344 



G ALBAN UM GALENA . 



the senate made known to him his elevation. He 

 went directly to Rome, and en used several Insurgents 

 to be executed. By this act, as well as by his in- 

 dulgence to his friends, whom he suffered to rule him 

 absolutely, and by his excessive avarice, he excited 

 universal displeasure. Scarcely had he entered upon 

 his second consulship, when the legions in Upper 

 Germany revolted against him. This induced him 

 to choose a colleague in the government, under the 

 name of an adopted son. Instead of Otho, who was 

 favoured by the soldiery, he selected Piso Liciniamis, 

 who was hated by them on account of his rigid vir- 

 tue. Otho, offended by this neglect, resolved to get 

 possession of the throne by force of arms. The pre- 

 torian cohorts first declared themselves in his favour, 

 and Galba, attempting in vain to restore order, was 

 attacked and slain A. D. 69. He was seventy-two 

 years old, and had reigned three months. 



GALBANUM is the concrete juice of the bubon 

 galbaniferum, a shrubby plant, belonging to the na- 

 tural order umbelli/erce, and is usually imported from 

 Syria, Persia, and the East Indies. The galbanum 

 of commerce, however, is perhaps obtained from 

 several species of bubon. This gum-resin comes in 

 large, soft, ductile masses, of a whitish colour, be- 

 coming yellowish with age, and possessing an acrid, 

 bitter taste, with a strong, disagreeable odour. In 

 its medical properties, it is intermediate between 

 ammoniac and asafoetida, which are likewise the 

 products of plants of the same natural order. At 

 present, it is rarely used, but in combination 

 with other articles, it forms some officinal prepara- 

 tions. 



GALEN, CLAUDIUS ; a Greek physician, born 

 A. D. 131, at Pergamus, in Asia Minor. His father, 

 Nicon, an able architect and mathematician, gave 

 him a careful education, and destined him to the 

 study of medicine. After having enjoyed the in- 

 structions of several renowned physicians, Galen 

 visited Lycia, Palestine, and Alexandria, then the 

 capital of the literary world. He attended particu- 

 larly to anatomy, and returned to Pergamus, his 

 native city, at the age of twenty-eight, where he 

 received a public appointment. A sedition induced 

 him, when thirty-four years of age, to go to Rome, 

 where he acquired great celebrity by his successful 

 cures, and by his skill in prognostics. He also 

 drew upon himself the envy of the other physicians 

 to such a degree, that he was obliged to give up the 

 delivery of his anatomical lectures, and finally to go 

 to Greece, just as a contagious disease broke out in 

 Rome. He travelled through various countries to 

 investigate the most remarkable productions of na- 

 ture and different medicines, and a year after, he was 

 invited to Aquileia by the emperors Marcus Aure- 

 lius and Lucius Verus. Here he prepared the The- 

 riaca. Galen had great merit as a physician and 

 philosopher, especially by completing the empirical 

 pathology, and laying the foundation for a just theory 

 of sensation, and the peculiar animal functions of the 

 body. His writings give evidence of deep reflec- 

 tion, as well as an historical knowledge of the old 

 Greek systems of philosophy, and extend to every 

 department of medicine. Numerous as those extant 

 are, we have now only a part of his productions ; 

 for many were burnt when his house in Rome was 

 consumed. According to Fabricius, we have eighty- 

 two genuine writings of Galen, eighteen manifestly 

 spurious, fragments of nineteen which are lost, and a 

 commentary on eighteen works by Hippocrates. Of 

 his lost works, fifty medical and 118 mostly philoso- 

 phical, are mentioned in the Bibliotheca of Fabricius. 

 The oldest and most complete edition, in Greek 

 only, is the Aldine, 1525, folio, which was followed 

 by Uie Greek edition of Basle, 1538, folio, and the 



GraBCo-Lalin one, in 13 folio volumes, by Ren. Chai- 

 tier, witli the works of Hippocrates added, Paris, 

 1679. In 1819, doctor Kuhii, in Leipsic, undertook 

 a new edition in Greek and Latin. 



GALEN, CHRISTOPHER BERNHARD VAN, the war- 

 like bishop of Munster, from an ancient family of 

 Westphalia, at first entered the military service, 

 which he afterwards left for the church. In 1 660, he 

 was chosen prince-bishop of Munster, but was 

 obliged to besiege the city on account of the opposi- 

 tion of the citizens. He conquered it in 1661, and 

 built a citadel to secure his power. In 1664, he was 

 appointed one of the leaders of the imperial army 

 against the Turks in Hungary. In the following 

 year he took up armp for England against the Dutch, 

 and gained many advantages over them. Peace was 

 concluded in 1666, by the mediation of Louis XIV. 

 In 1672, the war broke out anew, in consequence of 

 some territory which Holland withheld from him. 

 In alliance with France, he took from the United 

 States several cities and strong holds. The emperor 

 having compelled him to conclude a peace, he united 

 himself with Denmark against Sweden, and made 

 new conquests. In 1674, he formed an alliance with 

 Spain, and gave battle to the Dutch troops. He was 

 a man of extraordinary enterprise, one of the great- 

 est generals of his time, an adroit diplomatist in the 

 school of Ferdinand of Bavaria, and, if he had pos- 

 sessed as much power as courage, might have be- 

 come a second Alexander. He died Sept. 19, 1678, 

 in the seventy-fourth year of his age. 



GALENA, in mineralogy ; the sulphuret of lead, 

 found both in masses, and crystallized. The primitive 

 form of its crystals is a cube ; its colour is bluish 

 gray, like lead, but brighter ; lustre, metallic ; tex- 

 ture, foliated ; fragments, cubical ; soft, but brittle ; 

 specific gravity, 7 '22 to 7 - 587 ; effervesces with 

 nitric and muriatic acids ; it contains from 45 

 to 83 lead, and from 0-86 to '16 of sulphur, gener- 

 ally some silver, and sometimes also antimony, zinc, 

 iron, and bismuth. Before the blow-pipe, it usually 

 decrepitates, and on charcoal is decomposed and 

 melted, yielding a globule of metallic lead. Some- 

 times the silver is in the proportion of ten, twenty, 

 forty, or even more than 100 ounces to a ton of the 

 ore. It is then worked as an ore of silver, and 

 called argentiferous galena. The varieties contain- 

 ing the most silver, do not possess the highest 

 lustre, nor the palest colour. In fact, they are some- 

 times blackish-gray. Galena is sometimes contami- 

 nated by silex and lime. Some varieties do not 

 yield more than fifty or sixty per cent, of lead. Sul- 

 phuret of lead occurs in primitive and transition 

 mountains, but is more frequently found in secondary 

 rocks, especially in compact limestone. Its beds 

 sometimes alternate with shell limestone. It has 

 also been found in beds of coal, and its veins some- 

 times contain bitumen. Sulphuret of lead consti- 

 tutes beds and veins, both of which are sometimes 

 very extensive. It is found, more or less, in every 

 country. In England, it is very abundant. It is 

 widely dispersed over the United States of America. 

 The mines of the Missouri and of the North-western 

 territory, are very rich. The deposit of galena, in 

 which the mines of Missouri are situated, is evidently 

 one of the most extensive and important hitherto 

 discovered. Most of the lead of commerce is ob- 

 tained from galena, and usually contains a little 

 silver. The annual produce of all the lead mines of 

 Great Britain is between 45,000 and 48,000 tons, 

 and is obtained chiefly from galena. See Lead. 



G ALENA is an infant town in the state of Illinois, 

 situated near the north-west angle of the state, at the 

 mouth of the Fever river, on the Mississippi. It is 

 the seat of very rich and productive lead mines, the 



