Galen was probably the greatest medical writer of antiquity and certainly the most prolific. His Anatomical Procedures (c. 200 CE) embodies the results of a lifetime of practical research; it is largely based on verbatim notes of lectures delivered during actual demonstrations of dissection. The work comprises fifteen books, of which only the first eight-and-a-half have survived in the original Greek. An Arabic translation of the complete work has survived, however, and this has made possible the translation of the final six-and-a-half books (parts of book 9 and books 10-15). Duckworth's translation was originally made from a German translation of 1906, but for this 1962 edition it was revised by Lyons, working directly from the Arabic text, with the co-operation of Towers. Modern names for the parts of the body are inserted in brackets, and an anatomical index is supplied.

Galen was probably the greatest medical writer of antiquity and certainly the most prolific. His Anatomical Procedures (c. 200 CE) embodies the results of a lifetime of practical research; it is largely based on verbatim notes of lectures delivered during actual demonstrations of dissection. The work comprises fifteen books, of which only the first eight-and-a-half have survived in the original Greek. An Arabic translation of the complete work has survived, however, and this has made possible the translation of the final six-and-a-half books (parts of book 9 and books 10-15). Duckworth's translation was originally made from a German translation of 1906, but for this 1962 edition it was revised by Lyons, working directly from the Arabic text, with the co-operation of Towers. Modern names for the parts of the body are inserted in brackets, and an anatomical index is supplied.