Source edition
Galen. Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, Volume 7. Kühn, Karl Gottlob, editor. Leipzig: Knobloch, 1824.
Source data
A Digital Corpus for Graeco-Arabic Studies · CC BY-SA 4.0
Cloned and adapted by Humanitext, with ongoing edits.
Summary
This work is a medical and philosophical treatise by the ancient physician Galen, exploring the nature and mechanisms of "uneven bad-mixture" (dyskrasia) within the human body. The author begins by defining and classifying these uneven imbalances in specific body parts or the whole body, preparing to analyze their generative processes based on anatomical classifications. In the first half, Galen details the mechanism of inflammation caused by fluids flowing into muscles, the principles of pain, the diverse effects of heat and humors, and the generation of painless "hectic fever" (hektikos). The latter half examines the mechanisms of fevers triggered by various internal and external causes, such as emotions or exposure to temperature extremes, including the phenomenon of "epialos" fever, where chills and fever occur simultaneously. Ultimately, the treatise shows how various localized diseases and swellings also stem from uneven imbalances caused by fluid influx, providing a consistent explanatory framework for pathological phenomena.