THE FINAL SYSTEM: GALEN 



between the heart and a ligated artery, but not 

 beyond it. Like the Alexandrians, he inferred 

 that the arteries and veins anastomose through 

 certain invisible and extremely small vessels. 

 He also showed that an excised heart will beat 

 outside the body, a common incident at the 

 sacrificial rites, and good evidence that its beat 

 does not depend upon the nervous system. In 

 these matters Galen gave to medicine that 

 method of putting questions to nature and of 

 arranging things so that nature may answer 

 them, which we call experiments." ^^ 



In the depths of his mind, Galen was seeking 

 to combine Hippocrates and Aristotle. He 

 drew from the former the fruitful conception 

 of the vital unity of the human organism, vital 

 in its power of living and nourishing itself, 

 and when sick or wounded of regaining its 

 normal state through the vis medicatrix 

 naturae, the restoring power of its own nature. 

 The human organism was strictly a unity: the 

 singleness of its life could not be divided. 

 From Hippocrates he took also the four! 

 humors, and, as it were, from any source one 

 chooses, the four elements of fire, water, earth 

 and air, and the four primary physical qual' 

 ities of cold and warm and dry and moist i 



[105] ' 



