The Concept of Whole Substance in Galen’s "Simple Medicines"

• Authors: John Wilkins

Abstracts

EN

Galen’s great treatise on drugs, Simple Medicines, begins with 5 theoretical books which explain the mechanisms of drug actions in the following catalogues. The key agent of change is the mixture of the qualities hot, cold, wet and dry. But drugs also have substance, the leaf, root or fruit of plants, the material of animals and minerals. How does substance act on the human body? This is one of the key questions for the theory of drugs, since mixtures had already been explored by Galen in Mixtures. Galen’s exploration of substance brings him to the composition of a drug – in thick or fine particles – and to the notion of substances in the plural and the notion of whole substance in the cases of foods and poisons, all of which Galen places in the class of drugs. Whole substance is the core of the paper. Galen’s understanding of substance as of qualities depends heavily, as often, on Aristotle. The paper presents an argument based on the key passages in Simples I–V, which I have recently translated for the Cambridge Galen series, as too on related passages in Mixtures and On the Capacities of Foods. 

Keywords

EN

ancient medicine; Greek medicine; Galen; concept of whole substance; De simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis et facultatibus; On the Mixtures and Capacities of Simple Medicines

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Studia Ceranea
• Year: 2021
• Volume: 11
• Pages: 479-491

Dates

published

2021

Contributors

author

John Wilkins

• University of Exeter, Department of Classics and Ancient History, Room 342, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Great Britain

• https://orcid.org/0000000343712975

References

• Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, ed. K.G. Kühn, Leipzig 1822–1833.
• Galeni Pergameni Scripta Minora, ed. G. Helmreich, Leipzig 1893.
• Boudon-Millot V., La notion de mélange dans la pensée médicale de Galien: mixis ou crasis?, “Revue des études grecques” 124, 2011, p. 261–279 https://doi.org/10.3406/reg.2011.8063
• Debru A., Philosophie et pharmacologie: la dynamique des substances leptomerès chez Galien, [in:] Galen on Pharmacology. Philosophy, History, and Medicine, ed. A. Debru, Leiden 1997 [= Studies in Ancient Medicine, 16].
• Harig G., Bestimmung der Intensität im medizinischen System Galens, Berlin 1974.
• Singer P., A Change in the Substance: Theory and its Limits in Galen’s Simples, “Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences” 70, 2020 (= Galen’s Treatise On Simple Drugs. Interpretation and Transmission, ed. M. Martelli, C. Petit, L. Ragetti), p. 16–53 https://doi.org/10.1484/J.ARIHS.5.122780
• van der Eijk P., Galen on the Assessment of Bodily Mixtures, [in:] The Frontiers of Ancient Science. Essays in Honor of Heinrich von Staden, ed. B. Holmes, K.-D. Fischer, Berlin–Boston 2015, p. 675–698 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110336337-031
• Vinkesteijn R., Philosophical Perspectives on Galen of Pergamum, Utrecht 2020 (PhD dissertation).
• Wenkebach E., Pfaff F., In Hippocratis Epidemiarum, Berlin 1934.

Identifiers

DOI

10.18778/2084-140X.11.24

Biblioteka Nauki

2027743