Galen Of Pergamum Essay

The concept of anatomy, has improved drastically over the past millenniums, thanks to the brilliant minds of such great philosophers, botanists, mathematicians, doctors, scientists, naturists, chemists and even conquistadors. The overall topic of human circulation can be summed up with the help of nine of these great minds, including Galen, Vesalius, Harvey, Withering, Nafis, Servetus, Columbo, da Vinci and Fabrici.

Galen of Pergamum was a Roman philosopher and practising physician who was prominent around the time of his lifespan. (129 – 217 AD) His most well-known discovery is the ‘Theory of Opposites’ concept, which was conceived around Hippocrates ‘Four Humours’ idea. This soon turned out to be wrong, but this was proved well after his death. Galen’s authority was so high that no doctor dared challenge him on any of his theories, up until Andreas Vesalius did at around 1534 AD. It was found out by Vesulius that his theories were cemented by his dissection of Barbary Apes, as dissection on humans was illegal at that period of time.

Andreas Vesulius, was a Belgian-Roman Catholic anatomist. He was born on the 31st of December 1514 and died on the 15 October

He was born on the 17th of March, 1741 and died on the 6th of October 1799. He was well-known for discovering the plant and flower ‘digitalis’ or ‘foxglove’, which he then took extracts from and used it to help treat ‘dropsy’, or Edema. He is relevant to helping refine our perception of circulation thanks to these extracts of foxglove, as Dropsy is diagnosed when there is a fault with the circulation of the heart, causing skin to swell up and then suffer from congestive heart failure later. He was well-known to associate his remedies with Charles Darwin, but they became estranged after a vicious argument. His contributions to circulation are vital as extracts of foxglove are still used to treat congestive heart failure still do this