Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

Galen on qualified experience 297 ), if applicable, would refer not just to a fewexceptional cases in which something has gone wrong, but to quite a considerablenumber of different types of situation in which the power of asubstance is not realised or the process is turned in another direction. Foras Galen’s list of indicates, there may be quite a lot of possiblyinterfering or even impeding factors changing the course of the process,and as a consequence it may be difficult to distinguish between effectsbrought about ‘by the substance itself’ (’ ) and effects produced‘accidentally’ ( ).Although Galen was apparently aware of this difficulty, the possibilitythat a dietetic or pharmacological power may be prevented from beingactualised by interfering factors is apparently not taken into account byhim when it comes to refuting generalising statements about the power ofa foodstuff or drug. Galen’s refutation of such statements usually followsthe pattern of deducing the power (or the absence of it) from the effect. 78Thus ‘A has the power to bring about X’ is refuted by pointing out that in acertain case A does not bring about X but Y; but to conclude from this thatA does not possess the power to bring about X ignores the possibility that Amay have this power but does not realise it in this particular case, and maytherefore be false. Thus Galen fails to apply the concept of consistently to his own critical scrutiny of other pharmacologists’statements.5 consequences for the question ofexperiment in galen’s pharmacologyTo sum up: what does the concept of qualified experience have to say onthe question of pharmacological ‘experiment’ in Galen’s works? As is wellknown and has already been alluded to above, there has been a long-standingdispute as to whether we are actually justified in speaking of experimentin ancient science (and, as a consequence, of ancient science at all). It hasoften been argued that this word is too evocative of modern connotationsof a deliberate and systematical examination of what happens when, in adetermined set of circumstances, a definite change is brought about; 79 and it78 See Harig (1974) 104: ‘die Feststellung der potentiellen Wirkung eines Pharmakons . . . erst retrospektivaus der eingetretenen aktuellen Wirkung erkannt werden kann’. For an example of Galenfalsifying statements by means of counter-examples see De simpl. med. fac. 1.34 (11.440ff. K.).79 For a definition of experiment see von Staden (1975) 180. See also the discussions by Grmek andGourevitch (1985) 3–4; Debru (1994) 1718–21; Tieleman (1995) 32 (all with abundant references tosecondary literature) and Lloyd (1964) 50–72.