Claudius Galen (born in September of 129, died between 2 10- 16), a famous Greek doctor in ancient Rome, was very strange not only to ordinary people in China, but also to medical professionals. However, Zhang Zhongjing (148-2 19, younger than Galen 19 years old) is familiar with it. In fact, both of them not only lived in the same era, but also were honored as "medical saints" in the fields of ancient Greek medicine and China traditional medicine, each leading for more than 1000 years. There are many similarities between their medical theory and practice, but there are also some significant differences. Comparing them can reflect the different development trajectories of Chinese and western medicine.
Galen himself is a Greek, born in the Antony Dynasty at the peak of the Roman Empire, covering a vast area of Europe, Asia and Africa. His birthplace was Pergamon, a coastal city in Asia Minor (now belonging to Turkey and once a colony of Greece), which was then a cultural center under the rule of the Roman Empire. His father Nikon is a well-educated architect with a lot of wealth and land. Born in the upper class, Galen studied philosophy (especially logic), mathematics (especially geometry) and rhetoric (all compulsory courses for upper class children at that time) under the guidance of his father. This knowledge became an important basis for his great achievements in medicine in the future.
In A.D. 147, when Galen 18 years old, his father got a pious "instruction" from the god of medicine in his dream and decided to let his son study medicine (people at that time believed in dreams). After that, he studied anatomy and medicine in his hometown and nearby cities, as well as Alexandria (then the medical center) in Egypt. At the same time, he began to write medical papers. His first book was Galen on Medical Experience.
After studying hard for 10 years, Galen returned to his hometown of Pegmont on 157 and was employed as a surgeon in the "fighter school". During the Roman Empire, soldiers were a miserable occupation for slaves. On the battlefield in Rome, they had to fight to the death to stop. But in Pegamon, it can't be compared with it. The "school" authorities need to try their best to save the lives of soldiers in order to reduce economic costs. Therefore, the surgeons here need to rescue the wounded soldiers, help them avoid death and recover quickly so as to participate in the battle again. Therefore, Galen has gained rich experience in trauma surgical treatment and rehabilitation nutrition, and his anatomical knowledge can also come in handy. So, two years later, he discovered the relationship between pectoral muscle and diaphragm and respiratory movement, as well as the relationship between recurrent laryngeal nerve and vocalization, and made experiments with pigs to confirm his findings. Galen is quite satisfied with his surgical work in the past five years. Years later, speaking of this clinical work, I am still proud to say: "This is a medical skill that has neither been applied by my teachers nor mentioned in their works."
In 162, Galen first came to Rome, the capital of the empire. Originally, it was only for traveling and studying, but he stayed for more than four years and achieved high honors in the cultural and medical circles. His patients included two emperors, consuls, Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, and many dignitaries and celebrities.
In fact, in Rome at that time, doctors were not members of the upper class, but were regarded as craftsmen. As for doctors with the title of philosopher, that is another matter. People have special respect for surgeons with pus on their hands. This is just the work of hairdressers and slaves. Therefore, after Galen came to Rome, he turned to work as a physician. When treating patients, he not only uses his own herbs (still named after herbs), but also often uses diet therapy, bathing, recuperation and nursing, and sometimes uses intravenous bloodletting therapy.
However, the works that make him a blockbuster and stand out from the crowd are animal anatomy and physiological experiments demonstrated in public; According to his clinical experience, he can make an accurate prognosis judgment; And a very logical, sharp-tongued and rhetorical debate in public. His experiments on breathing, phonation, spinal nerve and urinary function shocked four people. However, his arrogant attitude and harsh language in speeches and debates deeply angered and hurt many colleagues, which became an important reason why he left Rome in a hurry and returned to his hometown in A.D. 166.
In A.D. 168, two years after he returned to his hometown, Emperor Aurelius prepared to punish the Germans who invaded the northern border (then known as Gaul), so he recalled Galen to Rome and asked him to go out with the army. After being politely declined by him, he was asked to stay in Rome and live with Prince Commodus in the palace in the south of Rome. As a result of drawing lessons from the past, Galen changed his sharp-edged style and lived a quiet and low-key life. After becoming a doctor, I devoted myself to writing books and became a prolific writer. He completed more than 300 works (including more than 500) in his life, during which a fire broke out in the "Temple of Peace" where books were collected, and some of his works were burned. Up to now, more than 50 works of/kloc-0 have been handed down.
In A.D. 178, Emperor Aurelius died and Kang Maude ascended the throne, but he was assassinated in 192, thus ending the Antony dynasty and entering the "crisis of the third century" period, with frequent wars and poor people. At this time, Galen still lived in Rome, and later returned to his hometown to continue writing.
Galen's life activities, whereabouts, work and writing are recorded in detail, mainly with the help of a large number of his works, because most of his works are semi-autobiographical, with detailed records and descriptions of his own activities. However, the date of his death cannot be verified and confirmed. So it is generally estimated that he died between 2 10 and 2 16 years, at the age of 80.
Galen died in the early days of crisis of the third century (A.D. 193-284) when the Roman Empire began to decline, which was very similar to China in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. There were "thirty tyrants" who killed each other, invaded from the north, and the people were miserable. Finally, the empire split into two parts. The famous medieval "dark age" appeared in culture. Not only did Galen's name disappear in the darkness, but his works were also lost in the darkness.
But in the 4th century, some scholars of the Eastern Byzantine Empire began to be keen on studying and studying ancient Greek culture, especially philosophy and medicine. As a result, Galen's works were rediscovered and edited, and began to spread in Greece and West Asia (including Syria and Palestine), and later spread to Persia and the whole Islamic world, and were translated into Arabic. Avicenna (AD 980- 1037) and others played an important role in translating Galen's works and developing Arab medicine, upgrading Galen's theory to "Galenism" and becoming medical dogma, and his works became medical textbooks.
1 1 century, Arabic medicine was introduced to Europe, which reunited the Arabic version of Galen's works with the original Greek works, and translated them into Latin, becoming the medical classics and medical textbooks of this continent, and its dominance lasted for more than a thousand years until17th century.
VivianNutton, a famous scholar who studied Galen and his theory, criticized the dogmatists of Galen's theory in his article Logic, Learning and Experimental Medicine. He said: "Therefore, Galen was transformed into Galenism, simplified to abstraction, options and guidelines, but repeated (only) his anatomical conclusions without talking about his (anatomical) methods."
What's more, Galen's anatomical physiology has remarkable teleological characteristics, because he believes that all kinds of anatomical structures and physiological functions of human body are purposefully created and arranged by "nature", and the so-called "nature does not do futile things". At the same time, he personified "nature" in his works and used "she" as a synonym for "nature". All this is completely in line with the doctrine of "God created man", so it has won the full support of the Holy See, and is honored as the "Pope of Medicine", and defends his works like the Bible, and does not allow anyone to make statements that violate Galen's theory. Vitus (1509- 1553) was burned at the stake by the Vatican because he made a statement that blood must pass through the lungs when it enters the left ventricle from the right ventricle, which violated Galen's opinion.
Galen, a "giant" created by the Vatican and its fanatical followers, was challenged by two later generations during the Renaissance (starting from 1453 when Turkey occupied Constantinople in Istanbul).
The first challenger is Andreasvesalius, a young professor of surgery and anatomy at the University of Padua (1514-1564). With the support of a judge, he was lucky enough to obtain the body of a prisoner and dissect it, thus discovering the difference from Galen's animal anatomy. He injected dissolved wax into the ventricles of various animals, made models of ventricles, and compared them, but did not find much difference, which was not enough to explain the disparity in intelligence between animals. On the contrary, he found that the relative volume and weight of the brains of higher animals are much larger, thus denying Galen's "Reiki Theory" and the theory of different networks-the center of the ventricle. He wrote these findings and conclusions into On Corpus, and asked his teacher, the stubborn Galenian Sylvius, to write a preface for it, but he was severely reprimanded.
Another challenger is William Harvey (1578- 1657), a British doctor who is known as the "father of modern medicine". Inspired by the teacher's discovery of venous valves, he devoted himself to the study of blood circulation. By binding the arm to block the blood flow, it was found that the blood flow direction of artery and vein was opposite; When measuring the blood flow of arteries and veins, it was found that such a huge blood flow could not be completely absorbed by the tissues at the end of veins. And found the blood circulation of the lungs, so he put forward the view of closed "blood circulation" and denied Galen's theory of blood flowing back and forth. 1628, he published the Movement of Animal's Heart and Blood, and published his own findings and theories, but he was wrongly labeled as a "insane" doctor until 1657 died, which was confirmed and accepted by later generations.
Since then, western medicine has officially entered the hall of science and become a full member of the modern scientific family. (Author: Wang Tai)