Galen’s writings were the indisputable source of medical authority for more than a thousand years. “It is I, and I alone, who has revealed the true path of medicine,” Galen wrote with his usual modesty. And yet Galen never conducted anything resembling a modern experiment. Why should he? Experiments are what people do when they aren’t sure what the truth is. And Galen was untroubled by doubt. Each outcome confirmed he was right, no matter how equivocal the evidence might look to someone less wise than the master. “All who drink of this treatment recover in a short time, except those whom it
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