Galen

• Galen was an ancient Roman doctor but probably Greek by birth
• Galen built on the ideas of Hippocrates and developed knowledge of his own
• Early in Galen's career, he worked as a surgeon and doctor to Gladiators, becoming knowledgeable about anatomy and increasingly fascinated by how the body worked through the treatment of the injuries that he witnessed
• Galen became a physician of important Romans, including several Emperors
• Galen developed some innovative ideas, some of which were correct but others were wrong
• Insistence on not questioning Galen's work resulted in progress being hindered, particularly by the medieval church and the Renaissance Church
• Some of Galen's ideas actually did work and were correct
• Galen used dissection and vivisection on apes and pigs to make discoveries
• Human dissection was not allowed under Roman law, leading Galen to make some incorrect assumptions about the body
• Galen observed that the brain controls the body, not the heart
• Galen: 'We must use opposites to balance up the humors and treat illness. If a man has a cold and is sneezing and coughing up phlegm, we must treat him with the opposite, giving fiery Pepper or chili'
• Galen proved that the brain controls the body through the nerves
• Galen came up with the idea of Perfect Design, where every organ in the body has a special role to play
• Galen identified that the heart works to pump blood around the body
• Galen theorized that the blood was produced by the liver and used up like a fuel in the body, which is incorrect
• Galen's explanation that the body had been perfectly designed by a greater power was popular with the Christian church
• Galen performed a pig dissection to demonstrate that the brain controls the body through the nerves
• Galen's demonstration involved dissecting a pig to show the brain's control over the body
• Scientific approaches

  • Pig dissection
• Galen: 'During his time treating gladiator's wounds he had noticed how some wounds were paralyzing'
• Galen's demonstration of brain control

  1. Cutting a pig caused it to squeal in pain

  2. Cutting specific nerves on the pig caused various types of paralysis

  3. Cutting the nerve controlling the pig's squeal resulted in the pig still writhing in agony but no longer squealing, showing that the brain controlled the body through the nerves
• Galen believed that blood was used up like a fuel in a fire, not circulated, and was created in the liver
• Galen believed the jawbone was in two parts like in many animals, including pigs, not one
• Galen was not allowed to dissect humans
• Medieval doctors weren't allowed to correct Galen's mistakes, which lasted for centuries
• During the Renaissance period


  Challenges to Galen's ideas finally started
• Some provably false ideas had to be adhered to for fear of the power of the church and academics at the time
• Galen took the best ideas of the Greeks and Romans and made them better, writing over 60 books
• For the next 1500 years, people followed Galen's ideas without daring to disagree with him
• The Christian Church particularly favored Galen's work due to his idea of Perfect Design reflecting the Christian belief in God's creation
• Galen's reluctance to accept challenges and several mistakes, including very obvious ones, slowed medical progress in the medieval period
• Galen was an ancient Roman doctor who built upon the ideas of Hippocrates and introduced several innovations of his own
• Galen correctly identified the heart as a pump for the blood but incorrectly assumed that the liver created blood used like a fuel
• The medieval Church promoted Galen's ideas but also suppressed ideas challenging Galen until the Renaissance
• Galen's reliance on animals led to many mistakes and assumptions that would not be corrected for centuries
• Andreas Veselis was a key figure challenging Galen's ideas during the Renaissance period