Wow! eBook
Galen on Human Physiology: Taking the Body Apart and Putting it Back Together Again
Author(s): Aistė Čelkytė (Author)
- Publisher: Cambridge University Press
- Publication Date: October 2, 2025
- Language: English
- Print length: 258 pages
- ISBN-10: 1009435817
- ISBN-13: 9781009435819
Book Description
Galen of Pergamum, known as ‘the prince of medicine’, is an important figure not only for the history of medicine but also for ancient philosophy, history of ideas and cultural history. In this book, Aistė Čelkytė explores Galenic physiology and examines how this highly influential figure theorised the unity of the multi-part, ever-moving and ever-changing human body. She approaches this question by first studying how Galen ‘takes the body apart’, that is, the different divisions of the body into parts that he proposes, and then how he ‘puts it back together’, that is, his use of philosophical tools to posit the vital unity among these parts. She then looks at Galen’s theorisation of human nature, his understanding of parthood, the hierarchies between the parts that underpin vital functions, the ‘mechanisms’ that make the body one, and Galen’s understanding of the body as a multifaceted but unified whole.
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
An innovative study of Galen of Pergamum’s physiological theories, especially his understanding of the vital unity of the human body.
About the Author
Aistė Čelkytė is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) at Leiden University and a researcher at Vilnius University. She is the author of The Stoic Theory of Beauty (2020).
