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Tłumaczenie na język polski wraz ze wstępem i komentarzami dzieła Galena z Pergamonu De libris propris.

The article discusses an unusual prescription for a sitz bath (ἐγκάθισμα) derived from Galen’s treatise De compositione medicamentorum per genera. The term ἐγκάθισμα is not used in any other known fragment of the writings of the famous Pergamonian. The prescription given in discussed passage differs from most of the known prescriptions for sitz baths preserved in other medical authors of antiquity, because it consists mainly of metals and their minerals.

Dopo un’introduzione sulla rivalità che, nel corso del Cinquecento, contrappose a Venezia gli editori Giunti e Valgrisio, entrambi impegnati a stampare gli Opera omnia di Galeno, si trascrivono ampie parti di una lettera finora misconosciuta, conservata presso l’Archivio di Stato di Firenze. Si tratta di una missiva risalente all’aprile 1565 del medico Filippo Niccolozzi, nipote di Tommaso e Giovanni Maria Giunti, indirizzata a Firenze al maggiordomo granducale Luigi Gherardi da Borgo San Sepolcro. Niccolozzi, oltre a fornire informazioni sugli zii e a menzionare i medici umanisti Jacopo Antonio Mariscotti e Agostino Gadaldini, parla di un enigmatico monaco greco di nome “Theoglipto” che avrebbe ottenuto cinquecento scudi d’oro per recarsi “in Grecia” a recuperare un favoloso codice galenico contenente, tra l’altro, il perduto De demonstratione, intorno al quale in quegli anni è documentabile un notevole interesse. Con ogni probabilità si trattò di una truffa o di un abbaglio, da inquadrare però nel particolare clima di competizione editoriale, nonché di spregiudicata ricerca e “creazione” di inediti galenici, attestato all’epoca a Venezia e alimentato dal perdurante mito delle favolose biblioteche bizantine e postbizantine. After an introduction on the rivalry that pitted against each other the publishers Giunti and Valgrisio, both engaged in printing Galen’s Opera omnia in Venice during the sixteenth century, large portions of a hitherto unnoticed letter preserved in the State Archives of Florence are transcribed. It is a missive dated April 1565 from physician Filippo Niccolozzi, nephew of Tommaso and Giovanni Maria Giunti, addressed from Venice to the Grand Ducal chamberlain Luigi Gherardi in Florence. Niccolozzi, in addition to providing information about his uncles, and mentioning the humanist physicians Jacopo Antonio Mariscotti and Agostino Gadaldini, speaks of an enigmatic Greek monk named “Theoglipto”, who allegedly obtained five hundred gold scudi to travel “to Greece” to retrieve a fabulous Galen codex containing, among other things, the lost De demonstratione, around which considerable interest can be documented in those very years. In all likelihood, this was a swindle or a blunder, to be framed, however, in the particular climate of publishing competition, and also of reckless research and “creation” of unpublished galenic manuscripts, attested at the time in Venice, and fueled by the enduring myth of fabulous Byzantine and post-Byzantine libraries.

From Hippocratic texts and up to the Byzantine period, the adjective μελάγχλωρος, literally “black-green”, raised debates for its interpretation. Like many adjectives indicating a dichromy, its meaning is difficult to grasp in a precise manner and lends itself to different interpretations depending both on the type of text in which it is used and on the context. In addition to these difficulties of interpretation, there is an additional one concerning tradition : μελάγχλωρος has often been misinterpreted by copyists, to the point of being confused with other adjectival forms (mostly μελάγχρως, μελανίχροος, μελίχλωρος). My investigation is divided into two parts : the first one starts from the study of some references of this adjective in the Hippocratic corpus and the reading of it, independently, by Galen of Pergamon and Aretaeus of Cappadocia, authors who are connoisseurs and extremely faithful to the Hippocratic expression. The second part deals with the field of Galenic pharmacology, where the adjective seems to take on, at a certain point, precise indications concerning the classification of remedies. The study of the μελάγχλωρος κεφαλική, “black-green head plaster”, opens the field to the Byzantine posterity of Galenic pharmacological tradition.

Galen’s great treatise on drugs, Simple Medicines, begins with 5 theoretical books which explain the mechanisms of drug actions in the following catalogues. The key agent of change is the mixture of the qualities hot, cold, wet and dry. But drugs also have substance, the leaf, root or fruit of plants, the material of animals and minerals. How does substance act on the human body? This is one of the key questions for the theory of drugs, since mixtures had already been explored by Galen in Mixtures. Galen’s exploration of substance brings him to the composition of a drug – in thick or fine particles – and to the notion of substances in the plural and the notion of whole substance in the cases of foods and poisons, all of which Galen places in the class of drugs. Whole substance is the core of the paper. Galen’s understanding of substance as of qualities depends heavily, as often, on Aristotle. The paper presents an argument based on the key passages in Simples I–V, which I have recently translated for the Cambridge Galen series, as too on related passages in Mixtures and On the Capacities of Foods.

The paper points to a hitherto not recognized quotation from Galen in the Old Church Slavonic Life of S. Cyril of the 9th century (chapter XI, 15) which demonstrates the Galenic maxim “contraria contrariis curentur”. The Galenic argument is brought forth by the Christian philosopher Cyril in a discussion with Jewish theologians. The paper firstly demonstrates that the author of VC does not only enrich Cyril’s speech with allusions to Biblical formulations but makes also the Jewish interlocutors use a direct quotation from Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians. The Christian and Jewish arguments complement each other leading to the ultimate Christian answer that Christ is the real physician to heal body and soul. In contextualizing the findings and pointing to another passage of Vita Cyrilli the paper shows, that the metaphor of “Christ, the physician” both times occurs in a context, where the Original sin is the main topic. Finally, the paper is concerned with the rhetoric of the metaphor and the limits of what can be possibly expressed by it. The ultimate healing in a Christian sense is expressed in the faith into bodily resurrection and thus transcends the comparison with concrete physical therapy. In contrast to concrete bodily health the qualities of a “body of the resurrection” cannot be positively named and thus are designated by the metaphor of “enjoying the fruit” in the heavens.

Doctors of the Roman period provide extensive advice on the choice of food and its preparation, in accordance with the rules of dietetics. Precise criteria are defined to ensure that the food corresponds to the needs of the eater’s body. Like other foods, fish are subject to these rules. Their prestigious place in Roman culture leads to an investigation into their role in dietetics. The living environment of the fish and its nutrition are fundamental elements to define its quality. Doctors’ concerns about taste also correspond to the challenges of gastronomy. This animal is a relevant indicator to determine the close links between cooking and medicine in ancient times. The culinary advice given by doctors to prepare fish can be analysed to understand the logic of dietetic cooking. This animal appears to be useful and healthy food for the body, despite the moral-related concerns about it.

The paper intends to examine a specific area of research concerning the pollution of large rivers – the Tiber above all but not exclusively – and the resulting contamination of water and air as well as the depletion of fish fauna and related food risks. The data on the damage to fluvial (but also lake and marine) habitats are not presented by the intellectuals of the Flavian-Trajan and Antonine ages (Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, Galen) in an ‘environmentalist’ perspective stricto sensu, but each time presented in terms of moral condemnation, or of political propaganda aimed at seeking consensus or even in terms of risk to health and/or possible economic damage. In spite of this, from a legal point of view, appears undeniable a concern of the State to introduce measures aimed at limiting environmental damages as well as protecting and conserving natural resources, although certainly not systematic, but dictated by completely pragmatic needs and by occasional or emergency circumstances.

Tłumaczenie na język polski dzieła Galena z Pergamonu "O porządku moich własnych ksiąg dla Eugenianosa".

Hoop and small ball are both games and sports that have a Greek origin, but were still practiced in the Graeco-Roman empire. Antyllus, a Pneumatist physician of the imperial age whose texts were preserved by Oribasius in his Medical Collections, devoted one chapter on each game in his book On remedies. These passages, relatively unknown and unexploited, give the point of view of a physician on these sports. As far as the hoop is concerned, Antyllus’ testimony can be compared with iconographic documents which pictured the hoop game. For the ball game, the chapter of the Pneumatist physician can be considered in the light of a contemporary treatise by Galen, The exercise with the small ball. By studying Antyllus’ chapters together with these other evidence, the historical and sociological background of both sport activities can be pointed out as well as the rules of these forgotten games. This paper also aims to show the medical values and the benefits on both body and mind attributed by the physicians to these activities.

Towards the end of the fourth century CE Nemesius, bishop of Emesa in Syria, composed his treatise On Human Nature (Περὶ φύσεως ἀνθρώπου). The nature of the soul and its relation to the body are central to Nemesius’ treatment. In developing his argument, he draws not only on Christian authors but on a variety of pagan philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and the great physician-cum-philosopher Galen of Pergamum. This paper examines Nemesius’ references to Aristotle’s biology in particular, focusing on a few passages in the light of Aristotle’s Generation of Animals and History of Animals as well as the doxographic tradition. The themes in question are: the status of the intellect, the scale of nature and the respective roles of the male and female in reproduction. Central questions are: Exactly which impact did Aristotle make on his thinking? Was it mediated or direct? Why does Nemesius cite Aristotle and how? Long used as a source for earlier works now lost, Nemesius’ work may provide intriguing glimpses of the intellectual culture of his time. This paper is designed to contribute to this new approach to his work.

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For Galen olfaction is one of the sensory perceptions that raises a good many problems. In fact, this sense is somewhat different from the others because it is the only one to be linked to breath which is a vital function. The anatomical observations made by the Pergamon doctor, however precise they are, are not sufficient to answer important questions, in particular the exact localization of the identification of the smells. To answer this question, Galen provides precise evidences, especially because he wants to show that Aristotle’s hypothesis is not acceptable. It is by the way of experiment that he demonstrates that the identification of smells occurs actually in the brain. The details and the variety of the experiments described in the treaty De instrumento odoratus contain rich information on Galen’s methods and his abilities to observe what he has at hand.

This paper is about a manuscript of Galen which was considered as a loss due to war since the Second World War and was rediscovered in Krakow in 2016. It presents a brief description of this new Galenic codex as well as some historical data to relate its recent and tumultuous history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leguminous plants were a crucially important element in the Mediterranean diet, and, as such, these plants were second only to cereals. It is also important to note that according to medical writings preserved from antiquity and the early Byzantine period they were considered to be an accessible source of substances which could be applied in therapeutics. One of the most commonly mentioned legumes was the chickpea. The source material demonstrates that the medicinal properties of the chickpea and its therapeutic use were discussed by Greek physicians as early as in the fourth century BC. It seems that the plant was a readily accessible medicament and thus used in therapy also by those who could not afford costly medicines. The authors argue, however, that the medical theory concerning its role in therapeutics evolved into a fully developed form only in the first century AD (thanks to Dioscorides) and was not modified by Galen. The doctrine of these two physicians became part of the medical encyclopaedias of the early Byzantine period. The presented material also illustrates the fact that a significant number of medicinal Recipes which involved using the chickpea were formulated between the second century BC and the second century AD. Byzantine physicians avidly used these formulas in their practice, but failed to develop them in a significantly innovative way. The surviving medical writings make it possible to conclude that the chickpea was believed to be a highly effective medicine and as such worthy of cultivation, which only testifies to the general popularity of the plant. Medical writings may serve as a proof that the chickpea remained a key element in the Mediterranean diet throughout the period from the fourth century BC to the seventh century AD. The analysed material demonstrates the use of the same basic varieties of the erebinthos throughout the period, even though some local variants were also identified. The consistency of the data also suggests that the scale and methods of cultivation of this plant remained unchanged. The culinary uses of the chickpea must also have been the same throughout the period, given that the writers discussed similar uses of the plant as a foodstuff.

In the treatise On my own books (De libris propriis) Galen explains why there have been circulating many forgeries, entitled by his name, in the book market of Roman Empire, and gives a list of his authentic works with a short description of each of them. In his notes to his books Galen discusses the content of each book, and describes historical circumstances of its appearance, specificity of its genre and its addressee. This work contains a unique historical information on Galen’s childhood, on the two periods of his life in Rome, on the fire which took place in the Temple of Peace in Rome in 192 A.D., on the plague which burst out during the reign of Antonius Pius, and on the agonistic nature of the medical profession in Rome in the 2nd–3rd cent. C.E. Moreover this work is an important source for the history of ancient philosophy and medicine, because Galen mentions the titles and even summaries of many lost works of his own as well as of his famous predecessors and contemporaries — philosophers and physicians. In particular, he mentions two great anatomists of antiquity — Marinus and Likus. The treatise «On my own books» is one of the most frequently cited works of Galen and may serve as an introduction to his thought. The first Russian translation of this work is provided with a short introduction and detailed commentary.

Renaissance medical treatises in the psychology of Francisco SuarezSpanish Renaissance physicians, especially Francis Valles, are a major source of inspiration for Suarez's commentary to De anima. This paper analyzes two concepts inherited from the medical tradition: experientia and theory of the sympathy of faculties. Suarez could be considered a precursor of gnoseological ocasionalism, but his psychology is rather far from the Cartesian mechanicism and much closer to the philosophical biology of Aristotle.

In this paper, I try to demonstrate how critical empiricism and philosophical reasoning intertwine with each other and affected the development of medicine. It is a case study considering the problems of generation and semen in the writings of Aristotle and Galen via relationship between such concepts as matter, form, movement, change, causes and some others. The main question addressed in the paper is the reason of Galen’s return to Hippocratic paradigm of two-semina (male and female). I argue that the reason is two-fold: 1) Different philosophical reasoning and erroneous understanding of some aspects of Aristotle’s embryological model by Galen. 2) Empirical discoveries, which proved to be wrong. I demonstrate that Galen’s understanding of form/matter relationship, and his view on matter as an underling principle conditioned his understanding of the notion of physical change, that allowed him to speak about conception only as quantitative mixture between equal substrata. Finally, I show that Galen’s view on teleology and his limited understanding of formal/final vs efficient causes and their relationship forced him to claim the inadequacy of Aristotle’s biology and necessitated Galen to introduce emendations in definitions of seminal faculties of genders and reproductive fluids.

Galen’s last work, De propriis placitis (On my own opinions) has a very complex textual history. Except to few extracts, the Greek original of the treatise is lost. The last two chapters of the treatise, entitled On the substance of natural faculties, circulated independently in a fourteenth century translation into Latin by Niccolò da Reggio. The main body of treatise is preserved in a medieval Latin translation made from an Arabic translation (as numerous words, transliterated from the Arabic, testify). There is also a quote in Hebrew. Fortunately, some time ago V. Nutton (1999) published an excellent commented edition of the treatise. It was proven indispensable for the present study, as well as a recent publication of a newly discovered Greek text by Boudon-Millot and Pietrobelli (2005). The treatise, important for understanding of Galen’s various opinions, certainly deserves a close study. It is now translated into the Russian for the first time.

Who are ‘the Ancients’? This article is intended to study the meaning of the expression ‘the Ancients’ in the Anonymus Londiniensis papyrus; and in so doing, also to attribute a more feasible interpretation to such appellation. The perusal of the occurrences in the papyrus suggests that the identification of ‘the Ancients’ with the Aristotelians might be accurate. Our claim lies in some striking analogies drawn from Aristotle, as well as in the use of the same expression in the medical literature coeval to the Anonymus papyrus. After having provided insight into these textual witnesses, there seems to be enough room to believe that the scribe of the papyrus could have made reference to the Peripatetics, and not to Plato or his heirs, in the first case; and as regards the second occurrence, to the pre-Socratics, either to Heraclitus or to Empedocles.

In this article, based on the second book of Galen’s De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis, we analyze scientific method of the famous anatomist and philosopher. We discuss experimental, logical and philosophical argumentation that Galen employs in his proof that the rational part of the soul situated in human brain. We study his polemics with Chrysippus, who declares that the rational part of the soul is located in the heart, and conclude that the treatise by Galen sets the standards of scientific studies in antiquity, which combines medical, philosophical and moral components.

A short polemical treatise of Galen, dedicated to the nature of medical knowledge, is now translated from the Greek into Russian for the first time. Galen outlines the position of two opposing camps in the Hellenistic medicine, the Rationalists and the Empiricists. The dispute culminates with the appearance of the third camp, the so-called Methodists, who claim to have found a position immune to criticism from the both sides. The majority of counterarguments of Galen are directed against this school. The translation is supplemented with an introduction, notes, and bibliography.

This article examines the short treatise De elementis of Galen from the perspective of rhetorical analysis: what are the strategies of persuasion involved in this important (albeit brief) work, and for what purpose? How does the implementation of Galen’s excellent rhetorical training affect the physician’s argumentation? As a pedagogical work, the De elementis was primarily intended for a particular, privileged reader, then reworked to reach a wider audience; according to Galen himself, the treatise then became a fundamental propaedeutic text in his medical oeuvre. A concise, effective and brilliant piece, it is perhaps also, as suggested here, one of the works that helped establish the reputation of the physician of Pergamum in Rome around 170 AD, at the beginning of his career in the capital.

The aim of this paper is to give to the treatise On the Elements, According to Hippocrates, its proper place within the Galenic corpus in general, and then to situate it by comparison with the commentaries Galen wrote on Hippocrates, especially the one he wrote on Hippocrates’ On the Nature of Man. I then highlight the polemical dimension of On the Elements, which is devoted to one of the topics philosophers and doctors debated most hotly during the Roman period. The debate with Asclepiades, in particular, concerns a major issue, since what is at stake is nothing less than the explanation of how the world and the beings within it are formed and organised.

Galen often uses, in various treatises and especially in his De elementis, examples based on colours. Reasons of rhetorical efficacy can probably account for this choice, as well as the will to rekindle earlier philosophical traditions. But for him, the problem also lies in the production of evidence. The colours quoted, usually in a very limited number, also correspond to the four humours which constitute the human body. We can see the colours of the human body only because it excretes, volontarily or not, the humours which make it up.

I wish to find the sources of the reference to the tetrapharmakos made by Galen in De elementis, in order to throw light on the exact status of the argument used by Galen. The source is likely to be Stoic, but kindred details are also found in the Anonymus londinensis. Galen manipulates the Stoic concepts, and makes an epistemological, rather than physical, use of the paradigm of fusional blending, which has to be distinguished from the so-called “total” blending which shall be used further on in the treatise to conceptualise Galen's own humoral theory.

Galen’s response to epicurean mechanism is based on qualitative alteration, which he holds responsible for higher-order natural phenomena, especially vital ones. A parallel is regularly drawn with the contemporary notion of emergence; but depending on the interpretations, Galen would have foreseen, adopted or rejected such a position. In this paper, we focus the analysis on the main witness in the case (De elementis, 3, 7-24). Galen defends here the idea that the existence of “something generically different” (τι κατὰ γένος ἕτερον), such as sensibility, supposes at least alterability at the elementary level; but in what sense? To understand this, we further investigate the relations between sensation and alteration in other passages of the corpus. We then argue that the leap between the levels of reality is more epistemic than ontological, and that it confers all the more relevance to the suggestion of a galenic emergentism.

After the important colloquium at Columbia University in New York on popular medicine in Graeco-Roman antiquity, under the guidance of W.V. Harris three years ago (see the Proceedings published by Brill in 2016), I thought that it could be useful to come back to personal doubts and intimate controversies in Galen's therapeutic books, whenever he believed that he had to offer some possible solution when there was a serious medical problem to find an answer to. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his attacks against Asclepiades and his followers, Galen did not only criticize a different theoretical approach on healing. The issue was more fundamental. In their definition of medicine, Methodists could be seen as the advocates of a rather 'light' version of medicine, which made it popular and easy to understand. According to Methodists themselves, practitioners could be trained in a very short period of time. Such a view on medicine could make the basics of the art of healing affordable to everyone. Galen, who had a very ambitious conception of his art, was promoting a strong intellectual and philosophical approach to medicine as well as the idea that medical practitioners are thoroughly educated specialists. He was defending the social legitimacy of his profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the respective roles of the mother and the father in generation and reproduction? Why the children sometimes look like their mother, sometimes their father and sometimes their both parents and even grandparents? This paper explores how the Ancient G'eek tried to develop several theories to answer these fascinating questions, from the Greek atomist philosophers to the Hippocratic and Galenic physicians, through the Aristotelian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the respective roles of the mother and the father in generation and reproduction? Why the children sometimes look like their mother, sometimes their father and sometimes their both parents and even grandparents? This paper explores how the Ancient Greek tried to develop several theories to answer these fascinating questions, from the Greek atomist philosophers to the Hippocratic and Galenic physicians, through the Aristotelian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pain is omnipresent in ancient medical treatises, in so far as it constitutes one of the main symptoms, even sometimes the only symptom, on which the doctor can base a diagnosis and a therapeutic indication. But then and today, the only way for the doctor to reach the pain of the patient is essentially through his speech. Thus is raised the question to know to what extent the words of the doctor correspond to the speech of the patient. Transcription ? Interpretation ? Rephrasing ? In other words, can we see behind the words of the doctor to reach the voice of the patient, which is often metaphorical and awkward since expressing pain is so difficult ? Such if the object of this research that we will conduct through three great men of ancient medicine, Hippocrates, Galen and Celsus.

The goal of the present discussion is to determine what kind of bread Clement of Alexandria had in mind, when, in his Paedagogus, castigated some of Alexandria inhabitants for the consumption of a kind produced form excessively purified (by sieving) flour (which due to the process was becoming devoid of any nutritional values), which, as an item of luxury, would ultimately lead its consu­mers to effeminacy. In order to identify the food and link it to the varieties produced in those times, the authors of the study have analyzed select treatises of Galen, who, being a con­temporary of Clemens, is acclaimed to have been the most eminent physician of the period between the IInd and the IIIrd centuries after Christ, and an authority in the area of bread nutritional values. Having outlined the scope of Clement’s activities and knowledge as well as having presented the corpus of data in the line left by Galen, the authors of the present study conclude, that the Christian wrote about a kind of bread baked with a generous amount of leaven (since it was the additive that made the dough rise), and consequently they identify the variety artos zymites. As for the technology of baking, they opine that the bread described by the Christin writer belonged to bread types obtained from kribanon or ipnos. The authors also opine that the crucial piece of information given by Clement allowing to identify the variety is the one concerning flour used for the purpose. They claim that, since it was presented as very well-sieved, contributing to the whiteness of the bread and consequently to its classification as luxurious, the choice is limited to two kinds of the food, namely artos katharos or plytos artos. Out of the two only the latter’s characteristics given by Galen matche Clement’s description of the bread as a foodstuff of low nu­tritional value. Consequently, the authors of the article conclude that it was plytos artos that was the bread variety alluded to in Paedagogus. Moreover, they come to the opinion that the discussion on bread show that Clement’s words included in Paedagogus show consistency with contempo­rary dietetic doctrines. Accordingly, the latter were either not absent from the Christian’s general knowledge or constructed on popular lore he shared.

Neither the painters nor the sculptors of Antiquity represented the Amazones bereft of their right breast. Now the myth in its most widespread version mentions, ever since Antiquity, a voluntary mutilation meant to facilitate the wielding of projectiles. Then, where does the motif of breast mutilation with the Amazones come from ? Its emergence in the literary tradition springs, it seems, from the conjunction, in the second half of the Vth century before our era, of an etymology grounded in a philosophical conception which imparts to the words the power to convey the nature of their referents and the hippocratic physiology, which holds that an artificial atrophy carried out locally before the growth of a child can, through the channel of nutrition, bring about a hypertrophy of the adjacent parts of the body.

In the IInd century of our era Galen of Pergamus built up a rational medical work which ruled out the magic practices or explanations drawn from mythological narratives looked upon as so many false beliefs. He indulged in particular in a critical analysis of the fabulous figure of the Centaur whose existence seemed to him incompatible with his knowledge of living bodies. And yet that keenly rational thought gave birth in its turn to a myth. Galen relied on his medical knowledge to construct the figure of the demiurge.

Ancient Hippocrates: Galen and the Apology of Medicin in the Proprepticus Easy as it is to consider Galen’s Protrepticus a straightforward exercise in the art of hortative rhetorics, it seems advisable to consider the ramifications and the role played by the philosophical hypotext: given the details of the argument, one may easily be reminded of certain passages of the Platonic Gorgias, as well as the importance of the actual imagery exploited in the course of exposition. In doing so, the essay seeks to reevaluate the Galenic work and put it in the wider context of philosophizing discourses of the era.

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Copyright of Andrologie (11662654) is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A famous medical school was established in old Alexandria during the third century BC. Although mainly Greek in essence, and following the Hippocratic teachings, it was heavily tainted by the medical practices of ancient Egypt. Anatomy was particularly advanced due to the possibility of dissecting the human body. The most important Alexandrian physicians were Herophilus and Erasistratus. Many graduates of this medical school traveled and practiced throughout the Mediterranean basin. Galen, the famous Roman physician studied in Alexandria before practicing in Rome. His teachings and writings survived well into the sixteenth century and formed the basis of more modern medical practices during the renaissance. These writings were conserved partly by Christian monks and partly by Arab and Jewish scholars of the middle ages. The medical school of Alexandria was still active until late in the 3rd century AD. However, it slipped slowly into oblivion after the fire of 389 AD, which also devastated its famous library. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]