Galenism

Paris was at the centre of the revival of Galenism, and as well as being taught the works of the master, Vesalius also learned his skill at dissection during his time there.

It systematically dismantled the error-filled doctrine of Galenism, which rested in part on animal rather than human anatomy and had held sway for 14 centuries.

When Harvey’s discovery, like an earthquake, had broken up galenism and other outworn sophistries, his masterly work stood forth not only against long-winded dialectics on ars sphygmica, critical days, coctions, derivatives, revulsives, and like abstractions bequeathed by realism and uncritical subservience to texts, but also against a more lurid background of folk superstitions—of vampires, witch-burning, magic, cabbalism, astrology, alchemy, chiromancy, and water-casting.

This fuse Paracelsus fixed to the shell which burst upon the Faith, upon Scholasticism, upon Galenism, and even upon humanism, “So Christus spricht ‘Perscrutamini scripturas’; warum soll ich nicht sagen ‘Perscrutamini naturas rerum’?”

Galenism suffered especially from logical systematization, and the system of van Helmont, while far less orderly, also had its own basic principles on which all else depended.