Galen

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Galen

• A medical master

Created by Mr McDonald
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Who was Galen?

• He was undoubtedly a key figure in medicine from
  the time of the Romans to the dawn of the
  Renaissance.
• His works were based on the ideas of other key
  individuals such as Hippocrates but he also went
  further.

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Details of Galens early life

• Born approx. 129AD.
• Trained as a doctor at the Asclepion in
  Pergamum.
• Continued his studies at Alexandria.

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Alexandria

• When Galen went to Alexandria he wanted to study
  the human body in detail.
• However the religious practices in Alexandria now
  prohibited human dissection.
• He could only study the skeleton.

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Young enterprise

• Not confined to looking at a mere skeleton, Galen
  often used to look at the bodies of criminal
  hanging from gibbets to examine the human body
  (He even examined bones from a washed out
  graveyard!)

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What does this tell us about Galen?

• Well educated.
• Brought up in an environment where healing and
  medicine were fostered and developed.
• Perhaps the fact that he travelled to Alexandria
  highlights the way in which he wanted to learn
  more about his profession.

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His studies develop

• It is okay to read from a textbook but he wanted
  to learn more
• In around 157 AD when he would have been in his
  mid to late twenties he went to work in the
  Gladiator School, but not as a gladiator!

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Why would anyone do that?

• Think of the wounds that would be inflicted on
  gladiators in the course of their training.
• He would have the perfect opportunity to practice
  examining the body and treating wounds and as
  most gladiators often were injured or killed
  practice was plentiful!

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Ego Trip to Rome

• In 161AD he went to Rome and began to build up
  his reputation there.
• Galen was apparently viewed as someone who
  promoted himself quite well and it worked by
  169AD he was the physician to the Emperor of
  Romes son.

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Professional Development

• He used this time to begin to develop medicine as
  now he had a secure standing in the medical
  world.
• He wrote many texts and he encouraged doctors to
  go and visit Alexandria to see the skeleton of a
  human.

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Galen as a doctor

• Galen followed Hippocrates work in observation
  of the patient.
• He also practised treatments based on the four
  humours this was often treatments opposite to
  the illness.
• Cold Pepper, weak exercise!

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Galen as an Anatomist

• As well as studying at Alexandria and using the
  bones of criminals Galen also experimented on
  animals.
• Pigs and primates were his animals of choice to
  experiment on the spinal cord (Barbary Apes)

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Galens flaws

• Galen did not highlight his failures like
  Hippocrates did.
• His experiments on animals made him develop some
  key mistakes in his studies on the anatomy of
  humans.
• Some of his observations on anatomy was
  speculation, not fact.

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Galens Importance

• He had a huge impact in medical teaching in the
  middle ages through both the Christian and Arab
  world. This was because he used the term
  creator.
• His teachings reflected a number of beliefs
  making them religiously acceptable.
• His texts were very powerful in dealing with
  possible objections or highlighting any mistakes.
• The wealth of his texts and size of them made him
  able to have a huge influence.

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Tasks

• Answer the questions on the sheet provided see
  this link