able desiccative power to it. When drunk, therefore, it agrees
with affections of the spleen."[25]

Many features, however, of Galen's teaching and practice of therapeutics
are worthy of praise. He enunciated two fundamental principles: (1) That
disease is something contrary to Nature, and is to be overcome by that
which is contrary "to the disease itself"; and (2) that Nature is to be
preserved by what has relation with Nature. He recognized that while the
invading disease was to be repelled, the strength and constitution of
the patient should be preserved, and that in all cases the cause of the
disease was to be treated and not the symptoms. Strong remedies should
not be used on weak patients.

VI.--SURGERY.

Galen conformed to the custom of the physicians in Rome, and did not
practise surgery to any extent, although he used the lancet in
phlebotomy, and defended this practice against the followers of
Erasistratus in Rome. He is said to have resected a portion of the
sternum for caries, and also to have ligatured the temporal artery.[26]

VII.--GYNAECOLOGY.

Galen had little more than a superficial knowledge of this subject, and
was quite ignorant of the surgery of diseases of women. He was not so
well informed as Soranus was as to the anatomy of the uterus and its
appendages, but deserves credit for having been better acquainted with
the anatomy of the Fallopian tubes than his predecessors. He had
erroneous views on the causation of displacements of the uterus. Several
of the books inaccurately attributed to the authorship of Galen deal
with the medical treatment of various minor ailments of women.

Galen was a man of wide culture, and one of his essays is written for
the purpose of urging physicians to become acquainted with other
branches of knowledge besides medicine. As a philosopher he has been
quoted in company with Plato and Aristotle, and his philosophical
writings were greatly used by Arabic authors. In philosophy, as in
medicine, he had studied the teachings of the various schools of
thought, and did not bind himself to any sect in particular. He
disagreed with the Sceptics in their belief that no such thing as
certainty was attainable, and it was his custom in cases of extreme
difficulty to suspend his judgment; for instance, in reference to the
nature of the soul, he wrote that he had not been able to come to a
definite opinion.

Galen mentions the discreditable conduct of physicians at consul