Aretaeus of Cappadocia was probably a contemporary of Galen (second half of the second century A. D.). As a clinical author his reputation stands high, perhaps too high, his descriptions of pneumonia, emphysema, diabetes, and elephantiasis having especially drawn attention. In treatment he uses simple remedies, is not affected by polypharmacy, and suggests many ingenious mechanical devices. It would appear that Aretaeus is not an independent writer, but mainly a compiler. He relies largely on Archigenes, a distinguished physician contemporary with Juvenal, whose works have perished save the fragments preserved in this manner by Aretaeus and Aetius. Aretaeus was a very popular writer among the Greeks in all ages, but he was not translated into Latin, and was unknown in the West until the middle of the sixteenth century.[136] He is philologically interesting as still using the Ionic dialect. [136] First Latin edition Venice, 1552; first Greek edition Paris, 1554. There remains the huge overshadowing figure of Galen. The enormous mass of the surviving work of this man, the dictator of medicine until the revival of learning and beyond, tends to throw out of perspective the whole of Greek medical records. The works of Galen alone form about half of the mass of surviving Greek medical writings, and occupy, in the standard edition, twenty-two thick, closely-printed volumes. These cover every department of medicine, anatomy, physiology, pathology, medical theory, therapeutics, as well as clinical medicine and surgery. In style they are verbose and heavy and very frequently polemical. They are saturated with a teleology which, at times, becomes excessively tedious. In the anatomical works, masses of teleological explanation dilute the account of often imperfectly described structures. Yet to this element we owe the preservation of the mass of Galen’s works, for his intensely teleological point of view appealed to the theological bias both of Western Christianity and of Eastern Islam. Intolerable as literature, his works are a valuable treasure house of medical knowledge and experience, custom, tradition, and history.