The Prince of Medicine

Susan P. Mattern traces the life of Galen of Pergamum, who lived from A.D. 129 to about 216, began by treating wounded gladiators in provincial Asia Minor and rose to join the small circle of court physicians serving the family of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Like many Greek intellectuals of the high empire, Galen wrote on everything from ethics and grammar to eczema and gout, and from the later empire through the Renaissance medical teaching rested largely on his works. Mattern portrays an arrogant, self-promoting and fiercely competitive man who once disemboweled a live monkey and dared the physicians watching to put its organs back. She also follows his years of witness to a devastating smallpox outbreak.

Andrew Huberman called it wonderful for anyone curious about how medicine was learned in an era he described as truly barbaric.