GALEN, or CLAUDIUS GALENUS, Greek physician: h. Pergamus, Mysia, 131 A.D. ; d. Sicily, about 201 A.D. He began the study of medicine at Pergamus, and afterward studied at Smyrna, Corinth and Alexandria. On his return to his native city in 158 he was appointed physician to the school of gladiators. Six years later he went to Rome, where he stayed four years, and gained wide reputation. Scarcely had he returned to his native city when he re ceived a summons from the emperors M. Aurelius and L. Verbs to attend them in the Venetian territory, and shortly afterward he ac companied them to Rome. There he remained several years, though how long is not known precisely, and about the end of the 2d century was employed by the Emperor Severus. Galen was a voluminous writer not only on medical, but also on philosophical subjects, such as logic, ethics and grammar. The works that are still extant under his name consist of 83 treatises, acknowledged to be genuine; 19 whose genuine ness has been questioned; 45 undoubtedly spurious; 19 fragments; and 15 commentaries on different works of Hippocrates. His most important anatomical and physiological works are: 'Of Anatomical Administrations' and 'Of the Use of the Parts of the Human Body.' As an anatomist, he combined with patient skill and sober observation as a practical dissector — of lower animals, not of the human body— accuracy of description and clearness of expo sition as a writer. He gathered up all the medical knowledge of his time and fixed it on such a firm foundation of truth that it con tinued to be, as he left it, the authoritative ac count of the science for centuries. His physiol
ogy does not, according to modern ideas, attain the same level of scientific excellence as his anatomy. He seems to place a more implicit faith in amulets than in medicine, and he is supposed by Cullen to be the originator of the anodyne necklace which was so long famous in England. His practice was based on the two general principles: (1) that disease is contrary to nature and is to be overcome by something that is contrary to the disease itself ; and (2) that nature is to be preserved by that which has relation to nature. In the 9th century Galen's works were translated into Arabic and were in great vogue for centuries throughout the East. The Greek text has been issued four times; the Aldine (5 folio vols., 1525) was the first; the best and most complete modern edition is that by Kuhn (20 vols., 1821-33). Several minor works were issued by Helmrich and Muller (3 vols., Leipzig 1893) and there are several German and French translations of the more important treatises. Consult Daremberg, 'Exposition des connaissances de Galien sur l'anatomie) (Paris 184) ; Kidd, 'Transactions of the Provincial Medical Association' (Vol. VI, London 1831) and Rhenisches Museum fur Philologie for the years 1889, 1892, 1896.