De dignoscendis pulsibus
Rome
G
Galen
Galen
c. 129 CE–c. 216 CE · Pergamon
Galen of Pergamon (129-c. 216 CE) was a Greek physician, surgeon, and philosopher who became the most influential medical writer of antiquity, serving as doctor to the emperor Marcus Aurelius and his successors at Rome. His vast body of writing on anatomy, physiology, and medical theory, much of it built on the doctrine of the four humors, dominated medicine in the Byzantine, Islamic, and European traditions for over a thousand years. He is among the most prolific authors of the ancient world.
Did you know?
The doctor who ruled medicine for 1,300 years was alive in Rav's youth
Galen — court physician to the Roman emperor, and the doctor whose writings would dominate European and Islamic medicine for over a thousand years — was still alive while Rav (Abba Arikha), founder of the great academy at Sura, was a young man. The father of Babylonian Talmud study and antiquity's most influential physician overlapped by about four decades.
Meet Rav (Abba Arikha) →How we know
Galen c. 129–216 CE; Rav (Abba Arikha) c. 175–247 CE. Overlap 175–216 ≈ 41 years; Rav founded Sura c. 220 CE.
The greatest physician of antiquity was the emperor's personal doctor
Galen, whose medical writings would dominate European medicine for over a thousand years, served as personal physician to the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius. Antiquity's most influential doctor and its most famous Stoic ruler shared a court.
Meet Marcus Aurelius →How we know
Galen c. 129–c. 216 CE; Marcus Aurelius 121–180 CE; Galen joined the imperial court c. 168–169 CE.
Galen proved arteries carry blood, not air — about 1,450 years before circulation was understood
Against the prevailing view that the arteries were full of air or a life-spirit, Galen showed by experiment around 180 CE — tying off a living artery in two places and cutting between the ligatures — that arteries in fact carry blood. A full account of how the blood actually circulates would not come until William Harvey in 1628 CE, roughly 1,450 years later.
How we know
Galen c. 129–216 CE; double-ligature demonstration c. 180 CE, overturning the older pneuma/air doctrine; William Harvey, De Motu Cordis, 1628 CE. Gap = 1,628 − 180 = 1,448 ≈ 1,450 yrs.
Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→
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Stop 1 of 11129Born
PergamonMysia (Asia Minor)
What they did here
Born in Pergamon (Mysia) c.129 CE, son of the wealthy architect Aelius Nicon, who oversaw his early education; Galen reports this in his own writings (e.g. De ordine librorum suorum).
About Pergamon
Pergamon was a major Greek city in Mysia, northwestern Asia Minor, near modern Bergama, Turkey; it was the capital of the Attalid kingdom and famous for its library. The physician Galen was born and trained there before his career at Rome. In late antiquity Pergamon was also the seat of a Neoplatonist school, among whose students was Eusebius of Myndus.
In the same place & time
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Sages whose lives overlapped with Galen’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
- Polycarp of Smyrna· Rome
- Marcion of Sinope· Rome
- Yochanan HaSandlar· Alexandria
- Justin Martyr· Rome
- Valentinus· Rome
- Irenaeus of Lyons· Rome
- Athenagoras· Alexandria
- Clement of Alexandria· Alexandria
- Julius Africanus· Alexandria
- Hippolytus· Rome
- Origen· Alexandria
- Sabellius· Rome
- Novatian· Rome
- St.· Alexandria
- Pope St. Zephyrinus· Rome
- Pope St. Victor I· Rome
- Pope St. Eleutherius· Rome
- Pope St. Soter· Rome
In the same tradition
Epictetus, Juvenal, Florus, Lucius Annaeus, Favorinus of Arelate, Appian of Alexandria, Claudius Ptolemaeus, Harpocration, Achilles Tatius, Apollonius Dyscolus, Aelius Herodianus, Aelius Aristides, Vettius Valens, Marcus Aurelius, Aulus Gellius, Lucius Verus, Sextus Empiricus, Cassius Dio, Herodian
The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Galen’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works(97)
In Hippocratis vel Polybi Opus de Salubri Victus Ratione Privatorum Commentarius
Rome
De hirudinibus, revulsione, cucurbitula, incisione et scarificatione
Rome
In Hippocratis De fracturis
Rome
Quos quibus catharticis medicamentis et quando purgare oporteat
Rome
De experientia medica
Rome
In Hippocratis De victu acutorum
Rome · 175
Ad Glauconem de methodo medendi
Rome
De antidotis
Rome
Synopsis librorum suorum de pulsibus
Rome
De compositione medicamentorum secundum locos libri X
Rome
De simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis ac facultatibus I-VI
Rome
In Hippocratis Prognosticum
Rome
In Hippocratis Epidemiarum I
Rome
Institutio logica [attributed]
Rome
De venae sectione adversus Erasistratum
Rome
De curandi ratione per venae sectionem
Rome
De consuetudinibus
Rome
De substantia facultatum naturalium fragmentum
Rome
De praenotione ad Epigenem
Rome
De sophismatis seu captionibus penes dictionem
Rome
De musculorum dissectione ad tirones
Rome
De praesagitione ex pulsibus
Rome
Adversus Lycum
Rome
De compositione medicamentorum per genera
Rome
In Hippocratis Aphorismos Commentarii VII
Rome
De causis respirationis
Rome
In Hippocratis De officina medici
Rome
De theriaca ad Pisonem [attributed]
Rome
De methodo medendi
Rome
In Hippocratis De articulis
Rome
De crisibus
Rome
De diebus decretoriis
Rome
Pro puero epileptico consilium
Rome
In Hippocratis De natura hominis
Rome · 175
De Humero iis Modis Prolapso quos Hippocrates non Vidit
Rome
De purgantium medicamentorum facultate
Rome
De venae sectione adversus Erasistrateos Romae degentes
Rome
Adversus ea quae Juliano in Hippocratis Aphorismos enuntiata sunt
Rome
De ossibus ad tirones
Rome
De semine
Rome
De optima corporis nostri constitutione
Rome
De uteri dissectione
Rome
De usu partium corporis humani I-XI
Rome
De optima doctrina [attributed]
Rome
De Victu Attenuante
Rome
De morborum differentiis
Rome
De locis affectis
Rome
De naturalibus facultatibus
Rome
De causis pulsuum
Rome
De plenitudine
Rome
De venarum arteriarumque dissectione
Rome
Adhortatio ad artes addiscendas
Rome
De usu pulsuum
Rome
Quod animi mores corporis temperamenta sequantur
Rome
De foetuum formatione
Rome
De causis morborum
Rome
De symptomatum causis
Rome
De utilitate respirationis
Rome
De temperamentis
Rome
De elementis ex Hippocrate
Rome
De difficultate respirationis
Rome
De propriorum animi cuiuslibet affectuum dignotione et curatione
Rome
De symptomatum differentiis
Rome
De tremore, palpitatione, convulsione et rigore
Rome
De totius morbi temporibus
Rome
De atra bile
Rome
Ars Medica
Rome
De parvae pilae exercitio
Rome
De constitutione artis medicae ad Patrophilum
Rome
De inaequali intemperie
Rome
De ptisana
Rome
De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis
Rome
De rebus boni malique suci
Rome
De typis [attributed]
Rome
De tumoribus praeter naturam
Rome
De animi cuiuslibet peccatorum dignotione et curatione
Rome
De dignotione ex insomniis
Rome
De venereis
Rome
De nervorum dissectione
Rome
De bono habitu
Rome
Quod optimus medicus sit quoque philosophus
Rome
De sanitate tuenda
Rome · 175
De differentiis pulsuum
Rome
De motu musculorum
Rome
De comate secundum Hippocratem
Rome
De pulsibus ad tirones
Rome
De instrumento odoratus
Rome
An in arteriis sanguis contineatur
Rome
De alimentorum facultatibus
Rome
De morborum temporibus
Rome
De differentiis febrium
Rome
Adversus eos qui de typis scripserunt vel de circuitibus
Rome
De sectis ad eos qui introducuntur
Rome
De marcore
Rome
De anatomicis administrationibus
Rome
Thrasybulus sive utrum medicinae sit an gymnasticae hygieine
Rome · 175