Claudius Galen

Claudius Galen

1. Claudius Galen was a doctor

   • He believed in the 'Theory of the Four Humours' and DEVELOPED the 'Theory of Opposites'
     • This theory said that doctors should treat their patients by using opposite treatments to their symptoms

2. Galen and 'dissection'

   • Galen studied human skeletons
     • But he was forbidden to dissect human bodies due to religious reasons
       • "If you didn't have all your organs, you couldn't go into the 'afterlife'
       • He mostly dissected PIGS and APES
         • However he made some mistakes
           • He said that the human jaw bone was made up of two bones (Like an ape) when it was actually made up of one single bone

3. Why is Galen IMPORTANT?

   • He wrote over 100 medical books, many of which survived
   • He developed existing ideas and modernised them
   • He wrote about the human body and developed a complete theory of medicine
     • Doctors could rely on his work without doing any research themselves
   • He wrote about the body having a creator
     • This fitted with the beliefs of Muslims and Christians
       • Religion was very dominant at this time.
         • They refused to let anyone contradict his ideas