GALENS ANECDOTE OF THE FALLEN SOPHIST - ON THE CERTAINTY OF SCIENCE THROUGH ANATOMY

In this paper the author recounts an anecdote presented by Galen of Pe rgamum (circa 130-200 A.D.) about a sophist named Pausanias, who fell from his mount and struck his back against a rock. The patient develop ed a subsequent loss of sensation in the fingers of his left hand with complete sparing of motor function. Numerous medications were applied to his hand but to no avail. Galen stated that he applied the same me dications to the original point of dorsal tenderness, resulting in the patient's dramatic and full recovery. Galen attributed the healing to local drug action at the site of a presumed spinal root injury, at th e level of C-7. Galen repeated this anecdote elsewhere to illustrate t he remote effects of spinal cord and nerve injury and the importance o f treating the site of pathology, rather than its somatic manifestatio ns. Galen's observation is interpreted in light of his earlier experim ents on spinal cord and nerve transections in live animals and his evo lving concepts of functional and correlative neuroanatomy. This anecdo te is also discussed as a striking example of the dangers of conjectur e and the temptation to confuse association with causation when interp reting the effects of therapy in light of widely accepted paradigms.