56 HUMAN DISSECTION. ITS DRAMA AND STRUGGLE 



entiate nerves and tendons and called the latter "neurons." His 

 description of blood vessels was poor and confusing but these are 

 excusable in the light of the status of anatomy of that day. He 

 did insist, however, that an arteriovenous anastomosis existed 

 (Burr, '31; Warbasse, '35). 



Being a sensitive individual, Galen marveled at the sight of 

 the organs, their complexity and beauty. As he was deeply re- 

 ligious, he was inclined to eulogize a divine providence for the 

 creation of the morphological structures he saw. He agreed with 

 Aristotle that nature never makes anything which is superfluous 

 and he was imbued with the idea that form determines function. 

 The latter was in opposition to that taught by Asklepiades who 

 preached that function helps to create the part. This attitude of 

 Galen was highly acceptable and agreeable to the later theologians, 

 whether Christian, Jewish or Moslem; they were all delighted 

 to sing the praises of Galen who extolled the work of god, al- 

 though he was essentially a pagan. To question liis work became 

 a heresy. 



Since Galen was one of the great men of anatomy and medi- 

 cine, what manner of a man was he? He was an only child who 

 remained unmarried throughout his life. On the one hand, he was 

 honest and sincere; on the other, he was egotistic, boastful, quick- 

 tempered, hasty in his judgments, lacking in charity, tactless, self- 

 confidence, complacent and jealous, which makes a rather long 

 list. His mind was facile and neat but he leaned toward theory 

 and classification. His writings, most of which were written inj 

 imperial Rome, almost showed too much learning to be appreci- 

 ated by the rank and file of those in the medical profession. As 

 he aged, his mind became less receptive, more dogmatic and; 

 critical. 



The style of writing of Galen has not been acclainud as 

 being outstanding. It was verbose, hairsplitting, (juibhhiiL;. dif-! 

 fuse, expansive, repetitious and dull which may have been due to 

 the fact that he wrote so mudi that he failed to take the time to 

 devote to organization. In other words, he was more interested 

 in the content. 



In respect to religion, he was a pious pagan who was anx- 

 ious to keep on good terms with his gods, especially that of modi- 



