V. THE FINAL SYSTEM: GALEN 



GALEN represents the final catholic 

 and systematic interpretation of 

 Greek medicine and its relation to 

 the sciences of which it was or might make 

 part. He was more than a great eclectic, for 

 his work was a constructive synthesis, with 

 elements added which were the result of his 

 own observations and experiments. 



Like other men he was fashioned and driven 

 by his education, into which entered the in- 

 tellectual past of himself and his contem- 

 poraries. But, unlike any other of his time, 

 his genius was so universal that he was im- 

 pelled and aided throughout his whole career 

 by the entire intellectual past, rather than by 

 one or more of its component interests or 

 typical tendencies. 



The sciences which might be related to 

 medicine met in him, with some branches of 

 discipline with which physicians trouble them- 

 selves no longer. From his education and 

 still more through his talents and temperament, 



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