Galen and the rhetoric of healing /

Mattern (Univ. of Georgia) has collected 358 patient histories from Galen's massive corpus of medical treatises. She examines these encounters to discover where Galen met his patients (usually in their homes) and to identify categories of patients: men, women, slaves, peasants, and people suffering from old age (a disease in Galen's medical system). Mattern emphasizes that patient encounters took on a competitive nature as Galen confronted rival physicians who recommended different and, according to Galen, dangerous therapies. She stresses that the agonistic tone of such encounters reflected the competitive nature of civic life in a Greco-Roman polis. Mattern includes a catalog of all 358 cases, a summary that will prove invaluable to researchers interested in Galen's treatment of specific ailments--for example, leprosy. The author, however, avoids attaching any scientific value to Galen's descriptions. Summarizing what Galen sought in his patient encounters, Mattern maintains that the renowned physician desired, first, approval from the patient and his household, and second, power to command both the sick person and his slaves. She never considers that both Galen and his medical rivals might have been seeking the truth about the natural world. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students/faculty. T. S. Miller Salisbury University