Why was Galen such an influential doctor?
Galen was so influential because he had powerful patrons who could protect him and in turn allow him to comfortably produce his medical writings. Galen’s writings were accepted for so long because in very simple and general terms, the only place that doctors and potential scientist could look prior Vesalius, Paracelsus and Harvey was backwards into classical antiquity and Galen. Remember during the medieval and Renaissance eras that scientists didn’t even know how a magnet worked or how and electric eel produced its power. Scientists were constrained by academic institutions who still relied on Galen’s texts and also by the church. Vesalius for instance altough revolutionising how anatomy was practiced still placed Galen’s image on the opening pages of his anatomy books and was careful to stay integrated within the world of academia.Paracelsus, although he had revolutionary ideas, had no regular patron and offended the universities where he burned Galen’s books. Unsurprisingly his new
