The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800Buck, Albert H. (Albert Henry)
History
The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800
Buck, Albert H. (Albert Henry)
Medicine -- History
extraordinary sensitiveness of the abdominal organs.
When we consider that these experiments are the first of their kind
of which history makes mention, that they were carried out nearly
seventeen hundred years ago, and that--so far as we know--they sprang
entirely from the brain of the experimenter, we may well express
unlimited admiration for Claudius Galen.
Daniel Le Clerc says that Galen’s principal treatise on human
physiology, entitled “Utility of the Different Parts of the Human
Body,” constitutes a _chef-d’oeuvre_ which has challenged the
admiration of physicians and philosophers in all ages. Christians,
however, he adds, are particularly gratified to learn from this work
that “Galen, although classed as a Pagan, unhesitatingly recognizes
that it was an all-wise, an all-powerful, an all-good God who created
man and all the other animals.” Further on, Le Clerc refers to another
statement which was made by Galen and which will be found on page 261
of Daremberg’s version. It reads as follows:--
If I were to spend any more time in talking about such
brutes--by which term he designates men who cannot appreciate
the wisdom of God in distributing the different parts of the
body in the manner in which He has done this--I should justly
incur the blame of sensible persons. They would accuse me of
desecrating the account which I am writing, an account which is
intended as a hymn of sincere praise of the Creator of man. I
believe that true piety consists, not in sacrificing numberless
hecatombs nor in burning unlimited quantities of incense and a
thousand perfumes, but in first searching out and then making
known to my fellow men how great are the wisdom, the power, and
the goodness of the Creator.
Galen’s work on “The Utility of the Different Parts of the Human Body”
is composed of seventeen books, all of which exist to-day in a complete
state. Taken together they form, as may be seen by the following list
of contents, a remarkably complete treatise on physiology. Books I. and
II. are devoted to the hand, forearm and arm (105 pages); Book III. to
the thigh, leg and foot (62 pages); Books IV. and V. to the alimentary
organs and their accessories (101 pages); Book VI. to the respiratory
organs (78 pages); Book VII. to the organs of the voice (67 pages);
Book VIII. to the head, the encephalon and the organs of special sense
(45 pages); Book IX. to the cranium, the encephalon and the cranial
nerves (38 pages); Book X. to the eyes and their accessories (45
pages); Book XI. to the face and more particularly the jaws (55 pages);
Book XII. to the neck and the rest of the spinal column (46 pages);
Book XIII. to the shoulder and the structure of the spinal column in
detail (40 pages); Books XIV. and XV. to the genital organs and the
parts in which the foetus develops (70 pages); Book XVI. to the nerves,
arteries and veins (43 pages); and Book XVII. Epilogue (11 pages).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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