Papavramidou, Niki

Medicine in the Medieval Mediterranean Ser. : Galen's Treatises on the Pulses:Translation Commentary and Greek Text

This book presents the first English translation of four of Galen's treatises on the pulses, based on the work of Professor Robert Montraville Green, now revised and provided with full annotation, introduction, and a facing-page Greek text. These treatises constitute a major contribution to the science of cardiology, the first complete such work in the history of medical literature. In the literary field, the language he is using is distinctive and eloquent. For the history of medicine, these treatises set the foundations for the later broadly used Byzantine medical practice of sphygmology. According to Galen himself, the four treatises on the pulses "pertain equally both to physicians and to philosophers".