February 6, 2026
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
I don’t know if anyone reads Galen anymore. I certainly never encountered his works during my education. Yet it turns out that Galen wrote a lot. In fact, he was one of the most prolific of the ancient authors. He also touched on nearly every subject. Not only did he write about medicine, but he wrote about grammar, rhetoric, anatomy, morality, and philosophy. For example, On the Natural Faculties begins with a distinction between physical matter and soul. He needs to outline this so that the reader will understand what faculties fall under the capability of a body. He intends to focus solely on the physical. Not only does he cover a lot of territory, but he often sets off on tangents against some particular sect or other. Unless the reader knows about about the philosophies or philosophers of Galen’s time, this can be dizzying and off-putting. He belittles others by name-calling and shaming their tactics. On the other hand, Galen always praises Hippocrates and methods of personal observation. After reading only a few chapters of Galen, I knew that I wanted to discuss his work which is how it ended up in the January Quarterly Discussion.
I was particularly interested in the way that Galen trashes those who oppose his theories. He name-calls, belittles, and makes fun of others’ methods. This seems to be a main feature of his theorizing. He degrades an older theory and then explains why the reader should favor his own. As far as I can tell, the thing that infuriated Galen most was a disregard of data. Asclepiades, for example, comes off particularly poorly in Chapter 1. Galen writes: “For those people who do not believe that there exists in any part of the animal a faculty for attracting its own special quality are compelled repeatedly to deny obvious facts. For instance, Asclepiades, the physician, did this in the case of the kidneys.” Galen wants his readers to recognize that Asclepiades merely pontificates, but Galen studies, tracks, and analyzes data. Since Galen’s methods are superior, the reader is to recognize that so is his resulting data. He then continues:
“I do not suppose that Asclepiades ever saw a stone which had been passed by one of these sufferers, or observed that this was preceded by a sharp pain in the region between kidneys and bladder as the stone traversed the ureter, or that, when the stone was passed, both the pain and the retention at once ceased. It is worth while, then, learning how his theory accounts for the presence of urine in the bladder, and one is forced to marvel at the ingenuity of a man who puts aside these broad, clearly visible routes, and postulates others which are narrow, invisible—indeed, entirely imperceptible. His view, in fact, is that the fluid which we drink passes into the bladder by being resolved into vapours, and that, when these have been again condensed, it thus regains its previous form, and turns from vapour into fluid. He simply looks upon the bladder as a sponge or a piece of wool, and not as the perfectly compact and impervious body that it is, with two very strong coats.”
Here Galen prioritizes direct observation. His familiarity with the inner organs indicates that he has actual knowledge of this system and even witnessed the process on more than one occasion. He even incorporates personal narrative of patients into his data set. Galen denounces Asclepiades’ pontifications with exasperation, even calling into question Asclepiades’ qualifications. Galen wants the reader to know that his methods are unique and far superior to conjecture. In describing Asclepiades’ theory, Galen demonstrates the obtuse, laborious, and far-fetched nature of Asclepiades’ ideas.
Another interesting point raised during discussion is the fact that at this time, dissections were taboo. Because he was a vocal advocate of dissection, Galen’s techniques would have been shocking to say the least. One participant mentioned the fact that others might look down upon him or judge him as if he were a lower class because of his interest in dissection. Perhaps this is why Galen wrote endlessly. He counters judgment and bias with excessive data.
In fact, it’s possible that Galen wanted to introduce practical knowledge into the upper class. In doing so, he not only changed the nature of medicine, but he directly affected philosophy. From this time on, Galen became the gold standard of medicine. (Even today, ‘galeno’ is a term in Spanish which means doctor.) In other words, Galen forced an about-face in medicine. Dissections became more popular and direct observation a standard for medical practice. This step necessarily begins the divide between philosophy and medicine, which until that time were one and the same.
The January Quarterly Discussion also included an article from Scientific American, written by Charles C. Mann titled “What Happens When an Entire Generation of Scientists Changes Its Mind.” Mann lists two reasons why a particular scientific field might experience a complete reverse in thinking. First, if a scientific field is “young, thinly populated and just developing instruments of sufficient power to test their initial beliefs.” And “the second, possibly more consequential situation is when scientific findings lead to so much public interest that they become of concern to political authorities.”
Galen reflects both of these. He not only uses dissection (a profoundly unpleasant method for his contemporaries), but he even states that he doesn’t know what he can’t see, which is a lot. Galen knows that his tools are limited by cultural taboos. He also knows that cultural norms require much convincing, and so his words are political as much as scientific. Mann explains that when societal pressures mount, scientists are often forced to give in. Galen never caves to another’s opinion. Rather, he becomes almost belligerent in tone, defiant and instructional. He envisions a future of structured science and he works to convince others of this need too. And this, I believe, is why we might read Galen today: because his writings depict the move away from theory by itself and into logical, deductive reasoning.
The January Quarterly Discussion covered a lot of territory both in the ancient world and in today’s culture. Participants offered insightful and thoughtful commentary. I am grateful to them for their preparation and time! Our next discussion will be at the end of April when we’ll focus on “The Town-Ho’s Story” from Moby Dick. We would love to have you join in the conversation! Email as****@*mu.edu for more information and to register.
Photo credit: Shutterstock/ German Vizulis
