Two readings of Galen: Rhazes (9th-10th cent.) and Leonhart Fuchs (16th cent.)

International audienceGalen was the basis of medical learning in the Eastern Medieval period. The translations of his works into Syriac and Arabic were studied and commented not only as witnesses of “ancient times”, but mostly as vivid knowledge, leading to an autonomous Arabic medicine. Rhazes uses Galen as a medical authority, in order to deepen and broaden his own medical thinking. We will study two examples: Doubts concerning Galen and The treatise of smallpox and measles. Rhazes, who is not a Hellenist, is quoting Galen and commenting on the quotations using the extant Arabic translations.In the Renaissance, the Greek Galen was “rediscovered”, translated into Latin and commented. The translators and commentators, all Hellenists, tried to establish a boundary between their “authentic” Galen, and the Arabic one. Galen was thus supposed to facilitate the emergence of a medicine directly transmitted from Antiquity into the West, with no Arabic intermediary. They pretended to ignore that the Arabic appropriation of Galen was instrumental in bringing about medical and philosophical progress. They, however, knew the Arabic treatises fairly well, and their (d)evaluation is less obvious when strictly medical subjects are at stake. We will focus on Leonhart Fuchs’ commentaries on the four Galenic treatises De morbo et accidenti, as well as his Paradoxa medicinae.Our aim is to point out that both Rhazes and Fuchs contributed to medical education. Despite Fuchs’ allegations, the Arabic reading of Galen is reliable. Fuchs’ criticism of the Arabic authors and idealization of the Greek past was mostly due to the historical, social and intellectual context of the Western Renaissance. We will analyze how these factors can modify scientific appreciation and how new knowledge can be produced through a chain of critical examination