LANDMARKS OF BOTANICAL HISTORY— GREENE l6l 



city was the occasion of his be:Caking himself to Rome. Here he 

 now practised medicine with distinguished success, and gave lectures 

 on anatomy; all this, however, to the arousing of a storm of jealousy 

 on the part of the native Roman physicians, to whose unrelenting 

 sallies, or else to a malignant outbreak of the plague, or to both 

 forces combined, he yielded at the end of three years and once again 

 returned to Pergamos. The stay there was this time short, for 

 the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, with his imperial brother 

 Lucius Verus, going to war with the Quadi, Parthians, and Marcom- 

 anni, desired his services as their physician on that expedition. 

 The plague broke out in the country of the attempted conquest, 

 the expedition became a failure, and the imperial majesties with 

 their Greek physician began a retreat to Rome. Lucius Verus, 

 stricken with apoplexy, died on the way, and the imperial philosopher 

 and Galen reached Rome in safety. Here the latter now engaged 

 actively and industriously in medical authorship during a number of 

 years, and when in the year 1 7 2 Marcus Aurelius set forth on a second 

 attempt to go and conquer the Marcomanni, desiring Galen to 

 accompany him as his physician, the latter interposed, piously, 

 that the god of his native city, the revered ^sculapius, to whom he 

 was under solemn vows, had decreed otherwise. The excuse 

 availed, and gave no offence to the pious Aurelius; so that Galen 

 continued in Rome, as physician to Commodus, son of Marcus 

 Aurelius and heir to the empire, then very young. Later, and 

 at a date unknown, Galen returned to his native city, where he 

 ended his long, laborious, and most distinguished career, at the 

 age of 70 years, or, as some authorities say, at 90. 



Some idea of Galen's industry as an author may be conveyed by 

 a note or two on editions of his works issued since the invention of 

 printing. One published at Basle in the year 1538, and containing 

 the Greek text only, fills five folio volumes.' An edition given 

 forth at Leipzig between 182T and 1833, embracing both the Greek 

 text and a Latin translation, is in twenty octavo volumes. ^ And 

 such editions do not include certain of his works the Greek originals 

 of which have been lost, and only the Latin versions of them have 

 been handed down from ear'y times; much less others which havei 

 been lost altogether. Even in Galen's lifetime certain books of 

 his, kept in the Temple of Peace at Rome, were destroyed in a con- 

 flagration of that building and were never reproduced. 



' Edited by Cossaeus, Fuchsius, and Gemusaeus. 



2 Claudii Galeni, Opera Omnia. Editionem curavit C. G. Kuhn, Lipsiae, 

 Tom. i-xx. 1821-1833. 



