Galen of Pergamon
Ancient Roman anatomist
Greek physician in the Roman Empire (c. 129-216 CE).
Trained as a surgeon for gladiators, then became personal physician to Marcus Aurelius. Because human dissection was banned, he worked out anatomy from Barbary apes — which baked in mistakes nobody noticed for 1,300 years. His theories dominated medicine until Vesalius finally cut open a human in the 1500s.
Famous for
- Theory of the four humors
- Personal physician to Marcus Aurelius
- Pioneered systematic anatomy + physiology
- ~150 surviving medical treatises
In Rubicon
Galen of Pergamon is one of the historical characters you can play as in Rubicon, a trivia game where you answer in your own words and an AI judge reads what you meant. Galen of Pergamon is filed under Human Body & Medicine, and is strongest at Human Body & Medicine.
Others in Human Body & Medicine
- Alexander Fleming — Discovered penicillin
- Hippocrates of Kos — Father of medicine
- Ibn Sina (Avicenna) — The Canon of Medicine
- Moses Maimonides — Rabbi, philosopher, physician
- Florence Nightingale — Founded modern nursing
- Mary Seacole — Crimean War nurse + entrepreneur