26 On the life of Galen (1540) CR XI, 495–503
26 On the life of Galen (1540)
CR XI, 495–503
Oration on the life of Galen, delivered by Doctor Milich at the graduation of Doctors of Medicine1
Rightly Hesiod berates the sloth and stupidity of humankind, saying that stupid mortals do not even know the uses of the mallow and of the asphodel [Works and Days 41]. For we men are made to behold this nature of things, and are as if placed in this theatre by divine providence, so that, by understanding the marvellous movements of the heavens and the variety of things that come into being, we may recognise God as the Maker, and seek salutary protection for life. What is more unworthy and vile than if we forget this gift and, like blind men in a theatre, do not behold and contemplate ourselves or other common things that are in our hands? Instead of this most beautiful sight, the rabble prefers bestial and disgusting pleasures or the most squalid and stupid cares, and while they are engaged with these their minds do not allow more worthy thoughts to enter. Even though this indolence, or rather insanity, of men deserves censuring, nevertheless those are even more to be rebuked who are destined for knowledge and philosophy, but spurn the examination of nature.
One cannot demand that all be dedicated to one branch of study, for there is need in life of many and various arts, and each is due its place and its dignity. Nevertheless, it is proper to the human mind first to love and esteem highly this teaching, which sets nature before us to see as if unfolded, and also to gather something from it, and not to wish to be absolutely devoid of the sweetness that this knowledge brings forth, and then to promote the studies of others, and to admonish the young destined for philosophy that they remember that they are called to the consideration and contemplation of nature by divine providence. What is more appropriate for man than to remember that only our species has been placed in the world in order to contemplate this wonderful work? Furthermore, observing the separate things, what is sweeter than to see the order and harmony of bodies and motions? Or to consider the variety of things springing forth, and to see them made for certain uses, so that we can conclude that all these things are distributed by an eternal mind by marvellous counsel and economy? And indeed, nature has implanted in the minds of all sharp
1 Jakob Milich (1501–59) was the Dean of the medical faculty in 1540.
goads towards that consideration, and this knowledge brings by far the richest pleasures.
Therefore, if some denigrate this study, they either struggle with themselves or have departed from the nature of men, although many beasts and birds knew and remembered certain herbs. Deer seek out dictamum, mules spleenwort, elephants the wild olive-tree, weasels rue, boars ivy, storks wild marjoram, swallows swallow-wort, ravens wake-robin, and swans Abraham's balm, which is generally called chaste-tree. As Nicander writes, the snakes knew that fennel helps them in parturition, and they have shown us its use:
when the serpent has sloughed off its dry skin and sluggish old age in spring, and coming forth slowly from its cave with dim eyes, searches for the remedies it knows, and when it has fed on the shoots of the fennel, its clear eyesight returns as well as the vigour of youth.2
Furthermore there are countless examples of animals that prevail over many men, if I may say so, in their ingenuity in inquiring into and exploring the miracles of nature. It is vile for men not only to be overcome by beasts in diligence and industry, but to add such madness as to spurn also these studies. Therefore I admonish students as much as possible, as all good men have to do, to strive for and cherish this knowledge, which is not only pleasant, but also brings endless benefits for life. Indeed, the examination and consideration of nature directs one towards moderation and piety, and rouses the mind to the admiration of God. Since God has placed us in this spectacle and has commanded us to contemplate and consider His work, let us not judge that this study is useless, nor that it can be scorned without fault.
What shall I say here of those Cyclopes who not only despise the inquiry, but also the use and the remedies? They inflict savagery upon their bodies by enormous gluttony, immoderate vigils and in other ways, and then, like the Stoics, they say that health and life are ruled by fate and that diseases are not acquired by our vices, nor repelled by diligence and remedies, but by fate. Since these words demonstrate evident madness, they are not worth refuting, but nevertheless now and then their examples harm the inexperienced. Therefore I admonish the young to detest these barbarous insults of the art, which attack God with invective. He gave us the laws by which life has to be ruled, as well as adding protection and remedies, in
2 This seems to be Melanchthon's own translation of Nicander's Theriaca, 30–4. For the teaching of Nicander at Wittenberg, see Kusukawa, Transformation of Natural Philosophy, pp. 181f.
which He implanted admirable and truly mysterious powers for benefiting the body, and He also showed us the art, so that we may make proper use of these gifts. Thus those Cyclopes despise God's decree and God's gifts, if they think that there are no powers in the things made by divine providence for man's health. For example certain foods and drinks are set before the human body, and we cannot say why they are transformed into blood and nourish the body, but a marvellous power is implanted in such things, and an affinity and sympathy (sympatheia) with the human body, so that they can be mingled and flow together into one nature. So there is a mysterious sympathy (sympatheia) in the remedies with certain parts of the body or humours, the efficiency of which is evident and certain.
Such is the efficacy of terebinth for the healing of simple wounds that the matter forces one to acknowledge that there is some mysterious power in that remedy, and that it is given to humankind by divine providence for the healing of wounds. How efficacious and thankful do you judge the use of balm to be? It often comes to my mind that balm and myrrh were given to the Hebrews so that they would have an efficacious and instant remedy for wounds at home, since the people was destined for continuous warfare, and would not use foreign things. It is ascertained that scorpions are immediately killed if one puts radish on them. It would take long to speak of the remedies for the individual parts of the body, but just consider the daily benefits of medicine; these testify that the remedies are most efficacious. In a violent catarrh, the slow, sharp and persistent phlegm cannot be drawn out from the lungs without medical help. Specific things are destined for this use, and one is not at liberty to use remedies at random without discrimination. How great is the usefulness of chicory and wormwood for treating the liver! How often do wormwood and mugwort divert certain death from women! But I shall cease this recounting.
The remedies against poisons are extraordinary, and in this kind the power of rue is evident; therefore it has great power in preventing the plague. Athenaeus writes that the tyrant of Pontus used to kill by poison the citizens invited to banquets. When this was noticed, they equipped themselves with rue in advance when they were about to go to his banquets, and ate the poison without injury [Banquet of the Seven Sages, III.85.b]. More astonishing is what he tells about the lemon, and he cites someone who was an eyewitness of the event. In Egypt, when some criminals were taken to the asps to be killed by their bites, by chance a young woman who was with the prison guard, moved by pity, gave the trembling and thirsty
men a lemon, so that they could restore their forces. When they had eaten this and were led to the asps and wounded by their bite, the power of the poison was without effect, and they did not die when wounded. The magistrate was astonished by the strangeness of the event, and diligently searched for the reasons. When, among other things, he asked what they had eaten on that day, the lemon was mentioned. So the power of the lemon was tested: on the next day they were again taken to the asps, but one of them was commanded to chew a lemon beforehand, while the other was forbidden to do so. When they were both wounded, the one who had not had a lemon died, and the other, who had eaten it, remained unharmed [ibid., III.84.e–f]. However, not only stories, but also everyday experience provide countless examples, which are sufficient testimonies to the power of remedies. Therefore, those who despise God's gifts from a heinousness of character attack God with invective.
I wanted to say these things in advance at the beginning, both about the merit of the discipline and its philosophy, and about the usefulness of memories, so that you would think that the art is to be loved and esteemed, and therefore think more highly also of the writers on this art, who employed their zeal in describing nature and in benefiting the life of men. Since, according to custom, something has to be spoken about, I have chosen to recite something about the life and praises of Galen, whom you know as the most prolific author on the art of medicine. I believe that the elders and the wise too will welcome the enumeration of this great man's studies, sagacity and diligence in teaching as well as in practising the art. In medical treatment it is truly most useful for the young to have excellent examples, which they can imitate both in learning and in making judgements.
Galen was born in Pergamum, and his father was an architect of the town, highly educated, as Galen states, in grammar, dialectics and mathematics. Galen himself narrates that it was of great benefit to him to have such a father, who not only loved these disciplines, so that in time he introduced his son to them, but who also taught him himself at home. He says that from this he learnt the basics of the arts, and when he had grasped those, when he was already fifteen years of age, he was taken to the teachers of philosophy. There he applied himself to dialectics and the rest of philosophy, for his father intended him not for medicine, but only for the philosophical profession, as it was then called. When the youth had been studying with the philosopher for two years, as he himself says, he was admonished most distinctly in a dream to learn the art of healing. Indeed, I do not doubt that
by divine providence this discipline was presented to him and an impulse for this study given to him. In those times the art was dissipated and, as one can understand from Pliny, many impostors had arisen who depraved the art, not only in practising medicine, as it happens in all ages, but much more in teaching; they showed new tricks, and immersed feverish patients, and those suffering from any kind of disease, in water. Therefore God, willing to maintain the art and preserve it for coming generations, in order to give the world an outstanding craftsman, roused Galen's intellect to these studies. For God preserves the true arts in life; this is clear from the fact that there are no outstanding craftsmen without divine inspiration.
Thus, since he was already prepared in dialectics and the basics of philosophy by his youthful learning, he had a powerful intellect, and his mind burned with the desire to learn and with enthusiasm, he began to devote himself with equal zeal to philosophy and medicine. First he studied with a doctor by the name of Satyrus, who was a pupil of Quintus, the most famous among the teachers who had pupils before Galen's times and who were studiously engaged in expounding Hippocrates. After that he studied with the physician Pelops; although Galen censures some of his anatomical errors, he nevertheless applied himself diligently to anatomy while with him.3 At the time there were great numbers of the most learned men in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, therefore he travelled there and investigated their studies and judgements. Then, he says, he gained access to and studied with all the most learned and most famous doctors of his time. Although he was so outstanding in intellect, he nevertheless severely chides those who believe that they can become craftsmen without teachers.
He travelled to Rome twice, first by his own decision and in order to listen to the doctors there and to furnish proof of his intellect among the famous and numerous doctors in Rome. However, he disagreed with the others now and then, and noticed that he incurred their hatred, and he says that because of that he gave up the discussions, particularly since he was able to gain more esteem and repute in public orations. He says that he had singular good fortune in the use of the art and in healing, as is credible, for he had been encouraged to medicine by a divine and heroic impulse, which is usually accompanied by singular good fortune. He came to Rome when he was thirty-four years old, and he wrote many things there, among these also philosophical writings on demonstrations, in order to refute the insanity of some impostors, who at that time asserted – in order to subvert
3 For Satyrus, see Galen, Anatomical Administrations, II. 224f. and for Pelops, De atra bile, V. 112.
the arts – that nothing was certain and weakened the precepts of all the arts by sophistic disputations. It appeared to those impostors to be a great commendation of their intellect not to explain what is true, but to subvert wantonly the received beliefs. They vexed Galen's intellect so much that he said that he, too, would have followed that doubt of the Pyrrhonians,4 if he had not been accustomed to geometry and demonstrations as a boy. By that discipline he not only succeeded in distinguishing the certain from the uncertain, but also – and this is much greater – in loving truth more and in guiding his intellect with a bridle by directing his mind to the demonstrations. Euripides calls the wantonness of the tongue the vilest disease [Oresres 10], but this licentiousness in criticising – the sophistomania, to use a word of the ancient Greeks – and zeal in subverting true and useful opinions is vile in no one more than in the philosophers, who profess love for truth and its protection. Rightly Galen's purpose is to be praised therefore, that he harshly persecuted these Pyrrhonian tricks. He wrote many things at that time, which perished in the conflagration of Rome, when the fire spread widely and also consumed the Temple of Peace, where his writings had been deposited.
In his thirty-seventh year he left Rome and returned to Asia. I believe that on that journey he also sailed to Lemnos in order to examine in truth the nature of Lemnian earth, and one should consider his diligence in this matter. For since Dioscorides had written that goat's blood was mixed with Lemnian earth [Materia Medica V.lxxviii], of which great use was made in remedies, Galen himself went to the places where it was found in order to examine with certitude how it appeared, and he found out that its nature is metallic without the admixture of goat's blood. It is in use so much nowadays, and held in such admiration among the Thracians and the Turks, that the Turkish tyrant habitually gives Lemnian earth to the ambassadors among special gifts, for last year we saw some such seals (sphragidas) that had been given to Cornelius Scepperus.5
However, not long after his return to his country, he was called back to Italy by a letter from the emperors Verus and Marcus [Aurelius] Antoninus, with whom he was well acquainted, as is apparent from some
4 Followers of Pyrrho of Elis (365–275 BC), who claimed that certain knowledge was unattainable and that one should therefore suspend judgement and strive to achieve mental quietude: see also note 3, oration 9, p. 85.
5 Cornelius Duplicius Scepperus (d. 1555) was first in the service of King Christian II of Denmark whom he accompanied to Wittenberg in 1523. From 1526 he was in the service of the Emperor Charles V and in 1533 and 1534 he was on an embassy to Constantinople.
of his narrations. The emperor's judgement of Galen is most apparent in that he entrusted the health of his son Commodus Caesar particularly to him, when he set forth to Germany for the war against the Marcomanni. Galen says that at that time he wrote those divine anatomical books which are extant, and which should be in the hands not only of the students of medicine, but of all those who love philosophy. For certainly the teaching of the parts of the human body and their functions is a distinguished part of philosophy. While it is full of sweetness, it also brings great benefits, and it is enormously useful to individuals for the protection of health. It also guides behaviour, since it instructs one what the nature of each part requires. Furthermore, since it puts before us this admirable structure of human parts, it teaches that this nature does not exist by chance, but that it is created by an eternal mind, which did not engage in the shaping of man for nothing, but to demonstrate that it cares for humankind. Therefore Galen said most wisely that the knowledge of anatomy is the beginning of theology, and the path to the knowledge of God [On the Use of the Parts XVII], and these books should be loved all the more by those studying philosophy, because in them Galen has added what is lacking in Aristotle's anatomy; he has also learnedly corrected some things, and has shed light on many passages in Aristotle. Since in the good doctor faith is no less required than erudition and industry, Galen is to be greatly loved, who, as the facts show, was outstanding not only in industry and dexterity, but also in faith. For who is more diligent and productive in teaching? And he himself speaks of his faith in the third book of On the Affected Parts: ‘I make God my witness therefore, that I shall declare what I have obtained after a long inquiry in the very practice of the art, and in disputations with the most learned men, and decide is the most true.’6 Who would not consider worthy of perpetual praise such a spirit that loves truth and is desirous of helping humankind?
After the death of Antoninus the Philosopher – who died on that campaign – and since the young emperor Commodus was more delighted by the company of gladiators than by that of philosophers, Galen returned to Asia and spent the rest of his life in his country, teaching, practising the art and writing, and he said that he lengthened his life by diligence until late into his old age. Clearly, therefore, he did a service not only to the men of his age, but also to all posterity, and by instructing others and writing he embraced the entire art and left later generations a great help for life.
6 On the Affected Parts, VIII.143.6. Melanchthon has rendered Galen's plural gods in the singular.
Although later some Arabs and Greeks practised medicine with great renown, it is nevertheless well known that Galen was the source of both kinds, that is, the art of disputations, or the dogmatic kind, and remedies. Leaving out many other things, how profitable is the discipline that is called physics, which is transmitted nowhere else more learnedly and more abundantly than in several books by Galen? And yet he wrote many more, which have perished, partly because of the barbarity that prevailed in Asia and Greece, partly because of other reasons.
I would also repeat some of his divinations and admirable cures, if the brevity of time permitted it. When nerves are injured in the human body, mobility is lost and the limbs waste away; Galen was the first to find a way for healing injured nerves. How astute he was in finding remedies from the observation of the properties of things, can be judged from the following. When he returned home from Alexandria, he sojourned on the way at some rustic estate, where the master happened to be ill and was almost suffocating because of a swelling of the uvula and the tonsils. Since other remedies were lacking and the nuts were already ripening – the nature of the shells being considered sharp and astringent – he squeezed out the juice of the outside covering, added honey to it and immediately delivered the sick man by this remedy. He relates that after this he always made use of it with the greatest success, and so he found a great benefit in a base thing. I shall not add further examples here.
Furthermore, the students should realise that all posterity owes him much, since this writer has done great service to the life of men; he has described the nature of things eloquently; he has taught us many remedies; and he has collected what the ancient physicians found and added new things. They should love him in such a way that they also desire to know, for I feel that those who are engaged in philosophy cannot defend their function without Galen, for most of Aristotle cannot be understood without Galen's explanations. Furthermore, because of the most useful records which he left on nature and on remedies, Galen is most worthy, if anyone is, of the laudation by which Homer celebrates the son of Asclepius: ‘A physician is a man worth many another’ [Iliad XI.514]. I have spoken.