Galen
& Circulation
by Matthew Megill, Dartmouth
College
Galen's preoccupation with the
dialectic of this situation was harmful. Instead of studying
data in order to form a hypothesis, Galen commenced his exploration
of the heart with a clear objective in mind. Thus, he used mental
resources to determine whether the heart is an emotional center,
and whether it controls reason, instead of exploring questions
that might have led him straight to the true function of the
heart. Of course, Galen did find some suggestive evidence for
his tripartite division. But unfortunately, he seems to have
left unheeded the advice of Claude Bernard, that a researcher
should take extreme precaution not to find what one is looking
for (Harris,
133).
Dr. Katz has suggested that
two of the reasons we should study ancient medicine are that
we may see how earlier doctors came to be misled, and because
their failures are often like our own. Galen is an excellent
example of these failures. While On the Doctrines of Hippocrates
and Plato hardly represents the whole of Galen's thinking
with regard to the heart, it gives us a glimpse into the way
he was misled by his philosophical commitments. He had a goal,
and though observations did not always support him in his perspective,
he persisted in viewing the heart as a Platonic emotional organ,
and nothing else. He ignored the pointers towards circulation,
for "Though he sees the truth, he does not use it."
So said Galen about Chrysippus (PHP, 147), and history must say the same
of Galen, the partisan researcher.
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