| Transcribers Note: References to footnotes in text and footnotes followingpage numbers are the originalfootnote numbers while superscripted referencesrefer to the reindexed footnote numbers. The cover image was created by the transcriber andis placed in the public domain. |
GALEN |
PREFACE
The text used is (with a few unimportant modifications) that ofKühn (Vol. II), as edited by Georg Helmreich; Teubner,Leipzig, 1893. The numbers of the pages of Kühn’s edition areprinted at the side of the Greek text, a parallel mark (||) in theline indicating the exact point of division between Kühn’spages.
Words in the English text which are enclosed in square bracketsare supplementary or explanatory; practically all explanations,however, are relegated to the footnotes or introduction. In thefootnotes, also, attention is drawn to words which are ofparticular philological interest from the point of view of modernmedicine.
I have made the translation directly from the Greek; wherepassages of special difficulty occurred, I have been able tocompare my own version with Linacre’s Latin translation (1523) andthe French rendering of Charles Daremberg (1854-56); in thisrespect I am also peculiarly fortunate in having had the help ofMr. A. W. Pickard Cambridge of Balliol College, Oxford, who mostkindly went through the Pg vi proofs and made many valuable suggestionsfrom the point of view of exact scholarship.
My best thanks are due to the Editors for their courtesy and forthe kindly interest they have taken in the work. I have alsogratefully to acknowledge the receipt of much assistance andencouragement from Sir William Osler, Regius Professor of Medicineat Oxford, and from Dr. J. D. Comrie, first lecturer on the Historyof Medicine at Edinburgh University. Professor D’Arcy W. Thompsonof University College, Dundee, and Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, latedirector of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, have very kindlyhelped me to identify several animals and plants mentioned byGalen.
I cannot conclude without expressing a word of gratitude to myformer biological teachers, Professors Patrick Geddes and J. ArthurThomson. The experience reared on the foundation of their teachinghas gone far to help me in interpreting the great medical biologistof Greece.
I should be glad to think that the present work might help,however little, to hasten the coming reunion between the“humanities” and modern biological science; their presentseparation I believe to be against the best interest of both.
A. J. B.
22nd Stationary Hospital,Aldershot.
March, 1916.