Editing Galen (section)

==Published works==
{{Main|Galenic corpus}}
[[Image:Galeni De curandi ratione V00212 00000008.tif|thumb|''De curandi ratione'']]

Galen may have produced more work than any author in antiquity, rivaling the quantity of work issued from [[Augustine of Hippo]].<ref name="kotrc">Kotrc RF, Walters KR. A bibliography of the Galenic Corpus. A newly researched list and arrangement of the titles of the treatises extant in Greek, Latin, and Arabic. Trans Stud Coll Physicians Phila. 1979 December;1(4):256–304</ref> So profuse was Galen's output that the surviving texts represent nearly half of all the [[extant literature]] from ancient Greece.<ref name="ustun"/><ref name="kotrc"/> It has been reported that Galen employed twenty [[scribe]]s to write down his words.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Younker|first=J. Marin|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1132383841|title=Bleed, blister, puke, and purge : America's medical middle ages|date=2018|isbn=978-1-5415-8168-5|location=San Francisco|publisher=Zest Books|pages=51|oclc=1132383841}}</ref> Galen may have written as many as 500 treatises,<ref name="IIIDorn2006">James E. McClellan III; Harold Dorn. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=aJgp94zNwNQC Science and Technology in World History: An Introduction]''. JHU Press; 14 April 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-8018-8360-6}}. p. 92.</ref> amounting to some 10 million words.{{Citation needed|date=October 2010}} Although his surviving works amount to some 3 million words,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/Funding/Medical-humanities/funded-projects/major-initiatives/wtdv030244.htm|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131219011857/http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/Funding/Medical-humanities/funded-projects/major-initiatives/wtdv030244.htm|url-status=dead|title=Philip van der Eijk: Translating Galen|archivedate=19 December 2013}}</ref> this is thought to represent less than a third of his complete writings. In 191, or more likely in 192, a fire in the [[Temple of Peace, Rome|Temple of Peace]] destroyed many of his works, in particular treatises on philosophy.{{sfn|Houston|2003|pp=45–47}}

Because Galen's works were not translated into Latin in the ancient period, and because of the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, the study of Galen, along with the Greek medical tradition as a whole, went into decline in Western Europe during the [[Early Middle Ages]], when very few Latin scholars could read Greek. However, in general, Galen and the [[Ancient Greek medicine|ancient Greek medical tradition]] continued to be studied and followed in the [[Eastern Roman Empire]], commonly known as the Byzantine Empire. All of the extant Greek manuscripts of Galen were copied by Byzantine scholars.

In the Abbasid period (after 750) [[Arab Muslims]] began to be interested in Greek scientific and medical texts for the first time, and had some of Galen's texts translated into Arabic, often by Syrian Christian scholars (see below). As a result, some texts of Galen exist only in Arabic translation,<ref name="iep">{{cite web|url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/g/galen.htm|title=Galen |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |first1=Michael |last1=Boylan }}</ref> while others exist only in medieval Latin translations of the Arabic. In some cases scholars have even attempted to translate from the Latin or Arabic back into Greek where the original is lost.<ref name="kotrc"/><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=classics_papers|title=Rosen RM. Review of Vivian Nutton (ed.) Galen. On My Own Opinions. Corpus Medicorum Graecorum 5.3.2 Galeni De Proprius Placentis. Bryn Mawr Classical Review August 24 2000}}</ref><ref name="nuttonchoice">{{cite journal|jstor=639325|title=The Patient's Choice: A New Treatise by Galen|first=Vivian|last=Nutton|date=7 March 1990|journal=The Classical Quarterly|volume=40|issue=1|pages=236–257|doi=10.1017/s000983880002694x|s2cid=170328892}}</ref> For some of the ancient sources, such as [[Herophilus]], Galen's account of their work is all that survives.

Even in his own time, forgeries and unscrupulous editions of his work were a problem, prompting him to write ''On His Own Books''. Forgeries in Latin, Arabic or Greek continued until the [[Renaissance]]. Some of Galen's treatises have appeared under many different titles over the years. Sources are often in obscure and difficult-to-access journals or repositories. Although written in Greek, by convention the works are referred to by Latin titles, and often by merely abbreviations of those. No single authoritative collection of his work exists, and controversy remains as to the authenticity of a number of works attributed to Galen. As a consequence, research on Galen's work is fraught with hazard.<ref name="metzger"/><ref name="kotrc"/>

Various attempts have been made to classify Galen's vast output. For instance Coxe (1846) lists a Prolegomena, or introductory books, followed by 7 classes of treatise embracing Physiology (28 vols.), Hygiene (12), Aetiology (19), Semeiotics (14), Pharmacy (10), Blood letting (4), and Therapeutics (17), in addition to 4 of aphorisms, and spurious works.<ref name="Coxe">[[John Redman Coxe|Coxe, John Redman]], [http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1988&chapter=128229&layout=html&Itemid=27 ''The Writings of Hippocrates and Galen. Epitomised from the Original Latin translations''. Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston, 1846]</ref> The most complete [[compendium]] of Galen's writings, surpassing even modern projects like the ''{{ill|Corpus Medicorum Graecorum/Latinorum|de}}'', is the one compiled and translated by [[Karl Gottlob Kühn]] of [[Leipzig]] between 1821 and 1833.<ref name="kotrc"/> This collection consists of 122 of Galen's treatises, translated from the original Greek into Latin (the text is presented in both languages). Over 20,000 pages in length, it is divided into 22 volumes, with 676 index pages.{{Citation needed|date=October 2010}} Many of Galen's works are included in the ''[[Thesaurus Linguae Graecae]]'', a digital library of Greek literature started in 1972. Another useful modern source is the French [http://www.bium.univ-paris5.fr/histmed/medica/galien_va.htm Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de médecine] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140421160949/http://www.bium.univ-paris5.fr/histmed/medica/galien_va.htm|date=21 April 2014}} (BIUM).