was at the time when to deny Galen meant to follow Paracelsus, and the contest was fiercer just then than at any time before or since.
Galen was born at Pergamos, in Asia Minor, A.D. 131, and died in the same city between A.D. 200 and 210. His father was an architect of considerable fortune, and the son was at first destined to be a philosopher, but while he was going through his courses of logic, Nicon (the father) was advised in a dream to direct the youth's studies in the direction of medicine. It will be seen directly that Galen's career was a good deal influenced by dreams.
Nothing was spared to obtain for the youth the best education available, though his father died when he was 21. After exhausting the Pergamos teachers, Galen studied at Smyrna, Corinth, and Alexandria. Then he travelled for some years through Cilicia, Phœnicia, Palestine, Scyros, and the Isles of Crete and Cyprus. He commenced practice at Pergamos when he was 29 and was appointed Physician to the School of Gladiators in that city. At 33 he removed to Rome and soon acquired the confidence and friendship of many distinguished persons, among them Septimus Severus, the Consul and afterwards Emperor, Sergius Paulus, the Prætor, the uncle of the reigning Emperor, Lucius Verus, many of whom he cured of various illnesses.
His success caused bitter jealousy among the other Greek physicians then practising in Rome. They called him Paradoxologos, and Logiatros, which meant that he was a boaster and a master of phrases. It appears that he was able to hold his own in this wordy warfare. Some of his opponents he described as Asses of Thessaly, and he also made allegations against their competence and probity. However, he quitted Rome in the year
