Galen : two bibliographical demonstrations in the library of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, 9th December, 1891, and 30th March, 1893 / by James Finlayson.

James Finlayson

Date:: 1895

Credit: Galen : two bibliographical demonstrations in the library of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, 9th December, 1891, and 30th March, 1893 / by James Finlayson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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$lectures and the displays of surgical operations seem to have been of a more public nature. Puschmann says of Galen :— In order to become known there [iu Rome] he gave public lectures on the structure and functions of the human body. The interest of the subject, and the practical knowledge of the lecturer, soon attracted a numerous audience composed of representatives of the most distinguished circles of the capital. Amongst his hearers were men in influential positions, such as the philosophers Eudemus and Alexander of Damascus, the prefect Sergius, the consuls Boiithus and Beverus, who afterwards mounted the throne, and Barbarus the uncle of the Emperor Lucius.^o In this way Galen succeeded, within a short time, in obtaining a profitable medical practice.— {History of Medical Udiccation, London, 1891, p. 95.) In the quotations already given about tying the aorta, we have a glimpse of his influence on his pupils in their ardour in trying to convict of incompetence a rival teacher vi^ho had different views from their master. We likewise get an indica- tion of his clinical teaching in connection with the case of Amantis Dignotio, for he there makes use as a messenger of one of his pupils, apparently—ex iis qui sequebantur me —showing that they visited patients with him at their own homes, and received in this way their clinical instruction.^'' Of the state of the profession generally in Rome, Galen draws a dreadful picture; but as he himself poses as the victim of the envy and persecution of the physicians there, it is perhaps fair to discount somewhat his retaliation on them in this abusive description. One can easily gather, even from the quotations already given, that Galen had, as a French biographer phrases it, un amour-propre excessif; and his acrid disputes, with syllogisms embellished by such phrases as tu stupidus es as one of the premises, might naturally ^ Some of these are figured and named, as viewing Galen's dissection of an animal, on the title page of the Latin edition, Basle, 1562. 3'' Clinical instruction seems also to have been given in Tahernce Mediav or latreia, the construction of which was arranged to secure good light and ventilation. (See Puschmann, History of 3Icdical Education, Loudon, 1891,1). Ill; also Galen, Kiihn, torn, xviii b, pp. 678, 674, &c.)$