Cutting Words - Polemical Dimensions of Galen's Anatomical Experiments

Luis Alejandro Salas, Ph.D. (2013), University of Texas at Austin, is Assistant Professor of Classics at Washington University in St. Louis. His main research interests lie in ancient Greek and Roman medicine, philosophy, and intellectual history. He has published on Galen’s theory and classification of disease, as well as his systems of anatomy and physiology.

"This book breaks new ground and in greater detail than other recent scholarship [...] Dr Salas sets a high standard for the wider survey of Galenic anatomy in general that is still needed, and for which he is eminently qualified."- Vivian Nutton, in: Annals of Science, published online 25-2-2021."L.A. Salas’ Cutting Words: Polemical Dimensions of Galen’s Anatomical Experiments presents a much-needed elucidation of Galenic anatomy and Galenic anatomical writing. By carefully contextualizing the accounts of Galenic anatomical experiments, this study shows that the Galenic anatomical texts are evocative of public dissections which were spectacles designed to establish the performer’s authority, to demonstrate his technical acumen and, oftentimes, to reduce any rivals to shame. (...) this book is a very welcome addition to the Galenic scholarship. (...) In order to appreciate the medical work presented in such an unusual style to the contemporary eye, it is necessary to have a guide for contextualizing, clarifying and elucidating the complex style of writing. This book is exactly such a guide."- Aistė Čelkytė, Leiden University, in: Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2021.06.38."This excellent book covers a great deal of territory chronologically, epistemologically as wellas in terms of cultural theory and ancient history in the best sense of the expression – a roundedunderstanding of ancient intellectual and social life at the time of Galen and in the precedingcenturies. It is committed to an idea of deep embedment of scientific cultures and practices intocontext (intellectual, socio-economical, heuristic, scientific) and makes an important effort touncover the dialogue between Galenic scientific doctrines and philosophical arguments, on theone hand, and, on the other hand, the written tradition – past, present and future – qua written,into which the famous physician carefully crafts a position for himself." - Chiara Thumiger, The Classical Review (2021) 1–3.

• AcknowledgementsAbbreviationsIntroduction1 Experiment and Experimental Writing1 A World of Text2 Demonstration: Instruction and Display3 The Physical Spaces of Public and Private Medical Performances4 Public and Private Demonstrations in Writing5 Antiquarianism and Galen’s Doxographical Polemics2 Galen and Agonistic Anatomical Demonstration1 Credentialing and the Medical Marketplace2 Rome and the Centrality of Public Display3 Anatomical Procedures4 Agonism and Invasive Anatomical Display5 Prepared Extemporaneity6 The Intercostal Nerves7 Galen’s Experiments on the Ureters and Ureterovesical Valves8 The Implicit Contest with Alexander3 Magnification and the Elephant1 Magnification and Analogy2 Analogy, Classification, and the Ancient Anatomical Tradition3 Elephants4 Aristotle, Teleology, and the Elephant’s Trunk5 Teleology, Humoralism, and the Elephant’s Gallbladder6 Analogy and Teleology7 Aristotle and Surrogate Targets4 Fighting with the Heart of a Beast: Galen’s Use of the Elephant’s Cardiac Anatomy against Cardiocentrists1 The Os Cordis2 The Agōn over the Heart3 Galen’s Engagement with Aristotle4 Galen’s Teleology and Cardiac Structure5 It Is Difficult Not to Write Anatomy: Galen on Erasistratus and the Arteries1 Maryllus the Mime-Writer and the Value of Anatomical Experience2 Claims of Knowledge and Refutations of Ignorance3 Compulsion of the Truth and the Anatomy of Deception4 A Polemic in Four Parts6 Galen and the Experiment on the Femoral Artery1 The Femoral Artery Experiment2 Capacities and Their Explanatory Powers3 Galen on the Simultaneous Movement of the Arteries4 Arterial Breathing and Pulmonary Respiration5 The Movement of the Blood6 Irrigation of the Body7 The Motile Properties of Blood and Pneuma8 The Femoral Artery Experiment in Its Galenic Context7 Drawing Blood: Galen’s Use of the Arterial Experiment against Erasistratus1 Praxagoras and Some Rough Beginnings2 Pneuma3 Herophilus and an Emerging Tradition4 The Simultaneous Action of Arterial and Cardiac Movement5 Transpiration and the Arteries’ Attraction of Material from All Around6 Erasistratus and Mechanism7 Erasistratus and Void8 Erasistratus, the Bird, and the Bear9 Erasistratus and the Femoral Artery Experiment8 De Galeni corporis fabrica: Writing Galen and the Greek Past in Vesalius’ Fabrica1 Books and Book Production2 Vesalius’ Appropriation of Galen’s Polemical StrategiesConclusionBibliographyIndex