Shock and Awe: The Performance Dimension of Galen's Anatomy Demonstrations

Abstract

Galen's anatomical demonstrations on living animals constitute a justly famous chapter in the history of scientific method. This essay, however, examines them as a social phenomenon. Galen's demonstrations were competitive. Their visual, cognitive and emotional impact (often expressed by compounds of ѳαῦµα and ἔκπληξις) reduced onlookers to gaping amazement. This impact enhanced the logical force of Galen's arguments, compelling competitors to acknowlege his intellectual and technical preeminence. Thus, on the interpersonal level, Galen's demonstrations functioned coercively. On the philosophical level, Galen was using a rhetoric traditional to Greek science, a way of arguing that involved a unitary view of nature and an emphasis on homology between animals and man. But he was also using a rhetoric of power and status differentiation articulated via the body. As played out in the flesh, public vivisection resonated with other cultural practices of the Roman empire: wonder-working competitions, judicial trials, and ampitheater entertainment.

Post-Mortem Pedagogy: A Brief History of the Practice of Anatomical Dissection

“…13,14 His dissections often had a theatrical public component, which boosted the popularity of his works. 15 Galen operated within the belief that all structures were created for a purpose and that their study provided new ways to appreciate their creator, a belief which benefited from its compatibility with the major monotheistic (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim) religious views. 16,17 Though Galen is still often considered the most accomplished researcher of antiquity, his treatises were anatomically imperfect, apparently relying too heavily on comparative animal dissections.…”

Accepting the Omen: External Reference in Greek Declamation

“…Reader (1996) 39-40 considers the stress on the severed hands and upright corpse in Polemo's version of this familiar narrative to be uniquely Polemonian: a deliberate shaping of the story on Polemo's part to bring it closer to his own sufferings could explain this observation. On Polemo's self-presentation generally, see Gleason (1995) 21-54, esp. 21-9.…”

“…46 Right at the end of his speech, Cynegirus' father says to the Athenians the words 'I stretch forth hands to you that are like those lying fallen on your behalf' (χεῖρας ὑμῖν ὁμοίας προτείνω ταῖς ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν κειμέναις, A49). Now while the point of comparison (ὁμοίας) is explained in what follows-Cynegirus' father puts his hands on his son's tomb, as his son put his hands on a Persian ship-at the moment in the speech at which Cynegirus' father says these words that point of comparison is not yet clear: given that the speaker before their eyes famously 45 In bringing such suffering so graphically before the eyes of his audience, Polemo's performance might also perhaps have had more than a little in common with the spectacle of Galen's gory vivisections, for which see Gleason (2009). 46 On the attention paid to hands in a rhetorical performance, see Cic.…”

Abū Bakr al-Rāzī on Animals

“…18 Another point of such demonstrations was to demonstrate mastery, indeed superiority over other experts. See von Staden 1995, Gleason 2009 Al-Razi 1987, 368, cited in Pormann 2008 See Black 1993. 21 Al-Razi 1979, quoted by chapter and section number, with page and line number from the Arabic edition.…”