About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherOxford University Press, Incorporated

ISBN-100199605459

ISBN-139780199605453

eBay Product ID (ePID)170370608

Product Key Features

Book TitlePrince of Medicine : Galen in the Roman Empire

Number of Pages320 Pages

LanguageEnglish

TopicCultural Heritage, Medical, History, Historical

IllustratorYes

GenreBiography & Autobiography, Medical

AuthorSusan P. Mattern

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height1.1 in

Item Weight24.4 Oz

Item Length9.5 in

Item Width6.3 in

Additional Product Features

LCCN2012-035656

TitleLeadingThe

Dewey Edition23

ReviewsHaving read this scholarly, gripping, and often gory biography, one appreciates, exquisitely, the author's conclusion that Galen, though "not necessarily a good man", could still be "a good doctor".

Dewey Decimal610.938

Table Of ContentPrologue: The Rancid Cheese1: Pergamum2: Learning Medicine3: The Gladiators4: Rome5: Anatomy and Boethus6: Marcus Aurelius and the Plague7: The FireAppendix: Abbreviations of Galen's WorksBibliographyNotesIndex

SynopsisThe remarkable career of Galen of Pergamum (A.D. 129 - 216) began as a provincial medic tending to wounded gladiators in Asia Minor. It ended at the very heart of Roman power as one of a small circle of court physicians to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. This is the first ever authoritative biography of this brilliant, audacious, and profoundly influential figure. Like many Greek intellectuals living in the high Roman Empire, Galen was aprodigious polymath, writing on subjects as varied as ethics and eczema, grammar and gout. Indeed, he was highly regarded in his lifetime as much for his philosophical works as for his medical treatises, andhis writings, published in twenty-two volumes, comprise one-eighth of all surviving classical Greek literature. From the later Roman Empire through the Renaissance, medical education would be based primarily on his works. Even up to the twentieth century, he would remain the single most influential figure in western medicine. Susan Mattern presents a Galen possessed of breathtaking arrogance, fierce competitiveness (he once disembowelled a live monkey and challenged thephysicians in attendance to replace its organs correctly), shameless self-promotion, and lacerating wit. Not just caustic and polemical, mocking his enemies and hurling abuse at them, Galen was also abrilliant critical thinker and rhetorical strategist. He is also credited with being the first physician with a good bedside manner. Relentless in pursuit of anything that would cure the patient, he insisted on rigorous observation and experiment. Even confronting one of history's most horrific events - a devastating outbreak of smallpox - he persevered, bearing patient witness to its predations, year after year. Including intriguing character studies of Marcus Aurelius,Commodus (of Gladiator fame), Galen's family and close friends, several of his patients, not a few of his rivals, and the city of Rome at the apex of its power and decadence, The Prince of Medicineoffers a deeply human and long-overdue portrait of one of ancient history's most significant and engaging figures., The first ever authoritative biography of Galen of Pergamum A.D. (129 - 216) - prodigious polymath, philosopher, shameless self-promoter, caustic wit and polemicist, and the single most influential figure in the history of western medicine from Roman times to the twentieth century., The first ever authoritative biography of Galen of Pergamum A.D. (129 - 216) - prodigious polymath, philosopher, shameless self-promoter, caustic wit and polemicist, and the single most influential figure western medicine from Roman times right up to the twentieth century.

LC Classification NumberR126.G8