Galen on the passions and errors of the soul Translated by Paul W . Harkins With an Introduction and Interpretation by Walther Riese For almost fifteen hundred years, Galen of Pergamum (130—ca. 200 A.D.) was the virtually undisputed authority in medical matters. He composed, it is said, nearly five hundred treatises in anatomy, physiology, and pathology, and such varied felds as logic, ethics, and grammar, as well as therapeutic and clinical works. His scientific approach to anatomy and his use of inductive reasoning in the diagnosis of disease made him the unquestioned "Prince of Physicians" until the early sixteenth century. The present volume offers for thefirsttime in English translation his two works in thefieldof "moral philosophy," an area that, in the manner in which he approaches them, makes them contributions to that part of medicine known today as psychotherapy. It was Galen's thesis that passion and moral error were diseases, but diseases of the soul and not the body, and that the physician treating a patient suffering from a "dis­ eased soul" must attack the passion or error directly and immediately—an approach that has had a profound infiuence on the subsequent treatment of mental disorder. Paul W. Harkins, professor of classical languages at Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio, is the author of "St. John Chrysostom: Baptismal Instructions" and is a frequent con­ tributor to scholarly journals. Walther Riese is emeritus associate professor of the history of medicine and neurology and psychiatry at the Medical College of Virginia. He is the author of "Principles of Neurology in the Light of History and Their Present Use"; "The Conception of Disease, Its History, Its Versions, and Its Nature"; "A History of Neurology"'; and other books, and has written numerous articles for scientific periodicals in both Europe and the United States. Designed by P. David Horton ph passions and errors of the soul on e The publication of this volume was made possible, in part, by a contribution from the Committee for Research and Advanced Study of Xavier University GALEN on the passions and errors of the soul Translated by PAUL W . HARKINS With an Introduction and Interpretation by WALTHER RIESE Ohio State University Press Copyright (c) 1963 by the Ohio State University Press All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 63-18104 CONTENTS Introduction / 1 Translator's Preface / 23 The Diagnosis and Cure of the Soul's Passions / 25 The Diagnosis and Cure of the Soul's Errors / 71 Interpretation / 109 Index / 133