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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 September 2008
I use the term 'philosophy of nature' in a broad sense, to include most of the topics which would have belonged in the Hellenistic category of physics; because, although Galen was a physician rather than a physicist, he was far from being merely a doctor. Indeed, he considered it to be impossible to be a successful doctor without a thorough grounding in all of the then canonical branches of philosophy, namely logic, physics and ethics (see The Best Doctor is also a Philosopher [Opt.Med.] 1 53-63, = SM 2, 1-8). And this was no mere genuflection towards philosophy: this commitment is repeated, and its genuineness exemplified, on countless occasions throughout his works.
ELEMENTS, QUALITIES AND BODIES
Galen attributes the notion that proper medical practice requires serious physical knowledge to Hippocrates:
He thought that one should have a precise understanding of the nature of the body, saying that this was the source [or principle: archê] of the whole heory of medicine. (Opt.Med. I 54, = SM 2, 1,11–13)
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