In this forgotten treatise, preserved largely in medieval translations into Arabic and Latin, the greatest medical scientist of antiquity investigates the relationship between conscious and unconscious movements. He looks at the structure of the tongue and the oesophagus, and asks why mental perceptions can have physical effects on the body. Some of his questions still trouble modern scientists, although they would not accept most of his answers. The extensive Introduction and Commentary explain the medical background for non-medical specialists, and discuss the place of this treatise and of anatomy in medieval medicine down to Leonardo da Vinci. As well as being the first English translation of this important work, this is also the first comparative study of medieval translations of the same ancient text, and is based on new editions and collations of all three. The Commentary pays special attention to the linguistic elements involved in making these translations.
In this forgotten treatise, preserved largely in medieval translations into Arabic and Latin, the greatest medical scientist of antiquity investigates the relationship between conscious and unconscious movements. He looks at the structure of the tongue and the oesophagus, and asks why mental perceptions can have physical effects on the body. Some of his questions still trouble modern scientists, although they would not accept most of his answers. The extensive Introduction and Commentary explain the medical background for non-medical specialists, and discuss the place of this treatise and of anatomy in medieval medicine down to Leonardo da Vinci. As well as being the first English translation of this important work, this is also the first comparative study of medieval translations of the same ancient text, and is based on new editions and collations of all three. The Commentary pays special attention to the linguistic elements involved in making these translations.
Mixtures is of central importance for Galen's views on the human body. It presents his influential typology of the human organism according to nine mixtures (or 'temperaments') of hot, cold, dry and wet. It also develops Galen's ideal of the 'well-tempered' person, whose perfect balance ensures excellent performance both physically and psychologically. Mixtures teaches the aspiring doctor how to assess the patient's mixture by training one's sense of touch and by a sophisticated use of diagnostic indicators. It presents a therapeutic regime based on the interaction between foods, drinks, drugs and the body's mixture. Mixtures is a work of natural philosophy as well as medicine. It acknowledges Aristotle's profound influence whilst engaging with Hippocratic ideas on health and nutrition, and with Stoic, Pneumatist and Peripatetic physics. It appears here in a new translation, with generous annotation, introduction and glossaries elucidating the argument and setting the work in its intel
New English translations, with accessible commentary, of psychological and ethical writings by Galen, the foremost philosopher-doctor of the ancient world.
