Money question: Ancient Rome AD 160- early 200s

[guy]

(Anyway, not so different from a Navy surgeon at Trafalgar)

 

Well said. Medicine had improved little over the intervening 1600 years from Galen's time.

 

Here's some other information I found while researching Galen:

 

Military Valetudinarium

 

Military hospital

First priority was sanitation

Emphasis on sewage and waste removal, running water, and good ventilation

Buildings were a double row of rooms separated by a corridor and arranged around a courtyard

 

http://tribus.bonn.de/roemlag/sache/rlvale.htm

 

Military Medical Corps 27 BCE

Formed by Emperor Augustus

First permanent and professional corps pf physicians and surgeons, hygiene officers, and bandagers (capsarii)

Physicians given land grants, dignified titles, special retirement gifts such as exemptions from certain taxes and civil duties

Medical personal trained and qualified by military schools

 

Battlefield injuries required the knowledge of tourniquets, arterial clamps, and ligatures to stem blood flow, as well as amputation to prevent gangrene.

Prevented battlefield epidemics by placing forts away from insect infested swamps and installed drains to transport sewage away from the camp.

[Lost_Warrior]

Some of those military physicians were undoubtedly among the best of the best regarding global pre-Renaissance surgery.

 

Agreed! I'm especially impressed by the use of smaller and smaller stuffing in the wound, in order to force it to heal from the inside out, instead of the outside in.

 

Marcus does mention infection, and I think that may be a bit of modern knowledge slipping in there, because I didn't think that Romans were much aware of how "infection" worked. But the practice of not allowing a wound to heal from the outside in is sound.

 

The probe makes me squirm, however. Especially when you remember that this would have been done with no anesthetic.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Regarding this thread's original question:

I read somewhere that Galen, Rome's "celebrity physician," was paid 400 gold coins for a single operation (15X the standard rate typically charged for the same procedure). Galen practiced in Rome from the early AD 160s to sometime around 200.

 

This doesn't seem correct or possible to me.

 

Any thoughts? And how much would this be in relation to a worker's daily wages?

 

Thanks ahead of time,

 

guy also known as gaius

I found in Galen's The Best Physician Is Also a Philosopher:

"A man cannot care for science and money both".

 

In the same book, Galen described Hippocrates, the ideal physician (who deserves emulation but does not receive it from the ignorant, grasping, and lazv physicians of Galen's day) as limiting his concern for wealth to avoiding hunger,thirst, and cold.

 

His Hippocrates would pay no attention to Artaxerxes and Perdiccas (that is, royalty and its retinue). He will heal the poor

in Kranon, Thasos, and other small towns. He will leave his students to care for the people in Cos, while he himself will

wander everywhere to observe all Hellas.

 

Besides, Galen frequently and openly denounced other physicians' economic abuse.

 

So I would conclude that the original unsourced quotation from GG is almost certainly apocryphal.

[guy]

ASCLEPIADES said:

Besides, Galen frequently and openly denounced other physicians' economic abuse.

 

So I would conclude that the original unsourced quotation from GG is almost certainly apocryphal.

 

You may be right, but here is the footnote from Doctors and Diseases in the Roman Empire, by Ralph Jackson, 1988:

 

J. Benedum, 'Titos Staltilos Kriton', Clio Medica (1972) 7, 249-58; Galen, XIV 641-7K; Smith 1979, 84; Nutton 1986, 35-36.

 

Very few people have studied even a majorty of Galen's works still available and Nutton is a very respected authority on medicine in the Ancient World. I am willing to accept Nutton's work...although you might be correct.

 

Edited March 27, 2022 by guy

[ASCLEPIADES]

Besides, Galen frequently and openly denounced other physicians' economic abuse.

 

So I would conclude that the original unsourced quotation from GG is almost certainly apocryphal.

 

You may be right, but here is the footnote from Doctors and Diseases in the Roman Empire, by Ralph Jackson, 1988:

 

J. Benedum, 'Titos Staltilos Kriton', Clio Medica (1972) 7, 249-58; Galen, XIV 641-7K; Smith 1979, 84; Nutton 1986, 35-36.

 

Very few people have studied even a majorty of Galen's works still available and Nutton is a very respected authority on medicine in the Ancient World. I am willing to accept Nutton's work...although you might be correct.

 

 

guy also known as gaius

Gratiam habeo, GG... but you actually didn

Edited November 15, 2008 by ASCLEPIADES

[ASCLEPIADES]

BTW, at leasr on the web, it seems most referrence to Galen's "four hundred gold pieces" go back to this unsourced statement from the excelent website of Michael Lahanas:

 

" His most famous diagnosis was that of

[guy]

BTW, at leasr on the web, it seems most referrence to Galen's "four hundred gold pieces" go back to this unsourced statement from the excelent website of Michael Lahanas:

 

 

Please note that:

 

1.- We don't know who said this (not even second-hand).

 

2.- Almost certainly it was not said by Galen, the main and almost only source for his biographical data.

 

 

That doesn't mean that the quotation is false; but as any other quotation, we should check the original source and the way it came to us for being able to make the right assessment.

 

I appreciate your rigorous attention to sources. Too often, many professional writers and speakers ignore the sources of their information and fail to critically analyze them, resulting from sloppy or inaccurate research. (Too often, our newspaper and television reporters have also been guilty of this. There have been many examples of poor journalism during this recent election cycle in the United States.) We must, therefore, challenge much of what we hear and read, not failing to ask "what are the sources" and "were they properly translated."

 

Much of Galen

[ASCLEPIADES]

Much of Galen

[M. Porcius Cato]

BTW, we have a Casanova-like paradox regarding Galen; the volume of their works doesn't seem compatible with an active laboral life; ie if they both wrote all those books, at what time did they do all the stuff they manifest having been done?

 

Good question!!

[guy]

Let me see if I got this straight; the wording and syntax of the original opening quote of this thread (ie the 400 gold coins fee phrase) reveal that this was a third-party indirect statement ("it has been said...").

Then, whoever might have said this, it was not Galen; and if it was Kuhn (???) he was not quoting Galen; a luck for us as we don't need to check out those 3,000,000 plus Greek, Arabic & Latin words to deduce that.

 

This information is from the work of Vivian Nutton. This is not a direct quote from Galen, only information derived from Nutton's studying his works. I have referenced Galen's work, also. Then again, you may be right and she may be wrong.

 

From the few Galenic texts I have been to review, my own impression is that Galen tended to use the high fees from other contemporary unfriendly physicians againt them; then, boasting from his own high fees would have been self-contradictory and even detrimental for his own goals.

 

Although brilliant, Galen was a pedantic, dogmatic and vindictive man who made many enemies as he ingratiated himself with the rich and powerful of Roman society. Galen should not be considered a self-sacrifing, altruistic humanitarian. He was not pressured to leave Rome early in his career because he was too nice. (He was later called back by Marcus Aurelius to help at the plague ravaged battlefront and to care for his son Commodus.) If I find the time, I will search for the anecdote where Galen admits to reporting a potential rival to the authorities for fabricated rumours of poisoning. The poor man lost his career and possibly his life.

 

BTW, we have a Casanova-like paradox regarding Galen; the volume of their works doesn't seem compatible with an active laboral life; ie if they both wrote all those books, at what time did they do all the stuff they manifest having been done?

 

To quote Ralph Jackson from his excellent book Doctors and Diseases in the Roman Empire:

 

"...by his own account Galen spent most of his inherited wealth on books and scribes. The latter were required as amanuenses [transcriptionists], for Galen's vast literary output was due in large part to his method of composition. He did not write but dictated his work, quoting other medical authors at some length as a basis from which to develop the results of his own research and expound his own theories."

 

Galen had a long and productive career as a physician, possibly for more than 50 years. He wrote three million words over a lifetime. That calculates to 60,000 words a year. Assume he worked only 300 days a year and that calculates to 200 words a day. That number is very believable.

 

guy also known as gaius

[ASCLEPIADES]

WOW; excellent post , GG

[This information is from the work of Vivian Nutton. This is not a direct quote from Galen, only information derived from Nutton's studying his works. I have referenced Galen's work, also. Then again, you may be right and she may be wrong.

Although brilliant, Galen was a pedantic, dogmatic and vindictive man who made many enemies as he ingratiated himself with the rich and powerful of Roman society. Galen should not be considered a self-sacrifing, altruistic humanitarian. He was not pressured to leave Rome early in his career because he was too nice. (He was later called back by Marcus Aurelius to help at the plague ravaged battlefront and to care for his son Commodus.) If I find the time, I will search for the anecdote where Galen admits to reporting a potential rival to the authorities for fabricated rumours of poisoning. The poor man lost his career and possibly his life.

 

I still can't see where did Dr Nutton and I contradict each other; I just considered unlikely that Galen had ever required a fee as high as "400 coins of gold".

It seems you never read Dr Nutton stating the opposite.

 

To quote Ralph Jackson from his excellent book Doctors and Diseases in the Roman Empire:

 

"...by his own account Galen spent most of his inherited wealth on books and scribes. The latter were required as amanuenses [transcriptionists], for Galen's vast literary output was due in large part to his method of composition. He did not write but dictated his work, quoting other medical authors at some length as a basis from which to develop the results of his own research and expound his own theories."

 

Galen had a long and productive career as a physician, possibly for more than 50 years. He wrote three million words over a lifetime. That calculates to 60,000 words a year. Assume he worked only 300 days a year and that calculates to 200 words a day. That number is very believable.

 

guy also known as gaius

Jackson figures are incredibly optimistic:

 

He assumed Galen never lost even a single page and that he didn't require editing or reviewing even a single word.

 

Jackson doesn't considered the time required for research and verification; Galen checked on all the available medical and philosophical literature of his time; eg. he quoted many Hippocratical texts written some seven centuries before.

 

(BTW, I'm sure that by now you're very well aware of this caveat, as Galen didn't have Internet).

 

But fundamentally, Jackson seems to consider that any successful Roman physician didn't have anything else to do but to write across half a century, being him travelling or taking care of the gladiators; not to talk about experimentation.

 

Finally, I understand 3,000,000 words is an estimation for what we currently have from him; we have evidence of many other lost works from Galen.

Edited November 19, 2008 by ASCLEPIADES

[guy]

(BTW, I'm sure that by now you're very well aware of this caveat, as Galen didn't have Internet).

 

But fundamentally, Jackson seems to consider that any successful Roman physician didn't have anything else to do but to write across half a century, being him travelling or taking care of the gladiators; not to talk about experimentation.

 

Finally, I understand 3,000,000 words is an estimation for what we currently have from him; we have evidence of many other lost works from Galen.

 

Galen really was a prolific author. He composed his first medical works as only a teenager: Diagnosis and Diseases of the Eye, On the Best Sect, and On the Anatomy of the Uterus. As much as 2/3 of his works have been lost and much of the surviving works have not been made available to English readers.

 

Here is an interesting source for information about the works of Galen:

 

http://www.bium.univ-paris5.fr/histmed/medica/galien_va.htm

 

(Click on the Books list near his picture to see some of of his works)

 

guy also known as gaius

[ASCLEPIADES]

Galen really was a prolific author. He composed his first medical works as only a teenager: Diagnosis and Diseases of the Eye, On the Best Sect, and On the Anatomy of the Uterus. As much as 2/3 of his works have been lost and much of the surviving works have not been made available to English readers.

 

Here is an interesting source for information about the works of Galen:

 

http://www.bium.univ-paris5.fr/histmed/medica/galien_va.htm

 

(Click on the Books list near his picture to see some of of his works)

 

guy also known as gaius

Merci pour cette b