Yet what is striking is that in spite of that theoretical apparatus, which would in principle mean that one might abandon talk in terms of hot, cold, wet and dry at higher levels of explanation—in particular, in the advanced medical realm of disease description and treatment—precisely these terms remain the central ones.
For Galen the fundamental constituents or elements stoicheia of physical bodies are the hot, the cold, the wet and the dry. Although he describes this difference as largely one of presentation, the alternative formulation in terms of the cosmic elements fire, earth, air, water is important for Galen, because it is central to his argument that the only coherent way in which a theory of elements in the body can be understood is in terms of the extremes of qualities; and, further, that since, e.
Although at times he uses the term stoicheia for both element-bodies and element-qualities, in his most detailed account, in HNH I. To summarize in an interpretively difficult area: Stoic theory has each element-body corresponding to the extreme of one element-quality fire to the hot, etc.
On the other hand, it seems clear from certain passages in Hipp. In the description of higher-level bodies—that of animals, in particular—one must invoke the concept of their form eidos. Again we have a Galenic version of an Aristotelian concept, with form understood as opposed to matter, on the one hand, and to the broader classificatory category, genos , on the other. The precise way in which form relates to matter, however, is complex and resists easy summation.
We might rather point to a few contexts in which Galen invokes form in physical explanations. In embryology, form represents the component of design in modern terms, of information which is transmitted to the embryo from the parents, as opposed to the matter out of which it is constructed.
It thus becomes an explicit question problematized in different ways both in the early text Sem. In the former text, for example, the process crucially involves the interaction of pneuma breath, containing the formal element and blood containing the appropriate matter ; and a distinction is made between ousia in the material sense and the power that moves and shapes it.
In the account of the different physical composition of different animals and human beings in Temp. This has a particular importance for accurate physical description, especially of the kind relevant for the doctor: it is by reference to this eidos that we meaningfully apply adjectives such as hot or cold to a body.
It is not relevant whether they are hot or cold in some abstract sense, in relation to the whole cosmos, nor whether they possess those properties by comparison with members of a different eidos. The coming-to-be of different physical substances in the world, as well as their various properties, is explained through the concept of mixture krasis.
Every physical thing in the world, in particular the biological world, is composed from mixtures of the fundamental elements; they are thus appropriately described in terms of the predominance of one or more qualities hot, cold, etc. Galen holds that higher-level properties come about through the alteration that may take place in this process of mixture; at the same time, the fundamental, low-level properties—hot, cold, wet and dry—which predominate in a given body remain powerful explanantia of its nature, at the macroscopic, perceptible level too; and this applies, for example, both to human bodies and to the various things they may eat and drink, including both food substances and drugs.
We should say a little more about the nature of mixture and change. As in many areas, Galen here tries to avoid some particular intricate and unanswerable metaphysical debates, while insisting on certain fixed points. One of the latter, as we have seen, is the four-element theory; another is the understanding of the physical world as a continuum, rather than as some set of bodies interspersed with void. As to the nature of the change that takes place in mixture: krasis must be understood to be a process in which the elements involved undergo some fundamental change; it is not a mere placing alongside each other of tiny quanta of different substances as might happen in mixing two powders , whereby those substances themselves remain in principle capable of being separated, and retain their original properties.
What happens, rather, is that a new substance arises with distinct properties, and the smallest imaginable quantum of this new substance would have those distinct properties, not those of the elements from which it was mixed.
In either case, different ousiai are items that are definitionally different, different types of thing, not just qualitatively different versions or sub-categories of one thing. A relevant example is that of the three parts of the Platonic tripartite soul. Although typically referred to as different capacities dunameis , it is more correct to state that they are three different substances ousiai —partly because, in fact, each one of them itself has a number of capacities PHP VI.
QAM 2, and 4, So, a substance has capacities. This is important for Galen because it provides him with a way of formulating his natural philosophy in opposition to either Atomism random motions of bodies which are themselves indistinguishable in their properties or mechanism, in particular the view attributed to Erasistratus that all processes in the body can be causally reduced to the mechanical principle of horror vacui pros to kenoumenon akolouthia —a view attacked at length in Nat.
Rather, Galen insists, bodies or substances in the natural world have distinct capacities ; in particular, there are four such capacities shared by all plant and animal bodies, the actions of which account for biological functions such as nutrition in a way which Atomist or mechanist views cannot.
These capacities are: attractive, retentive, alterative, expulsive e. Again, we may think in terms of emergent properties: how these natural capacities come about is not something that Galen is able to explain in detail, but they are properties of higher-level bodies which are not present in the elements, and must somehow arise in the former through the process of composition from the latter.
These latter also have capacities, but fundamental ones: fire has the capacity of heating, water of moistening, etc. It is noteworthy that in a passage already cited Prop. The statement that bodies have capacities, then, can be understood simply as the acknowledgement of the existence of tendencies to perform specific activities of functional relevance for the organism. For Galen, of course, this acknowledgement is intimately linked with the assertion of purposive design and the denial that Atomism or mechanism could ever give a satisfactory account of such properties.
We can, however, go a little further, and state that there are points, at least, where Galen attempts to give some more concrete account of what a capacity is or how it works. At Praes. Gill , Singer , with extensive further bibliography ; at the same time it is an area beset with interpretive complexities. The three parts—rational, spirited, desiderative—correspond to and are located in, respectively, the brain, the heart and the liver. The former ethical discussions give no significant account of a bodily aspect to psychic function, while in the latter context certain features central to that ethical account are absent or recede.
The internal interrelation of the parts, so essential to the ethical account see below is not only absent from the physiological account; it is quite difficult to see how it could be mapped onto it. It is tempting, in view of the correlations that Galen explores, both between the functioning of the rational soul and states of the brain, and between emotional disturbances and states or activities of the heart and blood, to see him as advancing either some form of dual aspect theory or, indeed, a mind-body identity theory.
It is important to understand the anatomical-medical, as opposed to narrowly philosophical, background here. This crucially included the discovery of the nervous system, as well as some detailed knowledge and theorization of the anatomy and functions of the brain all, of course, quite unknown to Plato, with whose theory Galen attempts to harmonize them ; see von Staden Such a single command centre is not at least explicitly present in Plato; similarly, such a physically centralized psychic concept is at best vaguely present in Aristotle.
Yet it is not quite as simple as that. Galen exemplifies and expounds this view at length in his refutation of Chrysippus in PHP II and III; such relationships between physical states and mental ones are also explored in a range of medical texts too see Singer forthcoming. Galen makes interestingly precise attempts at identifying physical correlates for a range of psychological or emotional states, in terms of the precise actions and states of heart or blood; yet the texts in question are unclear on the precise nature of the causal or identity relationship.
Relevant here too are the medical discussions in which it is clearly implied that certain types of physical state—e. The strongest case for a mind-body identity theory in Galen, however, is provided by the discussion of the relationship between rational soul and physical features of the brain, especially in QAM. The central aim of that work is to demonstrate the extent of the influence of the body, specifically bodily mixture, on the soul; this Galen does with examples from medicine e.
How, he asks, could a soul which is not corporeal be be affected by such physical factors, and indeed be caused to leave the body as a result of certain physical conditions QAM 3, ? In a number of passages, he suggests not just the dependence of the soul on bodily mixture, but the identity of the two:. A consideration of all the relevant evidence, however, leads to a less clear-cut picture.
The apparently clearest identity statements a and d above come in dialectical contexts; it is at least arguable that Galen is here asserting the identity position not as his own but as the correct Aristotelian conclusion, on the basis of their equation of soul with form. It should also be mentioned that the passages in question are not free from textual and interpretive problems.
Passages b and c , meanwhile, clearly affirm the identity of the mortal parts of the soul with bodily mixtures. Now, this certainly includes the non-rational parts; but, within this same text, even after d , Galen leaves open the Platonic possibility that the rational soul is a non-bodily substance. Other relevant evidence is the lack of clarity, in the medical texts mentioned above, as to the causal relation between mental events and physical correlates; and that some kind of interactionist picture seems implied by statements about the mutually beneficial relationship of soul and body and of their respective training especially in San.
QAM 11, This historically distinctive formulation seems to rely on a definite and uncompromising physicalist view; again, however, the statement in this form is unique within the Galenic corpus. Two things, at least, are uncontentious: that he makes a strong statement of the extent to which mental capacities are physically conditioned; and that he explores the subject in an empirically and physiologically informed manner unique within Graeco-Roman thought.
Central is the view that rational and non-rational psychic capacities must be treated separately, both in terms of early discipline and education and in terms of our conceptualization and treatment of their pathologies. Virtues—although a full or systematic account of these is elusive—may be understood, Platonically, as consisting in the proper functioning of each soul part, and in the proper internal relationship of the parts within the whole.
This part is not accessible to rational discourse, but must rather be subjected to a process of training and habituation which will make its appetites appropriate. This complex relationship within the tripartite soul enables—for Galen as for Plato—an account of how certain non-rational drives, in particular reactions of shame and indignation, may be in conflict with other non-rational drives, e.
In Aff. There are also quite close Platonic echoes in his commitment to various forms of early mathematical and musical training. At the same time, he describes in some detail, especially in Aff. On the other hand, Galen comes down against the necessity of total eradication, especially in Ind. He acknowledges that certain circumstances might deprive him of his moral equilibrium—exile, for example, or injustice visited upon a friend—and hopes not to encounter those.
There is a broader point about pathos : in Aristotle the term is ethically neutral, referring to emotive or non-rational experience quite generally; thus, in the Nicomachean Ethics , virtues may be understood as involving a mean, between an excessive and an inadequate emotive response. Against this, however, it should be observed that Galen adopts an Aristotelian-type mean theory in relation to physical excellence; that he suggests, e.
The desire to free oneself from distress, it is also suggested, may provide a practical starting-point for the ethical project, for the simple reason that no one actually wishes to live with distress whereas people may be happy to live with vices which do not immediately cause this negative experience. Galen is clear that the domain of ethics covers the identification and correction of both; yet in the latter area—that of ethical errors of reason—his discussion is much less clear.
He prefers to focus on intellectual error and inadequate intellectual training more broadly, in a way which seems more relevant to the discovery of scientific than to that of ethical truth. Relatedly, it is difficult to find in Galen a clear answer to the question of the goal of life, or ultimate good for human beings.
That Galen is some kind of theist is clear. His philosophical theology is seen especially in texts such as UP and Foet. Yet there are traces of a more specific theological philosophy. The view of the heavenly bodies as intelligent appears both in QAM and in UP ; and although it is presented in somewhat vague terms, it motivates specific philosophical arguments.
The heavenly world is transcendently good and superior; yet it has an influence—at some remove—on our lower world.
Consideration of the relationship between the heavenly realm and our everyday world leads to two specific types of conclusion: one, that our consciousness of the operation of a higher intelligence in this lower world should make us aware how much more admirable and perfect must be its operation in that higher one UP XVII.
Again there is the distinction to be made between the essentials about which Galen is certain—here, that there is a purposive intelligence manifest throughout the universe—and the specifics, speculation about which may lead ultimately to aporia.
Galen also claims to have had personal experience of the interventions of specific gods within the Greek polytheistic world most notably of Asclepius, the god of medicine.
If it seems difficult to reconcile such a conventional, anthropomorphic manifestation of religion with the philosophical view of God as a teleological cause or as immanent Nature, it should perhaps be said that such a co-existence of abstract theology with traditional individual gods is by no means confined to Galen, amongst Graeco-Roman philosophical writers one could mention both Plato and Epictetus in this context.
In any case, it is to the divine intelligence manifest throughout the universe, rather than to any individual god, that Galen constantly returns; it is this intelligence which is the object of his religious—and by the same token of his intellectual, indeed his scientific—fervour.
Page numbers given in references in the article are those of the translation or, in the absence of translation, of the Greek edition, cited here.
Galeni Opera Omnia , ed. Cnoblochii, —33, repr. Galeni Pergameni Scripta Minora , ed. Marquardt, I. Helmreich, 3 volumes, Leipzig: Teubner, —93; SM available online. In several cases, noted below, translations also appear alongside the Greek text in the CMG edition. Lyons, K. Kalbfleisch, J. Kollesch, D. Nickel, and G. Nickel, CMG V 3. Mewaldt, CMG V 9. Boudon-Millot and J. Jouanna, with A. Nutton in Singer Kalbfleisch, Leipzig: Teubner, , Inst.
Kieffer, Galen's Institutio Logica , Baltimore, Johnston and G. R Horsley, 3 vols. Davies in Singer Rosa, Pisa and Rome: Fabrizio Serra, Brock, Loeb Classical Library, Barigazzi, CMG V 1. Nutton, CMG V 8. Nutton, CMG V 3.
His influence reigned supreme over medicine for 15 centuries after his death. It was not until the Renaissance that many of his theories were refuted. Search term:. Read more. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled.
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Living so long ago, with so little previous knowledge to go on, it's amazing what Galen figured out; in fact, he almost got it all right. In pharmacology, Galen developed a system of Galenic degrees, which enabled physicians and pharmacists to gauge more precisely the effects of a medicinal substance. In the preparation of medicines, Galen considered increased quantity to be a poor substitute for poor quality of the ingredients.
Galen personally visited the exotic locales where many key ingredients of his medicinal formulas were produced to better understand matters of quality. Galen's most famous medicinal formula was Theriac, an herbal jam or electuary with some 64 differnt ingredients that was a virtual panacea or cure-all for many diseases, and an antidote to many poisons.
Theriac's use and manufacture continued until the late 19th century. Since Venice was a key center for its manufacture, it is sometimes called Theriac Venezian, or Venice Treacle. Galen was also an expert on the pulse; many consider him to be the originator of pulse diagnosis. He wrote a treatise on the subject, entitled De Pulsibus. Being a lifelong devotee of Asclepius, Galen was a firm believer in the healing and diagnostic power of dreams.
He even wrote a treatise on the medical interpretation of dreams. Galen was a prodigious author, and wrote some 80 different medical treatises. Today, many of them have been lost. Galen is often criticized for being egotistical, but perhaps in his case it was well-deserved.
His writings are full of long-winded refutations of his rivals and critics, whose partial knowledge and fallacious reasoning he despised.
Galen considered the profit motive and the love of money to be the worst reasons for becoming a physician. Being independently wealthy, money mattered little to him. He was only after two things: dedication to relieving the suffering of humanity and the pursuit of medical excellence.
For over a thousand years after his death, Galen, with his prodigious accomplishments, was considered to be the gospel truth, the ultimate authority on all matters medical.
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