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Article ID: CBB497708482

Bodily Fluids (‘Humours’) and Flavours in Galen’s Simple Medicines (2020)

Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences
Volume: 70
Issue: 184-185
Pages: 54-75
Publication date: 2020
Language: English

URI: https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/abs/10.1484/J.ARIHS.5.122781

DOI: 10.1484/J.ARIHS.5.122781

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Pharmacology Therapeutic practice; therapy; treatment Medicine and literature Bodily fluids Humoralism Human body Taste; gustatory perception Smell; olfactory perception Materia medica Ancient Rome (Italy) Galen

Galen sets out his understanding of how drugs work in the first five books of Simple Medicines. Drugs change the body, in contrast with foods which maintain its state. The principal agents of change are the qualities hot, cold, wet and dry, which combine into mixtures. Galen argues that few drugs are simple in fact, their qualities being modified by flavours such as astringency and bitterness and also by their texture, which may be based on finer or thicker particles. Deploying these mechanisms over familiar liquids such as water and olive oil, Galen shows how they are rarely “simply” cold or hot, specifically when used for medical purposes on the mixtures of the human body rather than across the natural world. A whole book is devoted to flavours and smells, and another to the treatment of particular conditions. These five introductory books give a striking theoretical underpinning to the following six books of drug catalogues.

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Article Matteo Martelli; Caroline Petit; Lucia Raggetti (2020) Introduction. New Perspectives on Galen’s Treatise On Simple Drugs and the History of Pharmacology. Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences (pp. 6-15). unapi

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