"Galen's method of procedure was totally different to that of an
anatomist alone. He first reviewed the anatomical position, and
by dissection showed the continuity of the nervous system, both
central and peripheral, and also that some bundles of nerve
fibres were distributed to the skin, others to the muscles.
Later, by process of the physiological experiment of dividing
such bundles of fibres, he showed that the former were sensory
fibres and the latter motor fibres. He further traced the nerves
to their origins in the spinal cord, and their terminations as
aforesaid. From these observations and experiments he was able
to deduce the all-important fact that different nerve-roots
supplied different groups of muscles and different areas of the
skin.... An excellent illustration of his method, and of the
fact that we ought not to treat symptoms, but the causes of
symptoms, is shown very clearly in one of the cases which Galen
records as having come under his care. He tells us that he was
consulted by a certain sophist called Pausanias, who had a
severe degree of anæsthesia of the little and ring fingers. For
this loss of sensation, etc., the medical men who attended him
applied ointments of various kinds to the affected fingers; but
Galen, considering that that was a wrong principle, inquired
into the history, and found that while the patient was driving
in his chariot he had accidentally fallen out and struck his
spine at the junction of the cervical and dorsal regions. Galen
recognised that he had to do with a traumatism affecting the
eighth cervical and first dorsal nerve; therefore, he says, he
ordered that the ointments should be taken off the hand and
placed over the spinal column, so as to treat the really
affected part, and not apply remedies to merely the referred
seat of pain."[5]
[5] From an address on Galen, given by Sir Victor Horsley before
the Medical Society of the Middlesex Hospital. See _Middlesex
Hospital Journal_, May 1899.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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