particular setting. The Methodists illustrate for us the tyranny of names. In its defects as in its virtues this school has analogues at the present day; we are all acquainted with the medical man to whom a name (such, let us say, as “tuberculosis,” “gout,” or “intestinal auto-intoxication”) stands for an entity, one and indivisible, to be treated by a definite and unvarying formula.

To such an individual the old German saying “Jedermann hat am Ende ein Bischen Tuberkulose” is simply—incomprehensible.

Galen. All the medical schools which I have mentioned were still holding their ground in the 2nd century a.d., with more or less popular acceptance, when the great Galen made his entry into the world of Graeco-Roman medicine. Pg xvi

His Nature and Nurture. Claudius Galenus was born at Pergamos in Asia Minor in the year 131 a.d. His father was one Nicon, a well-to-do architect of that city. “I had the great good fortune,” says Galen,1 “to have as a father a highly amiable, just, good, and benevolent man. My mother, on the other hand, possessed a very bad temper; she used sometimes to bite her serving-maids, and she was perpetually shouting at my father and quarrelling with him—worse than Xanthippe with Socrates. When, therefore, I compared the excellence of my father’s disposition with the disgraceful passions of my mother, I resolved to embrace and love the former qualities, and to avoid and hate the latter.”

Nicon called his son Γαληνός, which means quiet, peaceable, and although the physician eventually turned out to be a man of elevated character, it is possible that his somewhat excessive leaning towards controversy (exemplified in the following pages) may have resulted from the fact that he was never quite able to throw off the worst side of the maternal inheritance.

His father, a man well schooled in mathematics and philosophy, saw to it that his son should not lack a liberal education. Pergamos itself was an ancient centre of civilisation, containing, among other culture-institutions, a library only second in importance to that of Alexandria itself; it also contained an Asclepieum.

Pg xvii

Galen’s training was essentially eclectic: he studied all the chief philosophical systems of the time—Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, and Epicurean—and then, at the age of seventeen, entered on a course of medical studies; these he pursued under the best teachers at his own city, and afterwards, during a period of Wanderjahre, at Smyrna, Alexandria, and other leading medical centres.

Returning to Pergamos, he received his first professional appointment—that of surgeon to the gladiators. After four years here he was drawn by ambition to Rome, being at that time about thirty-one years of age. At Rome the young Pergamene attained a brilliant reputation both as a practitioner and as a public demonstrator of anatomy; among his patients he finally numbered even the Emperor Marcus Aurelius himself.

Medical practice in Rome at this time was at a low ebb, and Galen took no pains to conceal his contempt for the ignorance, charlatanism, and venality of his fellow-practitioners. Eventually, in spite of his social popularity, he raised up such odium against himself in medical circles, that he was forced to flee the city. This he did hurriedly and secretly in the year 168 a.d., when thirty-six years of age. He betook himself to his old home at Pergamos, where he settled down once more to a literary life.

His respite was short, however, for within a year he was summoned back to Italy by imperial mandate. Marcus Aurelius was about to undertake an Pg xviii expedition against the Germans, who at that time were threatening the northern frontiers of the Empire, and he was anxious that his consulting physician should accompany him to the front. “Patriotism” in this sense, however, seems to have had no charms for the Pergamene, and he pleaded vigorously to be excused. Eventually, the Emperor gave him permission to remain at home, entrusting to his care the young prince Commodus.

Thereafter we know little of Galen’s history, beyond the fact that he now entered upon a period of great literary activity. Probably he died about the end of the century.

Subsequent
History of
Galen’s
Works. Galen wrote extensively, not only on anatomy, physiology, and medicine in general, but also on logic; his logical proclivities, as will be shown later, are well exemplified in his medical writings. A considerable number of undoubtedly genuine works of his have come down to us. The full importance of his contributions to medicine does not appear to have been recognized till some time after his death, but eventually, as already pointed out, the terms Galenism and Greek medicine became practically synonymous.

A few words may be devoted to the subsequent history of his writings.

Byzantine
Medicine. During and after the final break-up of the Roman Empire came times or confusion and of social reconstruction, which left little opportunity for scientific Pg xix thought and research. The Byzantine Empire, from the 4th century onwards, was the scene of much internal turmoil, in which the militant activities of the now State-established Christian church played a not inconsiderable part. The Byzantine medical scholars were at best compilers, and a typical compiler was Oribasius, body-physician to the Emperor Julian (4th century, a.d.); his excellent Synopsis was written in order to make the huge mass of the Galenic writings available for the ordinary practitioner.

Arabian
Medicine. Greek medicine spread, with general Greek culture, throughout Syria, and from thence was carried by the Nestorians, a persecuted heretical sect, into Persia; here it became implanted, and hence eventually spread to the Mohammedan world. Several of the Prophet’s successors (such as the Caliphs Harun-al-Rashid and Abdul-Rahman III) were great patrons of Greek learning, and especially of medicine. The Arabian scholars imbibed Aristotle and Galen with avidity. A partial assimilation, however, was the farthest stage to which they could attain; with the exception of pharmacology, the Arabians made practically no independent additions to medicine. They were essentially systematizers and commentators. “Averrois che il gran comento feo”2 Pg xx may stand as the type par excellence of the Moslem sage.

Avicenna (Ebn Sina), (10th to 11th century) is the foremost name in Arabian medicine: his “Book of the Canon in Medicine,” when translated into Latin, even overshadowed the authority of Galen himself for some four centuries. Of this work the medical historian Max Neuburger says: “Avicenna, according to his lights, imparted to contemporary medical science the appearance of almost mathematical accuracy, whilst the art of therapeutics, although empiricism did not wholly lack recognition, was deduced as a logical sequence from theoretical (Galenic and Aristotelian) premises.”

Introduction
of
Arabian
Medicine
to the