After a long residence in Alexandria, and a course of travels which he had performed in Egypt, he returned at the age of 28 to practise medicine at Pergamos. He com municated to the medical men of that city the information which he had collected, and directed them in a variety of experiments on the virtues of medicinal plants. lie was honoured with the medical charge of the gladiators, and gained no small credit by the success with which he treat ed their wounds.
A sedition arming in Pergamos, he repaired to Rome, where he soon acquired very high celebrity by his profes sional success in the diseases of some conspicuous indivi duals. lie cured Eudemus the philosopher of an inter mittent fever, which had been previously mismanaged. lie gave remarkably accurate predictions of the futui•e course of various cases of disease, and displayed great address in tracing some instances of indisposition to maladies of the mind. Wren called to the wife of Justus, he declared her illness to have originated in an amorous affection, and dis covered the individual who was the object of her languish ing attachment. He found that the disease of a servant to whom he was called, proceeded from the depressing influ ence of fear ; and it appeared, on enquiry, that this person was unable to give a proper account of some property which had been committed to his charge. In short, Galen seems to have shone as an accurate student of the pheno mena of disease, and to have applied to professional uses a general and ready knowledge of the human heart.
At Rome lie was intimate with the first characters in the literary world, such as Eudemus and Alexander Da mascenus, two celebrated Peripatetic teachers, and Ser gius Paulus the prxtor, a man of consular dignity, the most eminent man in Rome for intellectual accomplish ments, and for ability in the management of state affairs. The great success of Galen, his growing character, and the high remunerations which he sometimes received, ex cited the hostility of his competitors, most particularly among the sect of the Methodics, whom he opposed, and who at that time were in high credit. They represented his success in practice, and the accuracy of his predictions in disease, as entirely the effect of accident. The latter was sometimes ascribed by them to the art of magic, The annoyance which he sustained from this opposition, and the breaking out of a plague in the city of Rome, determined him, in the 37th year of his age, to leave that city, and re turn to his native country. But he had not remained long there, when he was invited to attend the Emperor Au relius in Aquileia, and in the train of this emperor he re turned to Rome. Aurelius gave him the charge of his two
sons, Commodus and Sextus, during his absence in the German war. Galen ingratiated himself at court, by per forming some successful cures on Commodus, and by showing the accuracy of his judgment in the prognosis which he pronounced of an acute disorder with which Sextus was affected, When the emperor himself was af terwards seized with sickness, Galen told him that it was entirely the effect of an overloaded stomach, and gave him relief by a suitable prescription. This benignant emperor was no less pleased with the philosophic spirit and the virtuous habits of Galen, than with his professional ability. On the death of Demetrius, Galen was appointed to suc ceed him as the sole compounder of the famous prepara tion called theriaca, a distinction which served to mark him as the first physician of his day. It does not appear that Galen continued stationary in Rome till his death. Seve ral years of his life, though we know not how many, seem to have been again spent in his native city. Galen died at the age of 70. The place of his death is unknown. Some say that he lived to the age of 87, and a fabulous story was at one time circulated that he lived 140 years.
The biographers of this celebrated man have delighted to recount the virtues for which he was eminent, such as fortitude, inflexible justice, and piety. He appears to have held the creed of the unity of the Deity. A zealous len ter has labouved to show that he died on his way to Judoa, on a journey which he was led to undertake by the claims of the Christian miracles. From this a hope is suggested, that he had submitted to the rite of Christian baptism, and died with in the bosom of the Catholic church. These facts, however, arc but ill authenticated. His dutiful sentiments towards his father, his devotedness to his native country. (the interests of which he often cultivated to the neglect of his own for tunes at Rome,) the grateful veneration which he enter tamed for his teachers. the sedateness of his manners, the correctness of his conversation, which was equally remote from obscenity and ridicule, the mildness of his temper, his gentle behaviour towards his servants and all around him, and the cheerful animating tone of his discourse with the sick, arc virtues which, though not uncommon, it is pleasant to find adorning the character of this great physi cian.