Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Galen of Pergamon

  • Galen: Medical

    Few figures in the history of medicine have left a legacy as profound and enduring as Claudius Galenus, better known simply as Galen. Born in Pergamon in 129 CE, Galen was educated in the vibrant intellectual centers of the Greco-Roman world, studying philosophy, anatomy, and medicine in places such as Smyrna, Corinth, and Alexandria. His…

  • Book review: Galen: An Anthology

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England Galen was born in 129 AD in Pergamon, an important Greco-Roman city of the Hellenistic period in Asia Minor. Today the remnants and ruins of this ancient city are sited in Bergama, a city in northwest Turkey. Galen started learning his medical craft in Pergamon while simultaneously attending lectures in philosophy.…

  • Lumbar puncture

    JMS PearceHull, England Access to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in life as an aid to diagnosis proved impossible until lumbar puncture. Galen of Pergamon (AD 130–200) failed to recognize CSF; he described a vaporous, not aqueous, humor that he called περιττώματα (residues) in the cerebral ventricles. Cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles was probably first shown by…

  • Experimental evidence for the humoral circulatory system

    Mark GrayKansas City, Kansas Humoralism, otherwise known as Hellenistic or Galenic medicine, posited the existence of four humors that were required to be kept in balance to maintain health. Blood was special among these humors, believed to deliver both physical and spiritual nourishment to the body.1 To a modern scientist, the physiology ancient Greek physicians…

  • The Red Cross and hematology pioneers

    Barnabas PastoryDar es Salaam, Tanzania Providing medical care to suffering humankind constitutes an important part of the Red Cross’ service scope. History records an important connection between the Red Cross and pioneers in the subject matter of blood. The humanitarian service of the Red Cross began between 1859 and 1863 with the advocacy efforts of…

  • Galen, macaques, and the growth of the discipline of human anatomy

    Goran ŠtrkaljMacquarie University, Sydney, Australia Introduction The year 2018 marks the eightieth anniversary of the Cayo Santiago rhesus monkey colony. This exemplary research unit epitomizes scientific excellence in experimenting on non-human primates and in using them as models to understand the biology and behavior of Homo sapiens.1 The research carried out in Cayo Santiago and…

  • Pig man: Pigs in medicine from Galen to transgenic xenotransplantation

    Stanley GutiontovChicago, Illinois, United States The bad rap “And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you.”—Leviticus 11:7 Pig: a word variably defined as “a young domesticated swine not yet sexually mature” or “a dirty, gluttonous, or repulsive person.”1 Pork may harbor within…

  • The boys’ club

    Laura HirshbeinMichigan, Ann Arbor, United States In 1914, a group of fraternity men from the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, decided they needed more influence at the school. One of the students had an uncle on the faculty, and with his connections these men founded the Galens Honorary Medical Society, an…