Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus, often anglicized as Galen or Galen of Pergamon, was a Roman and Greek physician, surgeon, and philosopher. Considered to be one of the most accomplished of all medi
A 17th-century engraving by Georg P. Busch
An interpretation of Galen's human "physiological system"
Modern statue of Galen in his home town, Pergamon
A group of physicians in an image from the Vienna Dioscurides; Galen is depicted top center.
Humorism, the humoral theory, or humoralism, was a system of medicine detailing a supposed makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers.
Galen
…of personal physician to several emperors. Galen's understanding of anatomy and medicine was principally influenced by the contemporary theory of the four humors: black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm, as first advanced by the author of On the Nature of Man in the Hippocratic corpus. Galen's views dominated…
16th-century German illustration of the four humors: Flegmat (phlegm), Sanguin (blood), Coleric (yellow bile) and Melanc (black bile), divided between the male and female sexes
The four humors as depicted in an 18th-century woodcut: phlegmatic, choleric, sanguine and melancholic