“The First Experimental Physiology“
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Journal of the American Medical Association
October 11, 1947
“For Both Medicine and Dentistry, the value of the first truly scientific dissections by Galen, the Greek who lived in Rome (130-200 A.D.), was equaled only by the scientific method propounded 600 years earlier by Hippocrates.
“Working only with pigs and apes (but urging his students to be on the alert for human bones protruding from graveyards), Galen was first to recognize the different kinds of nerves, most muscles, the brain as the center of the nervous system and the fact that arteries, containing blood rather than air, were somehow connected with the veins (1500 years before Harvey).
“A new concept of the doctor’s legal liability was evolving then, too. Before, malpractice had been punishable only as a crime. But under the Lex Aquilia, damages could be assessed. Malpractice had become a civil, as well as a criminal, offense.
“There are Few Who Experiment Today with the risks of unprotected practice. Most doctors enjoy the Medica Protective policy’s complete coverage, preventive counsel and confidential service.”