green numbers give full details | back to texts | unexpand this idea
| 7453 | Galen's medicine followed the mean; each illness was balanced by opposite treatment |
| Full Idea: Galen ran medicine on the principle of the mean; afflictions must be treated by contraries; hot diseases deserve cold medicine and moist illnesses want drying agents. (Paracelsus rebelled, treating through similarity). | |||
| From: report of Galen (On Medical Experience [c.169]) by Ian Hacking - The Emergence of Probability Ch.5 | |||
| A reaction: This must be inherited from Aristotle, with the aim of virtue for the body, as Aristotle wanted virtue for the psuché. In some areas Galen is probably right, that natural balance is the aim, as in bodily temperature control. |