Castigationes seu Emendationes

VII

The Champier Tradition.

...there were physicians among the Greeks; but in the controversy of writings, the better ones are to be imitated, and Galen and Hippocrates were the first and highest. If leaders are to be followed, I consider Hippocrates the leader of all, and Galen is to me as Hector was to Paris original: "Hector Paridi." In the Iliad, Hector was the noble protector and man of action, while his brother Paris was often seen as the cause of the conflict; Champier suggests Galen is the strong defender and essential executor of Hippocrates' foundational principles..

Decorative drop cap 'A' featuring scrollwork and foliate patterns within a square frame.The Arabs establish Avicenna Ibn Sina (c. 980–1037), the most influential philosopher-physician of the Islamic Golden Age as the prince of all medicine; and they admit everything he wrote as true without any examination of reason, so much so that one might not undeservedly deplore the human lot, which for so many centuries has been endangered in a marvelous way under the decrees of Avicenna. I hold that Galen and Hippocrates were the first and highest; that one must always weigh their opinions, not merely count them; that these Greeks were the inventors, while the Arabs were the aggregators A term implying they compiled and synthesized existing knowledge rather than discovering new natural principles; that the Greeks were observers of nature and the works of art, while the others were observers of the books written by those Greeks. This is not to detract from their reliability: for Avicenna made himself the interpreter of Galen, and for Rhazes Abu Bakr al-Razi (c. 865–925), a Persian polymath and physician, the words of Galen are held as reason itself: Galen holds the same place for him as Pythagoras held among his own disciples Referring to the "Ipse dixit" (He himself said it) authority where the master's word is final and beyond question..

Decorative drop cap 'N' featuring foliate designs and a small figure or bird-like shape within a square frame.Now we must come to the testimonies of the Latin writers. They first bring forward Antonius Musa A famous Roman physician who was famously rewarded for curing the Emperor Augustus of a dangerous illness using cold baths., the physician of Augustus...