432 HISTORY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 



enthusiastic scorn of the folly of the atheistical 

 notions 17 . "Try," he says, "if you can imagine a 

 shoe made with half the skill which appears in the 

 skin of the foot." Some one had spoken of a struc- 

 ture of the human body which he would have pre- 

 ferred to that which it now has. "See," Galen 

 exclaims, after pointing out the absurdity of the 

 imaginary scheme, " see what brutishness there is in 

 this wish. But if I were to spend more words on 

 such cattle, reasonable men might blame me for 

 desecrating my work, which I regard as a religious 

 hymn in honour of the Creator." 



Galen was from the first highly esteemed as an 

 anatomist. He was originally of Pergamus; and 

 after receiving the instructions of many medical 

 and philosophical professors, and especially of those 

 of Alexandria, which was then the metropolis of 

 the learned and scientific world, he came to Rome, 

 where his reputation was soon so great as to excite 

 the envy and hatred of the Roman physicians. The 

 emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus would 

 have retained him near them; but he preferred 

 pursuing his travels, directed principally by curi- 

 osity. When he died, he left behind him numerous 

 works, all of them of great value for the light they 

 throw on the history of anatomy and medicine ; and 

 these were for a long period the storehouse of all 

 the most important anatomical knowledge which 

 the world possessed. In the time of intellectual 

 barrenness and servility, among the Arabians and 

 17 De Usu Part. in. 10. 





