The Complete Works of Galen, Vol. 1

by the judgment of the best emperor, he was original: γνήσιος ἰατρὸς καὶ φιλόσοφος a true physician and philosopher, held by posterity in as high regard as any other

scholar. This was noted by Labbe Philippe Labbe, a 17th-century Jesuit scholar and bibliographer in the section he placed at the beginning of his Greek Library regarding the writings of Claudius Galen. Labbe also seems to have promised a third small work, a chronology of Galen's writings. This was intended to show at least those works known to exist, specifically which were written first, which followed during his life, and finally which were composed in his old age. However, those plans never saw the light of day, nor did the editors of Galen's works think to arrange his books in such an order.

René Chartier Renatus Charterius, a French physician who edited a famous 13-volume set of Hippocrates and Galen wrote a life of Claudius Galen of Pergamum, the prince of all physicians after Hippocrates. He collected and organized this biography from Galen's own words and from approved authors, and had it printed in the first volume of the works of Hippocrates and Galen, from page 53 to page 98. However, this biography is written in a very rambling style. Although it contains many beautiful sayings, these have very little to do with Galen's life. Furthermore, the order in which he treated his subject cannot satisfy anyone.

Julius Alexandrinus wrote a eulogy of Galen, which was published in Venice by the Giunta press in 1548, in octavo. Johann Heinrich Acker wrote on the life and praises of Galen in his Short Works on Eloquence, published in Jena, 1717, in octavo, volume 3. Succinct lives of Galen were also written by certain authors of medical history. For example, Jean Bernier in his book Essays on Medicine, where the history of medicine and physicians is treated, Paris, 1689, quarto, part 1, chapter 4, page 105. Daniel Le Clerc, in the book History of Medicine, part III, book III, page 660 and following, published in The Hague, 1729, in quarto. In that entire book, Galen's life, writings, and his contributions to the advancement of medicine are treated with great learning and abundance.

Other accounts include Gottlieb Stolle in his Introduction to the History of Medical Learning, Jena, 1731, quarto, chapter 1, section 91, page 85. Also Kurt Sprengel, in his book Attempt at a Pragmatic History of Medicine, volume II, Halle in Saxony, 1793, section V, chapter 5, section 53 and following, page 89 and following. I also wrote a life of Galen in my Institutes of the History of Medicine, Nuremberg, 1792, octavo, chapter XXI, page 197 and following. In chapter XXII, I devoted effort to explaining Galen's medical system, a task which Johann Conrad Barchusen had already performed before me in his Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of Medicine, Utrecht, 1723, quarto, dissertation XVI, page 246 and following. Furthermore, there are still others to be compared.