Before the time of Galen the medical profession was divided into several sects, e.g. Dogmatici, Empirici, Eclectici, Pneumatici, and Episynthetici, who were always disputing with one another. After his time all sects seem to have merged in his followers. The subsequent Greek and Roman biological writers were mere compilers from his works, and as soon as his writings were translated into Arabic they were at once adopted throughout the East to the exclusion of all others. He remained paramount throughout the civilized world until within the last three hundred years. In the records of the College of Physicians of England we read that Dr. Geynes was cited before the college in 1559 for impugning the infallibility of Galen, and was only admitted again into the privileges of his fellowship on acknowledgment of his error, and humble recantation signed with his own hand. Kurt Sprengel has well said that "if the physicians who remained so faithfully attached to Galen's system had inherited his penetrating mind, his observing glance, and his depth, the art of healing would have approached the limit of perfection before all the other sciences; but it was written in the book of destiny that mind and reason were to bend under the yoke of superstition and barbarism, and were only to emerge after centuries of lethargic sleep."
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Hence the name θηρίακαι.
[17] "De Antidotis," i. 13, vol. xiv. p. 65, Kuhn.
[18] "Ex ipsius etiam Galeni verbis hanc veritatem confirmari posse, scilicet: non solum posse sanguinem e vena arteriosa in arteriam venosam et inde in sinistrum ventriculum cordis, et postea in arterias transmitti."—"De Motu Cordis," cap. vii.