Lampas - Volume 54, Issue 4, 2021

Galen (129-216) has always been a controversial figure even today. This paper examines various features of his writings and seeks to show how they would have appeared to his contemporaries in a competition for patients. Some features were emphasised by Galen himself, others have to be discerned by reading between the lines of his voluminous output, and others by setting him in a context of sophistic performance and debate.

Galen provides us with extensive though strongly biased information about his treatment of patients. He does so both in narrative case studies and in theoretical discussions of the principles and methods of therapeutics. He conceives of therapeutics as a comprehensive system connecting all domains of the medical art. His ideal doctor needs to have a firm command of all these domains, including a thorough grasp of epistemology and scientific methodology. At the same time, Galen is aware of the limitations of these principles in medical practice, and he stresses the uniqueness of each patient. His therapeutics also includes the promotion of health and the care of the soul.

Besides a philosophical physician, Galen was also a master narrator. The way in which he manages to build towards a big reveal is unprecedented. In order to illustrate his skill, and to demonstrate the suitability of Galen’s work – the Greek as well as its content – for secondary education, the editors of this Lampas special have decided to print an example of his narrative prowess. Chapter 7 of the treatise De Praecognitione ad Epigenem (already mentioned by both Nutton and Van der Eijk) is an entertaining, easy-to-read story, and a great example of Galen’s skill. Both Greek edited text and English translation are by Vivian Nutton, and have been taken from his edition of the text in the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum series.

In what follows, Galen’s tract The Best Doctor is also a Philosopher is presented, together with a Dutch translation. The text and translation are preceded by an introduction, which briefly discusses the historical context and Galen’s aims and methods. Particular attention is paid to Galen’s relation to his role model Hippocrates, his ideas on the correct methods for medicine, and the moral requirements satisfied by the good physician.

Galen’s rich body of work took on many shapes and meanings for scholars working in hospitals, noble courts, schools and monasteries from the Far East to Western Europe, as they studied, translated, copied, compiled, commented on, summarized, quoted, cited, rearranged, argued about, expounded and expanded upon it for centuries. The predominant narratives around the reception of Galen portray the seventeenth century as the crucial period in which his legacy started to be replaced by modern science. Situating this Early Modern period within the long and complex history of Galen’s reception, we find evolution and continuity in the theory and practice of medicine rather than revolution, and thorough reassessment of Galen’s legacy rather than wholesale rejection of it. We can appreciate that it lives on still in our current day expectations of good medicine and proper physicians.

In this article I provide an overview of the scholarly work done on the voluminous writings of the doctor-cum-philosopher Galen of Pergamon (129–216 CE) since the mid-19^th century. In so doing I aim to show ways and means to read and study Galen for those coming to his work for the first time. First, I will discuss the slow process of replacing the Opera Omnia edition of Kühn (1821-1833) with state-of-the-art editions, new finds of Galenic works, and the modern language translations that have so far appeared. Next, I will turn to studies of Galen from a philosophical angle, most notably his ideas on knowledge and science and on human nature, then to studies focusing on Galen’s medical theories and practices, ending with work done regarding Galen’s life and times.

Education was a subject of major concern to Galen. This article offers a short overview. Galen holds that, in any form of education, it is a prerequisite to realise the ways we can attain knowledge. A good teacher teaches his pupils to trust the ‘natural criteria’, reason and experience, through which knowledge comes to us, and when these do not suffice, he shows them more specialized procedures. Both good teachers and good pupils need the right capacities and eagerness to be able to teach or learn. Not everyone has the same learning goals or capacities, so Galen arranges his works according to separate learning paths. He considers method a matter of utmost importance: without method, teaching or learning is impossible.

This article discusses a new course on Galen and ancient medicine (Galen: Physician, Philosopher, Rhetorician) developed by the Classics department of the Gemeentelijk Gymnasium Hilversum and the Galen research group of Utrecht University in the period of 2017-2021. First, the motivation behind this joint venture is explained in terms of the neglect so far suffered by Galen in Dutch secondary education, the suitability of his writings for students of Greek, particularly those of the fifth form, and its potential as a vehicle for interdisciplinary teaching. Next, the contents and structure of the course, in combination with some suggestions for its use are expounded. Finally, the course is evaluated in light of the experiences of and evaluations by teachers and students who have worked with the course.