Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/225

Rh GALEN us. and 1625, in five vols., with the works dividfd by ■T. Bapt. Montanus into classes, according to their subject-matter, and with the copious Index Rerura of Ant. Musa Brassavolus. Another excellent Latin edition was published by Froben, Basil. L542, fol., and reprinted in 1549 and 1561. It contains all Galen's works, in eight vols., divided into eight classes, and a ninth vol., consisting of the Indices. The reprint of 1561 is considered the most valuable, on account of Conrad Gesner's Prolegomena. The last Latin edition is that pub- lished by Vine. Valgrisins, Venet. 1562, fol. in five vols., edited by Jo. Bapt. Rasarius. Altogether (according to Choulant), a Latin version of all Galen's works was published once in the fifteenth century, twenty (or twenty-two) times in the six- teenth, and not once since. The Greek text has been published four times ; twice alone, and twice with a Latin translation. The first edition was the Aldine, published Venet. 1525, fol., in five vols., edited by Jo. Bapt. Opizo with great care, though containing numerous errors and omissions, as might be expected in so large a work. It is a handsome book, rather scarce, and much valued ; and contains the Greek text, without translation, notes, or indices. The next Greek edition was published in 1538, Basil, ap. Andr. Cratandum, fol., in five vols,, edited by L. Came- rarius, L. Fuchs, and H. Gemusaeus. The text in this edition (which, like the preceding, contains neither Latin translation, notes, nor indices) is improved by the collation of Greek MSS, and the examination of the Latin versions : the only ad- ditional work of Galen's published in this edition is a Latin translation of the treatise De Ossihus. It is a handsome book, and frequently to be met with. A very useful and neat edition, in thirteen vols. fol., was printed at Paris, and bears the date of 1679. It contains the whole of the works of Hippocrates and Galen, mixed up together, and divided into thirteen classes, according to the subject-matter. This vast work was undertaken by Rene Chartier {Renatus Charterius), a French physician, who published in 1633 (when he had al- ready passed his sixtieth year) a programme, en- titled. Index Operum Galeni quae Latinis duntaxat Typis in Lucein edita sunt^ &c., begging the loan of such Greek MSS. as he had not an opportunity of examining in the public libraries of Paris. The first volume appeared in 1639 ; but Chartier, after impoverishing himself, died in 1 654, before the work was completed : the last four volumes were published after his death, at the expense of his son-in-law, and the whole work was at length finished in 1679, forty years after it had been commenced. This edition is in every respect su- perior to those that had preceded it, and in some points to that which has followed it. It contains a Latin translation, and a few notes, and various readings : the text is divided into chapters, and is much improved by the collation of MSS. ; it con- tains several treatises in Greek and Latin not in- cluded in the preceding editions (especially De Humoribus, De Ossibus, De Septimestri Partu^ De Fasciis, De Chjderibus), several others, much en- larged by the insertion of omitted passages (espe- cially De Usu Partium, Deiinitiones Medicae, De Comate secundum Hippocraten, De Praenotione), and a large collection of fragments of Galen's lost works, extracted from various Greek and Latin writers. GALEN US. '211 It is, however, very far from what it might and ought to have been, and its critical merits are very lightly esteemed. M. Villiers published a criticism on this edition, entitled, " Lettre sur I'Edition Grecque et Latine des Oeuvres d'Hippocrate et de Galene," Paris, 1776, 4to. The latest and most commodious edition is that of C. G. Klihn, who with extraordinary boldness, at the age of sixty-four, and at a time when the old medical authors were more neglected than they are at present, ventured to put forth a specimen and a prospectus of a work so vast, that any one in the prime of life, and strength, and leisure, might well shrink from the undertaking. As this seems to be the most proper place for giving an account of Kiihn's collection, it may be stated that he de- signed to publish no less than a complete edition of all the Greek medical authors whose writings are still extant ; a work far too extensive for any single man to have undertaken, and which (as might have been expected) still remains unfinished. Kiihn, however, not only found a publisher rich and liberal enough to undertake the risk and ex- pense of such a work, but actually lived to see his collection comprehend the entire works of Galen, Hippocrates, Aretaeus, and Dioscorides, in twenty- eight thick 8vo. volumes, consisting each of about eight hundred pages, and of which all but three were edited by himself. But while it is thank- fully acknowledged that Kiihn did good service to the ancient medical writers by republishing their works in a commodious form, yet at the same time it must be confessed that the real critical merits of his Collection as a who^e are very small. In 1818 he published Galen's little work De Optimo Docendi Geneve^ Lips. 8vo., Greek and Latin, as a specimen of his projected design, and in 1821 the first volume of his works appeared. The edition consists of twenty 8vo. volumes (divided into twenty-two parts), of which the last contains an Index, made by F. W. Assmann, and was pub- lished in 1833. The first volume contains Acker- mann's Notitia Literuria Galeni, extracted from the fifth volume of the new edition of Fabricius's Bib- liotheca Graeca, and somewhat improved and en- larged by Kiihn. For the correction of the Greek text little or nothing has been done except in the case of a few particular treatises, and all Chartier's notes and various readings are omitted. Kiihn has likewise left out many of the spurious works con- tained in Chartier's edition, as also the Fragments, and those books which are extant only in Latin ; but, on the other hand, he has published for the first time the Greek text of the treatise De Muscu- lorum Dissectione, the Sy?iopsis Librorum de Pid- sibus, and the commentary on Hippocrates De Hu- moribus. Upon the whole, the writings of Galen are still in a very corrupt and unsatisfactory state, and it is universally acknowledged that a new and critical edition is much wanted. The project of a new edition of Galen's works has been entertained by several persons, parti- cularly by Caspar Hofmann and Theodore Goul- stone in the seventeenth century. The latter pre- pared several of Galen's smaller works for the press, which were published in one volume 4to. Lond. 1640, after his death, by Thorn. Gataker. Hofmann made very extensive preparations for his task, and published a copious and valuable com- mentary on the treatise De Usu Partium. His MS. notes, amounting to twenty-seven volumes p2