44/93
[ stop the slideshow ]

Illustrating Galen’s physiological teaching

Reduce slideshow speed Increase slideshow speed Do not repeat slideshow Previous Pause slideshow Next
Illustrating Galen’s physiological teaching.jpg Lioness and young, from an Ionian vase of the sixth century B. CThumbnailsAchilles bandaging Patroclus,Lioness and young, from an Ionian vase of the sixth century B. CThumbnailsAchilles bandaging Patroclus,Lioness and young, from an Ionian vase of the sixth century B. CThumbnailsAchilles bandaging Patroclus,Lioness and young, from an Ionian vase of the sixth century B. CThumbnailsAchilles bandaging Patroclus,Lioness and young, from an Ionian vase of the sixth century B. CThumbnailsAchilles bandaging Patroclus,Lioness and young, from an Ionian vase of the sixth century B. CThumbnailsAchilles bandaging Patroclus,Lioness and young, from an Ionian vase of the sixth century B. CThumbnailsAchilles bandaging Patroclus,

The basic principle of life, in the Galenic physiology, is a spirit, anima or pneuma, drawn from the general world-soul in the act of respiration. It enters the body through the rough artery (τραχεῖα ἀρτηρία, arteria aspera of mediaeval notation), the organ known to our nomenclature as the trachea. From this trachea the pneuma passes to the lung and then, through the vein-like artery (ἀρτηρία φλεβώδης, arteria venalis of mediaeval writers, the pulmonary vein of our nomenclature), to the left ventricle. Here it will be best to leave it for a moment and trace the vascular system along a different route.