HISTORY OF THERAPEUTICS 13 



dogmas received a consideration only equalled by that given to the 

 Bible, and because of this were a serious hindrance to the develop- 

 ment of medicine for the succeeding fifteen hundred years. When 

 the students of medicine explained that dissection was necessary to 

 discover the errors of Galen, the church forbade the opening of 

 human bodies and stated that Galen never could have erred and 

 that dissections were therefore not only unnecessary but would be 

 reprehensible. 



Pergamos, his native city, had golden medals struck in honor of 

 Galen, and he was for other reasons well aware of his position, as is 

 shown by the following statement: "Hippocrates indeed had made 

 something of a track and broken the path, but I have smoothed it 

 and made it passable, as Emperor Trajan did with the military 

 roads in the Roman Empire. " 



The Galenic Theoiy. — The humoral pathology of Hippocrates, 

 with its four cardinal fluids and the crasis and crisis theories, was 

 the nucleus of the Galenic system of medicine. In addition to dys- 

 crasia, Galen regarded as causes of disease changes in the so-called 

 elementary qualities (heat, cold, dryness, and moisture). Natural, 

 primary forces of the body were attraction, adhesion, secretion 

 (apocritical), and elimination. He assumed that every medicine 

 possessed specific elementary qualities. In his anatomical and 

 physiological studies he came very close to the discovery of the cir- 

 culation of the blood. He was convinced that respiration served 

 to maintain the body heat; he compared the respiration with 

 combustion and contended that the flame and animal life were 

 supported by the same constituents of the atmosphere. These 

 constituents he called "air spirits," and, after they were taken 

 into the blood, "life spirits" (spiritus vitalis). Fever was an 

 unnatural change in the temperature. The lightest form of 

 fever, the "ephemeral," occurred when only the "air spirits" 

 were embarrassed. If the blood and fluids were affected, there 

 arose "septic" or putrid fever. When the heart and solid parts 

 of the body became hot, then the fever was "hectical." A 

 fever continuing one day was due to mucus; three days, to yellow 

 bile; four days, to black bile. 



