Galenic medicine
Greco-Roman healing tradition
Galenic medicine is the medical system developed by the ancient Greek physician Galen, which dominated Western medicine for over a millennium.
It emphasized the four humors—blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile—whose balance determined health.
Treatment involved restoring equilibrium through diet, bloodletting, and herbal remedies.
The term now often implies outdated or pre-scientific medical thinking: Modern research has displaced Galenic medicine's humoral theories.
- organsFunctional body parts
- yellow bileHumor causing irritability
- HippocratesFather of medicine
- phlegmViscous airway secretion
- temperamentInborn behavioral nature
Avicenna · herbs · blood · veins · medieval medicine · complexion · hot · apothecaries · cold · dry · moist · decoctions · pneuma · cupping · arteries · choleric · leech · black bile
- healing practicesacupressure, holistic healing, Ayurveda, self-healing, chiropractic
- medical historyHippocrates, germ theory, bloodletting, four humors, humors
- humoral medicinefour humors, black bile, bodily humors, yellow bile, phlegm
- historical obstetricsmidwife, midwifery, midwives, childbirth, obstetrics
Galenic medicineevidence-based medicine
Clinical care guided by research
biomedicine · experimental medicine · precision medicine · clinical medicine