The greatest writer on
medicine of the
Roman period, and the personal
physician to his friend
Marcus Aurelius and subsequent
emperors. Claudius Galenus was a Greek, born about 130 at
Pergamum in
Mysia, and he studied medicine at
Smyrna,
Corinth, and
Alexandria. He died around 200, perhaps in Sicily.
Eighty-three of his treatises still exist, plus fifteen commentaries on Hippocrates. He also wrote on many other subjects, such as philosophy, grammar, and comedy; most of these are lost.
He was the first to use the pulse for diagnosis.