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Galen: On the Natural Faculties

Name: Galen: On the Natural Faculties
Author: Galen

by Galen

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Language: en2,352 downloads on Project Gutenberg

Subjects

Physiology Medicine, Greek and Roman

In: History - Ancient·Science - Biology·Health & Medicine

Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #43383.

About this book

The work is a scholarly translation of Galen’s treatise on the natural faculties, rendered from the Greek text of Kühn’s second volume (Teubner, Leipzig, 1893) with the aid of Linacre’s Latin version and Daremberg’s French rendering. The editor’s preface explains that the Greek passages are marked with Kühn’s page numbers, while the English translation supplies occasional bracketed glosses and extensive footnotes that highlight philological points of interest to modern medicine. The introductory material situates Galen within the lineage of Greek and Roman medical thought, tracing the evolution from Hippocratic observation through Alexandrian anatomy to the Methodic school, before presenting Galen’s own biography and the subsequent reception of his writings. The book is organized into three main sections, each divided into numbered books, and is accompanied by a bibliography, index, and glossary.

The prose reflects the early‑20th‑century academic style of its translator, A. J. B., whose tone is erudite yet accessible, interweaving historical narrative with detailed commentary on anatomical and physiological concepts. Readers who appreciate the intersection of classical scholarship and the history of medicine, students of ancient philosophy, physicians interested in the roots of their discipline, or anyone drawn to the intellectual world of Galen and his contemporaries, will find this volume rewarding. Its careful footnotes and contextual essays make it a valuable resource for those seeking a deep, historically grounded understanding of early physiological theory.

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The text used is (with a few unimportant modifications) that of Kühn (Vol. II), as edited by Georg Helmreich; Teubner, Leipzig, 1893. The numbers of the pages of Kühn's edition are printed at the side of the Greek text, a parallel mark (||) in the line indicating the exact point of division between Kühn's pages.

Words in the English text which are enclosed in square brackets are supplementary or explanatory; practically all explanations, however, are relegated to the footnotes or introduction. In the footnotes, also, attention is drawn to words which are of particular philological interest from the point of view of modern medicine.

I have made the translation directly from the Greek; where passages of special difficulty occurred, I have been able to compare my own version with Linacre's Latin translation (1523) and the French rendering of Charles Daremberg (1854-56); in this respect I am also peculiarly fortunate in having had the help of Mr. A. W. Pickard Cambridge of Balliol College, Oxford, who most kindly went through the proofs and made many valuable suggestions from the point of view of exact scholarship.

My best thanks are due to the Editors for their courtesy and for the kindly interest they have taken in the work. I have also gratefully to acknowledge the receipt of much assistance and encouragement from Sir William Osler, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, and from Dr. J. D. Comrie, first lecturer on the History of Medicine at Edinburgh University. Professor D'Arcy W. Thompson of University College, Dundee, and Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, late director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, have very kindly helped me to identify several animals and plants mentioned by Galen.

I cannot conclude without expressing a word of gratitude to my former biological teachers, Professors Patrick Geddes and J. Arthur Thomson. The experience reared on the foundation of their teaching has gone far to help me in interpreting the great medical biologist of Greece.

I should be glad to think that the present work might help, however little, to hasten the coming reunion between the "humanities" and modern biological science; their present separation I believe to be against the best interest of both.