Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Note on abbreviations and references
- Note on manuscripts and editions
- 1 Galen and his system: an introduction
- 2 Galen's Book on Venesection against Erasistratus (translation)
- 3 Galen's Book on Venesection against the Erasistrateans in Rome (translation)
- 4 Galen's Book on Treatment by Venesection (translation)
- 5 Development of Galen's views and methods as shown in the three works
- 6 Galen, venesection and the Hippocratic Corpus
- 7 Galen's practice of venesection
- 8 Galen's revulsive treatment and vascular anatomy
- 9 The testimony of other writers and the validity of Galen's opinions on sites for venesection
- 10 Galen's use of venesection as an evacuant: can it be justified? A medical digression
- 11 Conclusion
- Glossary
- Works cited
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Note on abbreviations and references
- Note on manuscripts and editions
- 1 Galen and his system: an introduction
- 2 Galen's Book on Venesection against Erasistratus (translation)
- 3 Galen's Book on Venesection against the Erasistrateans in Rome (translation)
- 4 Galen's Book on Treatment by Venesection (translation)
- 5 Development of Galen's views and methods as shown in the three works
- 6 Galen, venesection and the Hippocratic Corpus
- 7 Galen's practice of venesection
- 8 Galen's revulsive treatment and vascular anatomy
- 9 The testimony of other writers and the validity of Galen's opinions on sites for venesection
- 10 Galen's use of venesection as an evacuant: can it be justified? A medical digression
- 11 Conclusion
- Glossary
- Works cited
- Index
Summary
In the foregoing chapters Galen's opinions on venesection have been collected from his surviving works and compared with the views of the Hippocratic writers and of some of his other predecessors and contemporaries. What has not been resolved, and probably cannot be certainly decided at all, is the origin of Galen's opinions. Although he has a profound respect for Hippocrates, his opinions on venesection are Hippocratic only in the sense that they are those of a fictitious Hippocrates whom Galen has constructed for himself. Although the seeds of his ideas are to be found in the Corpus, they have grown by the time of Galen into something far bigger and more organised than is found in the Hippocratic writings. It is not clear where and when this growth took place. Although Celsus, like Galen, makes more extensive use of venesection than the writers of the Corpus do, his practice is in many ways quite different from Galen's, and the same can be said of Aretaeus, Antyllus and Soranus. What, then, was the origin of Galen's peculiar methods and beliefs? They are not truly Hippocratic, and a study of a few surviving sources between the writers of the Corpus and Galen suggests that they were far from universal among practitioners of ability and reputation. Where, then, did they come from, and why did he hold them so tenaciously?
This question might best be answered with another: Why did Galen succeed in his practice?
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- Galen on BloodlettingA Study of the Origins, Development and Validity of his Opinions, with a Translation of the Three Works, pp. 173 - 176Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1986