APPENDIX
The references to Galen’s works given above are made to the only edition available to modern students, that of Kuhn, in Greek and Latin (Leipzig, 1821-33). Some of his more important works were translated into French by Daremberg (2 vols. Paris, 1854-6). A third volume, containing an Introduction and Dissertations, was to have been published, but has never appeared. There are no English translations worth mentioning, but the following sources of information may be consulted : — -
Dr. W. A. Greenhill’s article on Galen in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology , which has been the foundation of some later works. — Dr. J. Kidd’s Analysis of the Works of Galen on Anatomy and Physiology in the Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, vol. vi. 1837, p. 299. — Dr. R. Gasquet : ‘ The Practical Medicine of Claudius Galenus and his Time,’ British and Foreign Medico- Chirurgical Review , vol. xl. 1867.— I would draw particular attention to Dr. James Finlayson’s admirable account of Galen, with copious extracts, in his ‘Bibliographical Demonstrations,’ the first of which was published in the British Medical Journal, 1892, i. p. 573, &c. It is reprinted with a second lecture as Galen : Tivo Bibliographical Demonstrations, Glasgow, 1895. The second of these publications was not before me when I wrote this oration. — A good account of Galen’s doctrines on the nervous system is given in Galen's Lehre vom gesunden und kranken Nervensysteme, by Dr. Friedreich Falk (Leipzig, 1871). — The above-named writers make, however, little reference to the work from which I have chiefly quoted, De Placitis Hippocratis et Platonis, which is rich in personal details as well as in physiological statements. A full account of Galen’s position in relation to modern physiology is still a desideratum.
The standard histories of Medicine treat, of course, largely of Galen. Sprengel’s well-known Geschichte der Arzneikunde is perhaps the most copious on this theme, but is not altogether satisfactory. In the eighteenth century, it seems to me, the backward state of physiology made a correct appreciation of Galen’s experimental work impossible. He is really more in sympathy with the anatomical and physiological medicine of the nine- teenth century, which represents the ideal towards which he strove. Had Galen been able to make post-mortem examinations and known how to ascertain the condition of the organs during life by Physical Diagnosis, his immediate aspirations would have been satisfied.
Hence the account of Galen in Daremberg’s Histoire des Sciences Medicates, vol. i. (Paris, 1870), is more instructive than earlier expositions, though blame is freely mingled with praise. There is an earlier dissertation by Daremberg, Exposition des Connaissances de Galien sur Vanatomie, la physiologie et la pathologie du Systeme Nerveux (Paris, 1841), which I have not been able to obtain.
