Who was Galen?
Born in 131AD, Galen (Galien in French) is considered the father of modern medicine and pharmacology. As an anatomist, physiologist, clinician and researcher, his work formed the basis of a school of thought known as “Galenism”, which dominated medicine until the Renaissance. In fact, Galen’s works were used as primary medical reference for nearly two centuries. Raised in Pergamos, he studied at Smyrna, Corinth, and Alexandria, the three centers of medical excellence in the ancient world. Legend has it that Galen was visited by Aesclapius in a dream and this inspired the direction of his life. When he was 17, Galen worked as a physician to the gladiatorial school. At the age of 37, Marcus Aurelius summoned him to Rome, where he grew in reputation and stature as a healer, teacher, researcher and writer. His ideas on the functioning of the human body were so well received that he became the personal doctor of young Commodus, the heir to the Emperor. He died in 201AD. During his long and
Galen, a second-century Greek physician and philosopher, rose from gladiators’ physician in Asia Minor to court physician in the Rome of Marcus Aurelius. He is considered the most important physician of the ancient world after Hippocrates. Galen had an inquiring mind and was anxious to form his own independent judgments. His knowledge was equally great in theory and practice. Much of our information on earlier medicine derives from his reports alone, as he absorbed into his work nearly all preceding medical thought. His work covers every aspect of human health and forms the basis for subsequent interpretations down to the 20th century. His major enterprise to create a logic of scientific demonstration went beyond Aristotle and the Stoics in both the range and precision of its arguments. (cf. Oxford Classical Dictionary) The Galen Institute has chosen to name itself after this philosopher/physician because we believe our ideas are also integrative, structural and enduring. The Galen Log
