The Prince of Medicine: Galen in the Roman EmpireThe remarkable career of Galen of Pergamum (A.D. 129 - 216) began as a provincial medic tending to wounded gladiators in Asia Minor. It ended at the very heart of Roman power as one of a small circle of court physicians to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. This is the first ever authoritative biography of this brilliant, audacious, and profoundly influential figure. Like many Greek intellectuals living in the high Roman Empire, Galen was a prodigious polymath, writing on subjects as varied as ethics and eczema, grammar and gout. Indeed, he was highly regarded in his lifetime as much for his philosophical works as for his medical treatises, and his writings, published in twenty-two volumes, comprise one-eighth of all surviving classical Greek literature. From the later Roman Empire through the Renaissance, medical education would be based primarily on his works. Even up to the twentieth century, he would remain the single most influential figure in western medicine. Susan Mattern presents a Galen possessed of breathtaking arrogance, fierce competitiveness (he once disembowelled a live monkey and challenged the physicians in attendance to replace its organs correctly), shameless self-promotion, and lacerating wit. Not just caustic and polemical, mocking his enemies and hurling abuse at them, Galen was also a brilliant critical thinker and rhetorical strategist. He is also credited with being the first physician with a good bedside manner. Relentless in pursuit of anything that would cure the patient, he insisted on rigorous observation and experiment. Even confronting one of history's most horrific events - a devastating outbreak of smallpox - he persevered, bearing patient witness to its predations, year after year. Including intriguing character studies of Marcus Aurelius, Commodus (of Gladiator fame), Galen's family and close friends, several of his patients, not a few of his rivals, and the city of Rome at the apex of its power and decadence, The Prince of Medicine offers a deeply human and long-overdue portrait of one of ancient history's most significant and engaging figures. |
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Inhalt
THE RANCID CHEESE | 1 |
PERGAMUM | 7 |
LEARNING MEDICINE | 36 |
THE GLADIATORS | 81 |
ROME | 99 |
ANATOMY AND BOETHUS | 139 |
MARCUS AURELIUS AND THE PLAGUE | 187 |
GALEN AND HIS PATIENTS | 224 |
THE FIRE | 257 |
EAST AND WEST OR GALEN AND TWO DISCIPLES | 279 |
Bibliography | 291 |
313 | |
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Admin Aelius Aristides Affect Alexandria Anat Anatomical Procedures ancient Anim Arabic Aristides Aristotle arteries Asclepius baths bloodletting Boethus Boethus’s Boudon-Millot 2007a called Campania cause century c.e. chapter Commodus Comp Corpus Medicorum Graecorum cure demonstration diagnosis Dign discussion disease dissection doctors dreams drugs Edition elephantiasis emperor Empiricist Epid Erasistrateans Erasistratus especially Eudemus famous father fever friends Galen considered Galen describes Galen mentions Galen writes gladiators Glaucon Greek Hadrian Herophilus Hipp Hippocrates Hippocratic Corpus Hunain ibid imperial intellectual later Libr Lycus Marcus Marcus’s Mattern medicine Meth Method of Healing Mithradates modern nerves Numisianus Nutton one’s passage patient peasants Pelops Pergamene Pergamum perhaps philosophical physicians plague Praecog probably Propr Puls pulse Quintus Quintus’s references rivals Roman Rome Rome’s Satyrus Schlange-Schöningen 2003 Sect Simp slaves smallpox sophists Staden story student surviving symptoms teacher temple Teuthras theriac tion tradition translation treated treatise University Press Venesection vivisection wounds