¿And, if the expert is wrong? - Health Communications Ltd - Marketing Farmacéutico Agencia Creativa

¿What if the expert is wrong?

For over 1,300 years, doctors were wrong in both the West and the East

September 4 de 2024

Hippocrates (Hippocrates of Cos – 460 – 370 BC), from ancient Greece, is arguably the most famous physician in the world.

He practiced medicine during the so-called Periclean century ( a time of cultural prosperity in Athens). He is widely considered one of the most outstanding exponents in the history of medicine, and is considered the « father of medicine«. Hence the « Hippocratic oath«.

Then, 500 years later, there was another Greek physician, Galen (Claudius Galenus Nicon of Pergamon – 129 – 201/216?). But Greece had long been conquered by the Roman Empire (battle of Corinth, 146 BC).

The Romans, the hegemony of that time, despised all those who were not of their same “lineage”. For this reason, they called Galen, in a derogatory way, “ little Greek”, even though his father was a rich man.

After Galen moved to Rome, he began to have great performance and recognition as a physician, to the point of being hired to serve the elites; he even became the physician of the emperor Marcus Aurelius.

Galen made many valuable contributions to medicine, but among the most famous are his anatomy treatises, with exquisite drawings, which were reproduced throughout the West and East, even beyond the end of the Middle Ages.

In Galen’s time, the dissection of human corpses was repudiated and illegal. Therefore, his dissections and anatomical descriptions were normally carried out on animals, especially primates (apes), and he considered them very similar to humans. This « small detail» was forgotten over time.

¡More than 1,300 years passed, during which everyone followed Galen’s anatomy!

But along came Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), and he began to realize that several of the descriptions in Galen’s books did not match the direct dissections performed, now on humans, by Vesalius (Latinized).

Researching back in time, Vesalius discovered (rediscovered) that Galen’s dissections were performed on animals. Vesalius was then forced to contradict the “expert”.

Faced with this situation, Andreas Vesalius, went into a frenzy of work. The engravings and drawings of his dissections were made by the best draftsmen and illustrators in Europe.

Vesalius’ career was recognized in many places, and he was already teaching, among others, at the University of Padua between 1537 and 1543. In addition, he accompanied the kings of Spain Charles V and Philip II in their campaigns as a private physician, which allowed him to acquire exceptional knowledge of surgery. He lived many years in Spain, hence his name in Spanish (Latinized).

Being related to royalty, and also to the wealth and the most advanced knowledge of his time, allowed him to create and publish with the highest quality of his time, in 1543, his most famous work: “De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem” – (On the structure of the human body in seven books), with 273 illustrations.

Its success was immediate, marking the establishment of anatomy as a modern descriptive science.

Medicine owes much to Hippocrates and Galen. But also to Andreas Vesalius, who much to his regret, had to contradict an expert.

¡Sometimes, a great expert can be wrong!

¡One must always think and analyze!