Castigationes seu Emendationes

On the Sects of Physicians

logic and method, and to each the name of experience. But the Methodic original: "Methodica," a sect that emphasized simple general principles over individual pathology sect has fallen out of use.

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Dogmatists are those physicians who possess their own decrees or principles original: "decreta seu placita", without which no sect can stand. Galen Claudius Galenus, a 2nd-century physician whose work dominated Western medicine for 1,500 years approves of these most of all. Since Hippocrates, Diocles of Carystus, and Erasistratus followed the logical school original: "logicē hæresin," from the Greek for "choice" or "school of thought"—that is, the rational and dogmatic sect—two dogmatists in particular are held in the highest honor: Hippocrates and Galen. Hippocrates of Cos flourished at Athens in the time of Artaxerxes King of Persia, 5th century BCE, and he brought into the light those things which had been passed down by the ancients wrapped in obscure parables. Galen, however, as Suidas The Suda, a massive 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient world testifies, lived under Marcus Antoninus The text says "Marco Antonio," but refers to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Commodus, and Aelius Pertinax. Now, the gods being willing, we shall review in order the errors of pharmacists and of more recent physicians; and first, those things which pertain to the knowledge of herbs and materia medica Latin for "medical material," the study of the properties of natural substances used for healing. For unless one possesses an exact knowledge of these things, it will happen that some remedies are administered in place of others.

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Empiricists placed the practice of medicine only in use and in experiments, just as...