[Based on How to Be Healthy: An Ancient Guide to Wellness, by Galen, translated by Katherine D. Van Schaik. Full book series here.]
I’ve made it a personal project for a while now to read, and comment on, all of the entries in the ongoing “Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers” series being put out by Princeton University Press. Besides, the editor of the series, Rob Tempio, has promised me a nice lunch out if I keep going, so…
The question can reasonably be raised, though, as to why anyone would think that ancient wisdom should, in fact, be of any use to modern readers. After all, we are talking about people who wrote stuff down two or more millennia ago, and we’ve learned a thing or two in the meantime. I have addressed this issue in a previous essay, but the current entry in this series is a particularly good test case.
We are talking about Galen of Pergamon, the personal physician of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, and arguably the best trained doctor in the entire Mediterranean world of the second century. Translator Katherine Van Schaik has carefully selected excerpts of works by Galen that are still relevant today, and she acknowledges that this was no trivial task, since medicine has made giant leaps forward in the course of the past two millennia (well, mostly in the past couple of centuries or less).
She found Galenian advice that a modern physician would endorse concerning five subject areas: the connection between mind and body, the value of exercise, the notion of individualized medicine, the importance of sound nutrition, and the very definition of health and disease.
It is telling, though, that these excerpts represent a fraction of what Galen wrote, and he was a very prolific writer. Scholars estimate that a whopping ten percent of all extant Greek literature written before 350 CE is from Galen, and we know that not everything he wrote survived!
The reason Van Schaik had to be so wisely picky in her selections is that many of the notions Galen subscribed to are, of course, no longer scientifically valid, and it would be stunning if that were not the case. For instance, Galen thought that the heart took in “nutritious” venous blood from its right side and combined it with air (pneuma). This is not the case, as any modern introductory text of human anatomy and physiology will confirm.
Then again, Galen understood the importance of three distinct organ systems in the human body: the brain, the heart, and the liver. Moreover, he chastised the Stoics for believing that the seat of the (material) soul was the heart. It is, obviously, the brain (if by “soul” we mind mind).
But the reason to read Galen today is not because of the accuracy of his science. Other than the obvious historical value of appreciating what one of the brightest minds of antiquity was thinking and why, there is the philosophical aspect, the real incentive for us to care about ancient thought. Note, in fact, that the Princeton Press series is entitled “Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers,” not ancient knowledge. It is that crucial difference that all too often gets lost in modern scientistic discussions of what is or is not valuable. We have most certainly accumulated a lot of knowledge since the Greco-Romans. But not nearly as much wisdom, unfortunately.
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