Then he travelled for some years through Cilicia, Phœnicia, Palestine,
Scyros, and the Isles of Crete and Cyprus. He commenced practice at
Pergamos when he was 29 and was appointed Physician to the School of
Gladiators in that city. At 33 he removed to Rome and soon acquired the
confidence and friendship of many distinguished persons, among them
Septimus Severus, the Consul and afterwards Emperor, Sergius Paulus,
the Prætor, the uncle of the reigning Emperor, Lucius Verus, many of
whom he cured of various illnesses.
His success caused bitter jealousy among the other Greek physicians
then practising in Rome. They called him Paradoxologos, and Logiatros,
which meant that he was a boaster and a master of phrases. It appears
that he was able to hold his own in this wordy warfare. Some of
his opponents he described as Asses of Thessaly, and he also made
allegations against their competence and probity. However, he quitted
Rome in the year 167, and as at a later time he left Aquilea, both
movings being coincident with the occurrence of serious plagues, his
reputation for courage has suffered. It was at this period of his
life that he visited Palestine to see the shrub which yielded Balm of
Gilead, and then proceeded to Armenia to satisfy himself in regard to
the preparation of the Terra Sigillata. He was able to report that the
general belief that blood was used in the process was incorrect.
It was to Aquilea that Galen was sent for by the Emperor Marcus
Aurelius, who was there preparing a campaign against the Marcomans,
a Germanic nation dwelling in what is now called Bohemia. Marcus
Aurelius was in the habit of taking Theriaca, and would have none but
that which had been prepared by Galen. He urged Galen to accompany
him on his expedition, but the physician declined the honour and the
danger, alleging that Æsculapius had appeared to him in a dream, and
had forbidden him to take the journey. The Emperor therefore sent him
to Rome and charged him with the medical care of his son Commodus, then
11 years of age. Galen is said to have done the world the ill-service
of saving the life of this monster. Galen retained the favour of Marcus
Aurelius till the death of the Emperor, and continued to make Theriaca
for his successors, Commodus, Pertinax, and Septimus Severus. He died
during the reign of the last named Emperor.
Galen is sometimes said to have kept a pharmacy in the Via d’Acra at
Rome, but his “apotheca” there appears to have been a house where his
writings were kept and where other physicians came to consult them.
This house was afterwards burned, and it is supposed that a number of
the physician’s manuscripts were destroyed in that fire.
His medical fame began to develop soon after his death. In about a
hundred years Eusebius, Bishop of Cæsarea, reproaches the world with
treating Galen almost as a divinity. Nearly all the later Roman medical
writers drew freely from his works, and some seemed to depend entirely
on them. Arabic medicine was largely based on Galen’s teaching, and it
was the Arabic manuscripts translated into Latin which furnished the
base of the medical teaching of Europe from the eleventh and twelfth
centuries to the eighteenth.
Galen aimed to create a perfect system of physiology, pathology, and
treatment. He is alleged to have written 500 treatises on medicine, and
250 on other subjects, philosophy, laws, grammar. Nothing like this
number remains, and the so-called “books” are often what we should call
articles. His known and accepted medical works number eighty-five. All
his writings were originally in Greek.