Oxford World's Classics: Selected Works - Softcover

Galen (AD 129-c. 210), researcher and scholar, surgeon and philosopher, logician, herbalist, and personal physician to the emperor Marcus Aurelius, was the most influential and versatile medical author of antiquity. The work of Galen is fascinating for its innovations in anatomy and in the physiology of the brain and the nervous and vascular systems, and for its remarkable synthesis of previous ideas, in particular the famous 'four-humour' theory and the Platonic philosophy of mind. Galen dominated medical theory and practice until the scientific revolution and beyond, through the medieval Schools, and through his influence on Muslim medicine. This is the first major selection of Galen's work in English. It functions as an essential introduction to his 'medical philosophy' and includes several major works never previously translated. At the same time it presents a vivid insight into medical practice and intellectual and everyday life in ancient Rome.