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Updated: June 7, 2025
Galen went a good deal beyond the idea of Aristotle, reaching our modern conception that the function is to maintain the animal heat, and that the smoky matters derived from combustion of the blood are discharged by expiration. I have dwelt on these points in Galen's physiology, as they are fundamental in the history of the circulation; and they are sufficient to illustrate his position.
Galen's old personal attendant took charge of the amphora of snow-cooled Falernian; he poured for each in turn and then retired into a corner to be out of earshot, or at any rate to emphasize that what he might hear would not concern him.
But shortly afterwards, when he was walking one day in the Roman vegetable market, an old man, shabbily dressed, met him and dissuaded him from the use of the plant aforesaid, saying: "In Galen's opinion you may as readily meet your death thereby as by eating hemlock."
"I just saw a naked woman stab a man with her hairpin and kick his corpse into the shrubbery before the breath was out of it!" "Galen has deserted you," said Cornificia. The murder was uninteresting; nobody made any comment. "Not he!" Pertinax answered, and went and sat on Galen's couch. "You find me not man enough for the senate to make a god of me is that it, Galen?"
After Galen's time came the collapse of the Roman Empire, the extinction of physical knowledge, and the repression of every kind of scientific inquiry, by its powerful and consistent enemy, the Church; and that state of things lasted until the latter part of the Middle Ages saw the revival of learning.
But before we take up Galen's specific labors, it will be well to inquire briefly as to the state of medical art and science in the Roman world at the time when the last great physician of antiquity came upon the scene.
They were liberal patrons of Greek art and of Greek literature, and did not neglect Greek science and Greek medicine. Galen's influence was due much more to the prominence secured by him as the result of his stay in Rome than would have been possible had he stayed in Asia. There are many other examples of Roman patronage of literature and science that might be mentioned.
But he said nothing. He preferred to spring surprises, only hoping he himself might not be overwhelmed in one. By the time they reached Cornificia's house he was in such a state of nervousness, and so blanched, that he had to summon his servant into the litter to rub cosmetic on his cheeks. He took one of Galen's famous strychnine pills before he could prevent his limbs from trembling.
Caracalla, who, in all that happened to him, traced the hand of a superior power, pointed this out to Philostratus, and asked him whether, perhaps, the attack of pain he had just suffered might not have yielded so quickly to the presence of the revived Roxana rather than to Galen's pills.
The boy Joe began: "Why, ma, they ain't made in the im " "You shut up, and wait till you're asked, Joe. I'll let you know when I want help. Are you looking for something, doctor?" The doctor asked for a few sheets of paper and a pen, and said he would write a prescription; which he did. It was one of Galen's; in fact, it was Galen's favorite, and had been slaying people for sixteen thousand years.
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