Galen of Pergamon (1954) by George Sarton

Author:George Sarton [Sarton, George]
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Kansas Press
Published: 1954-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

[53]

Galen of Pergamon

the idiosyncrasies65 of men vary considerably; they try to discover them in their own patients and to take them always into account. They know that those idiosyncrasies cannot be classified into four groups, nor into a hundred. Each patient or rather each combination patient-disease is a separate problem.66 In his essay on Galen67 Singer says that he called him a modern because his conception of disease was anatomical. That is partially true; Galen had such a conception; he realized that many diseases originated in definite organs; but he could not develop that idea to any extent, because his knowledge of pathological anatomy was rudimentary. On the other hand, to leave the whole responsibility of the theory of humors to the Hippocratic physicians and absolve Galen from any share in it is decidedly wrong. Galen it was who gave to that theory its final shape and who assured its supremacy. Not only did he devote a special treatise to it, but he defended it in other books, e.g., in the one on the natural faculties.68 His defense of that theory was so influential that he was generally considered to be the originator of it.

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65. The word idiosyncrasy seems pedantic but is just the right word in this connection. As explained a moment ago, temperament (or crasis) is the mixture of humors characterizing the constitution of an individual. Now syncrasis is an artificial variant of crasis, and idios means "personal," "private." Idiosyncrasy means "individual temperament"; the word is useful when one wishes to refer to the individual constitution of a man without suggesting an acceptance of the theory of four temperaments.

66. Carl Binger: The doctor's job (New York; Norton, 1945; Isis 36, 236), p. 52, puts it this way, "It is almost as important to know what kind of patient has the disease as what kind of disease has the patient."

67. Charles Singer: Galen as a modern. Address to the historical section, of the Royal Soc. of Medicine, printed in its Proceedings for 1949, reprinted in New worlds and old, Essays (pp. 143-57, London; Heinemann, 1951; Isis 44, 166). Says Singer (p. 147), "Humoral medicine is truly ancient medicine. The anatomic view is relatively modern and persistent adhesion to it places Galen among the moderns."

68. De naturalibus jacultatibus (Kühn 2, 1-214). See Kühn 's index s.v. temperamenta, etc. (20, 588-89).

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