On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato, Vol. I

There were those who prepared a new edition, such as Theodorus Goulston, a London physician, and Caspar Hoffmann, a professor of medicine at Altdorf, about whom see Ackermann in the Preface to the letters in Kühn, Vol. I, 260 ff. Yet, even after the Charterius edition was printed, there were not lacking those who conceived the plan of editing the works of Galen—either all or individually—better and more accurately, but did not execute it. An example is Abraham Willet, who, after publishing the Protrepticus Exhortation to the Arts at Leiden in 1812, had intended to revise 'those works of Galen which are considered worthy of praise by both philosophers and physicians' (Preface, p. XIV). Similarly, after the labors of Kühn, there arose those who embarked upon the same plan: to adorn a new review of Galen’s works based on the authority of the manuscripts, for which purpose the Kühn edition—so flawed and so weak—seemed as if it were pleading for itself. Those who were striving for great things had the intention of publishing a Corpus medicorum graecorum et latinorum Collection of Greek and Latin Physicians, in which the works of Galen would be contained, such as Fickel and Daremberg. And Fickel, indeed, upon realizing that editions of books written in Greek were 'so contaminated with faults and errors, or so miserably interpolated, that their comprehension often presented great difficulties, and the true meaning could sometimes not be elicited, desired to purge all works which exist in Greek on medicine of their filth based on the authority of the manuscripts' and to edit them collectively. However, apart from a certain precursor25, he published nothing further into the light, as far as I know. Daremberg, however, did not pour forth empty words like that man, but, as he had a singular love for ancient letters, he attacked the matter vigorously. For, having prudently instituted and arranged the rationale of the plan26, he himself made many journeys to Britain, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Italy to collect critical apparatus, and summoned many learned men into a partnership of labor, not unaware that the burden of such a great and immense work could not support the shoulders of one man. And the undertaking bore the richest fruit; for Daremberg and Bussemaker edited the works of Oribasius, largely unpublished until this time27, which, how much they avail to the amending of the text of Galen in many places, is being understood more day by day. Daremberg himself, in addition to the physician Celsus (Leipzig 1859), published the Fragmenta Commentarii Galeni in Timaeum Platonis Fragments of Galen’s Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus28 and translated several works of the same physician into French29. But what he had proposed in his mind, that he would edit the works of Galen to the authority of recognized manuscripts, he did not complete. Nor did the most learned Briton Greenhill, who, after having published not a few emended passages from various books of Galen in Henschel's Janus, had conceived the plan, having finished an edition of the Anatomical Demonstrations, to prepare an edition of the remaining books of Galen, achieve anything of what he had intended, as far as I know30.

25) Bibliotheca graeca medica Greek Medical Library, or all the extant works of the Greek physicians, corrected as much as possible according to the authority of the manuscripts and ancient editions, and increased by various readings. Initiated and composed by C. G. Fickel. Vol. I. Zwickau and Leipzig 1833 (pp. 61).
26) Daremberg, Plan de la Collection des médecins grecs et latins Plan for the Collection of Greek and Latin Physicians. Paris 1851. — Notices et extraits des manuscrits médicaux grecs, latins et français, des principales bibliothèques d'Europe Notices and excerpts from Greek, Latin, and French medical manuscripts in the principal libraries of Europe. 1st part, Library of England. Paris 1853.