Galen on anatomical procedures : de Anatomicis administrationibus / translation of the surviving books with introduction and notes by Charles Singer.

  • Galen
Date:
1956
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Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Galen on anatomical procedures : de Anatomicis administrationibus / translation of the surviving books with introduction and notes by Charles Singer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Hippocrates, and Aristotle, all known to Galen. It therefore had this name at least a thousand years before Galen used it. (130) MesentericN, '[membrane] intermediary to intestine', is an Aris^ totelian term. Mesaraion, 'thin intermediary [membrane]', is a term, prob^ ably of Alexandrian origin, used by Galen and Rufus. (131) Pyle, porta, gate, i.e. 'fissure of the liver'. Vena portae (less properly vena porta), vein of the gate. SxELECHiAiAisan adjective from stelechos, 'shaft', 'trunk'; hence phleps stelechiaia, 'trunk vein'. The last, a neologism in Galen's time, did not catch on. (132) Mnesitheus, De elephanto. Nothing is known of this Mnesitheus except through Galen who treats him with respect in several places. But Galen is wrong and Mnesitheus right in saying that the elephant has no gall bladder. The fact was known also to Aristotle, Historia animalium, ii. 16. The common bile duct of the elephant expands in the wall of the duodenum into a vesicle which seems to serve the purpose of a gall bladder. (133) This is one of the longest of the surviving fragments of Herophilus, founder of the anatomical school at Alexandria (300 B.C.). None of his works survives. His anatomical fragments are collected and translated by J. F. Dobson, Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., 1924-5, xviii (Sect. Hist. Med.), p. 19. (134) There is, however, no vermiform appendix in any ape that Galen is likely to have dissected. (135) DoDEKADAKTYLON, *[a Space of] twelve fingers', Latin duodenum '[a space of] twelve'. Thus the word comes to us as a Latin version of a term of Herophilus. (136) Our word 'ileum' is of medieval origin, without classical justification. It involved a confusion between Latin ilium, lower belly, and Greek eileos, abdominal pain. Thus our modern terms 'ileum' and 'ilium' are really cony nected and both with the term 'iliac disease' or 'iliac passion'. (137) Rectum. This tract of intestine is quite straight in the ape and many mammals, but not in man. The first known application of the word rectum to the viscus is by Celsus (first century a.d.), who doubtless translates apeuthy^ SMENON ENTE RON'the gut that is made straight' of some earlier Greek writer, from whom also Galen doubtless took it. (13,8) Parenchyma, 'poured in beside'. This passage is the origin of our modern term which did not come into use until the seventeenth century. (139) Pyloros, literally 'gatekeeper'. The word is first used in its medical sense by Celsus, first century a.d.