Galen

Galen, Claudius (born c. 130 CE, died c. 201 or 210 CE), the most renowned physician of antiquity, who, thanks to his great talent and education, synthesized the centuries of accumulated experience in medicine, ending the struggle between the two schools of that time—the Cnidian and Cosian (the first viewed medicine as knowledge, the second as an art; Galen himself saw medicine as a science), and exerting influence (through the completeness of his synthesis and ideas) on all medicine for the next 1,500 years (see History of Medicine). Having received education from his father, the most learned architect Nikon, who taught Galen philosophy, and studying medicine from the age of 17 in the schools of his native city of Pergamum, Galen, following the example of others, traveled to perfect his knowledge (in Smyrna with Pelops, and in Corinth with Numisian he studied anatomy, in Alexandria—scientific achievements of the latter). After nine years, returning to Pergamum, Galen was appointed physician to the gladiators (and studied their profession in terms of its effect on health). After the uprising in 164 CE, Galen left for Rome, where, in the company of philosophers and celebrities (Eudeus, Alexander Damascenus, Boethus, Lucius Verus), he gave public lectures (with vivisections), becoming famous as a physician. In 168, by Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius, he was summoned to Aquileia, and after the death of Lucius Verus from the plague, he accompanied Aurelius on the campaign against the Marcomanni, after which he went as physician to the young Commodus to Rome, where he died. Galen wrote up to 256 works on various topics; from the field of medicine are known: "Anatomical Investigations", "Hygiene", "On the Composition of Medicines", "Therapeutic Methods", "On the Doctrines and Views of Hippocrates, Plato" and others. In his works, Galen used, besides the natural-historical method, the mathematical method, deduction from absolutely true premises: for Galen, Aristotle's principle—"nature does nothing without purpose"—was correct. Striving to connect individual disciplines into a single whole, Galen considered normal anatomy and physiology (which he brought closer to the histological concept of the structure of the body) as the basis for building the doctrine of diseases on them, and on the latter—indications, etc. Galen's technique of dissection was high (mainly vivisection and dissection of monkeys—"a ridiculous copy of man"), and his method of dissecting the brain and spinal cord deserves attention. Galen's merit in physiology—creating experimental physiology. But Galen believed that the organism is a mechanism of the soul with different forces, the carrier of which is pneuma (vital—in the heart, psychic—in the brain, physiological—in the liver)—and consists of dense and liquid (blood) parts, appropriately mixed (thus, Galen adhered to the humor-pathological school; see History of Medicine). Disease is a change in the functions of body parts; a person is healthy if all parts are in the proper quantity and quality: "there cannot be a disorder of functions without pathological changes in the body part to which this suffering pertains". The physician's task is to support physis, without interfering unnecessarily, and to choose medicines, the role and physiological action of which Galen analyzed in detail. Galen's works were reprinted many times; the most complete collections were published by Kühn (Kühn; V. I-XX, Leipzig, 1821-33) and Daremberg ("Oeuvres anatomiques, physiologiques et medicales de Galien", publiees par M. Daremberg, v. I-II, P., 1854-56). GALEN'S GREAT VEIN (vena magna Galeni), about ¹/₂ cm wide, approximately 1 cm long, is formed behind the pineal body (corpus pineale) from the union of the right and left internal cerebral veins (venae cerebri internae), which collect blood from the choroid plexuses (plexus choroidei), it goes backward between the inferior surface of the corpus callosum (corpus callosum) and the superior surface of the quadrigeminal body (corpus quadrigeminum) and flows into the straight sinus of the dura mater (sinus rectus), located at the junction of the tentorium cerebelli (cerebellar tentorium) with the major falx cerebri (falx cerebri major). (Fig.—see separate table, vol. VII, in article Brain. Pathology—see Brain and Sinuses.)