It can be tempting, amid the chaos of modern life, to look backwards – to yearn for simpler times when smartphones didn’t exist and no one had ever uttered the word “microplastics”. Some turn to Freud, others to the stoics. For one week, I turned to one of the most famous physicians of the ancient world: Galen.
A second-century Greco-Roman physician and philosopher, Galen served as court physician to Marcus Aurelius’s son Commodus. He was also a prolific writer (his texts account for an estimated 10% of all existing Greek literature from before AD350) whose theories shaped western medicine for more than 1,000 years. Now, some of his most significant texts have been collected in the new book How to Be Healthy: An Ancient Guide to Wellness.
