Galenism: Rise and Decline of a Medical Philosophy

This book represents, in modified form, the four Messen-ger Lectures I was privileged to deliver at Cornet! Universityin the fall of 1970. I have reinstated much that was omitted
or rearranged to serve the requirements of oral presenta-tion within the prescribed time, and I have also incorporated considerable changes, some of them in view of discussions
I had at Cornet!, and even more in the course of writing up the footnotes and in the light of literature with which I became acquainted subsequently.Yet, in spite of all modifications, this book still preserves the character of four lectures on the subject of Galenism.I have dealt here with Galenism as an intellectual phenom-enon, as a philosophy in the sense of principles, beliefs, and facts, more or less cogently connected to form a set and ascribed to Galen. With changing times, the character of 1 "If I prove to have spoken rightly, you will be instructed. But if not, there may perhaps be some who will instruct me, and this will be most gratifying to me. For it is philosophical to reject even one's own work for the truth"