The Prince of Medicine: Galen in the Roman Empire - Hardcover

Susan P. Mattern

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199605459 ISBN 13: 9780199605453

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2013

Synopsis

Galen of Pergamum, court physician to the family of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, was the most influential figure in western medicine until the 20th century. In the first biography of Galen in English, Mattern examines his prodigious corpus of philosophical and medical treatises to paint a portrait of a shameless self-publicist who could be arrogant and fiercely competitive but was also relentless in his pursuit of cures and an advocate of rigorous observation and experimentation.

About this title

About the Author:

Susan P. Mattern is Professor of History at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. She is the author of a number of books on the ancient world, including Rome and the Enemy: Imperial Strategy in the Principate (1999), Galen and the Rhetoric of Healing (2008), and (as co-author) The Ancient Mediterranean World from the Stone Age to A.D. 600 (2004, also published by Oxford University Press). Aside from her professional interests in classical history, she enjoys rock climbing and yoga, and lives in Athens, Georgia with her two children.

Review:

In sum, this book is an excellent recourse not only for scholars of Galen, but also for casual readers, undergraduates, and anyone interested in Greek medicine and the culture of the roman period. Sophia Xenophontos, Latomus Susan Mattern's 2008 monograph Galen and the Rhetoric of Healing provided scholars with stimulating perspectives on Roman society, based on the numerous case histories related in Galen's works ... all sections of this book, are lucid and well investigated. Scholars who are not familiar with Mattern's earlier work on Galen, and students of the history of any period and at all levels, will profit greatly from this book. Christina Kokkinia, Sehepunkte A competent, confident and frequently fascinating biography. The Spectator [A] scholarly, gripping and often gory biography. Andrew Robinson, History Today Having read this scholarly, gripping, and often gory biography, one appreciates, exquisitely, the author's conclusion that Galen, though "not necessarily a good man", could still be "a good doctor". The Lancet

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0199605459
• ISBN 13: 9780199605453
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 358