Het leven is lang

Abstract

Galen’s rich body of work took on many shapes and meanings for scholars working in hospitals, noble courts, schools and monasteries from the Far East to Western Europe, as they studied, translated, copied, compiled, commented on, summarized, quoted, cited, rearranged, argued about, expounded and expanded upon it for centuries. The predominant narratives around the reception of Galen portray the seventeenth century as the crucial period in which his legacy started to be replaced by modern science. Situating this Early Modern period within the long and complex history of Galen’s reception, we find evolution and continuity in the theory and practice of medicine rather than revolution, and thorough reassessment of Galen’s legacy rather than wholesale rejection of it. We can appreciate that it lives on still in our current day expectations of good medicine and proper physicians.