On the death of his father Galen left his home and devoted the succeeding nine years to visiting all the different cities in which he believed he might gain some additional knowledge in medicine and surgery. A large part of this long period was spent in Alexandria, which still retained much of its importance as a home of all the sciences. On attaining his twenty-eighth year he left that city and returned to Pergamum, evidently with the purpose of establishing himself there in the regular practice of his profession. Through the influence of the temple officials, and especially of the High Priest, Galen received the appointment of physician to the gladiators, a position which he held with credit for a period of four years, and which afforded him excellent opportunities for cultivating his knowledge of surgery. It was while he was serving in this capacity that he devised and put into practice a method of saturating the dressings (in cases of severe wounds) with red wine, for the purpose of preventing the development of inflammation in the parts affected; and the success which he thus obtained was so great that not one of the gladiators intrusted to his care died from his wounds. History does not state the precise manner in which Galen carried out his method of utilizing wine in the dressing of wounds, and we are therefore unable to determine just how much credit he was entitled to receive for this crude but apparently effective means of securing local antisepsis. It is clear, however, that Galen’s treatment could only have been a modification of a much older method, for Jesus, in his answer to a question put to him by a lawyer, said: “But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he (the injured man) was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, ...” (St. Luke x., 33, 34).