Galen

(noun)

A prominent Greek physician (129 CE – c. 200/c. 216 CE), surgeon, and philosopher in the Roman empire. Arguably the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity, he influenced the development of various scientific disciplines, including anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, and neurology, as well as philosophy and logic.

Related Terms

Examples of Galen in the following topics:

  • The Medical Renaissance

    • The writings of ancient Greek physician Galen had dominated European thinking in medicine.
    • Galen's understanding of anatomy and medicine was principally influenced by the then-current theory of humorism (also known as the four humors - black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm), as advanced by ancient Greek physicians such as Hippocrates.
    • His anatomical reports, based mainly on dissection of monkeys and pigs, remained uncontested until 1543, when printed descriptions and illustrations of human dissections were published in the seminal work De humani corporis fabrica by Andreas Vesalius, who first demonstrated the mistakes in the Galenic model.
    • His anatomical teachings were based upon the dissection of human corpses, rather than the animal dissections that Galen had used as a guide.

  • Arts and Sciences

    • By 1200 there were reasonably accurate Latin translations of the main works of Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, Archimedes, and Galen—that is, of all the intellectually crucial ancient authors except Plato.