Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Galen
/ˈɡeɪlən/proper noun
The Greek physician of the second century AD whose writings governed European medicine for over a thousand years.
The Greek roots
γαληνός
galēnós
calm, serene
Literally: “the calm one”
Follow a root:γαληνός1 word
The story of the word
His name means calm, from γαλήνη, the stillness of a sea with no wind in it. Galen learned anatomy repairing gladiators at Pergamon, became physician to Marcus Aurelius, dissected pigs and Barbary apes because cutting up humans was forbidden, and wrote so much and so confidently that his mistakes held the field until Vesalius went looking at bodies himself. Pharmacists still call preparations made from plant material galenicals.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
In a sentence
Every medical student in Europe read Galen before anyone read a cadaver.
They named the boy Galen, which took some explaining at school.