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Galen on DreamsTranslator's NotesContextThis translation of Galen's On Diagnosis from Dreams (De Dignotione ex Insomniis) originally formed part of a study of medical dreams in the period of the Second Sophistic, with emphasis on the dreams reported in Galen and Aelius Aristides. In translating Galen's Greek I have deliberately chosen to preserve the length and shape of Galen's sentences, as well as his combination of ordinary Greek and specialized medical terms. This decision has sometimes produced awkwardness in the English style of my translation. For a slightly different approach to translating the work, see Steven M. Oberhelman, "Galen, On Diagnosis from Dreams," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 38 (1983), 36-47. AuthorshipThe little treatise On Diagnosis from Dreams, or Peri tês enypniôn diagnôsis, appears at 832-835 of Volume VI in Karl-Gottlob Kühn's edition of Galen. It presents a brief outline of the reasons for regarding dreams as a useful tool in diagnosis. Despite its brevity, On Diagnosis from Dreams presents a coherent theory of medical dreams which is consistent with Galen's outlook. There are grounds to believe that On Diagnosis from Dreams is not in fact an independent work by Galen. It begins with kai, as though in mid-thought. Its wording echoes a passage in Galen's Commentary on Hippocrates' Epidemics I, where Galen is discussing Epidemics I.23. In that commentary Galen says, "Moreover, I have expounded also concerning dreams, both others and the kind that indicate some disposition of the body, as has been described also in the On Regimen in Health [i.e. Hippocrates Regimen IV or Dreams]." He then continues, in language almost identical to that of the first paragraph of On Diagnosis from Dreams, "For someone dreaming conflagrations . . .." At On the Natural Faculties I.12 (Kühn II.29) Galen mentions another work in which he set forth his ideas on dreams. This cannot be On Diagnosis from Dreams, since it seems to have treated divination in general as well as the doctrines of Asclepiades. Neither Galen's On Regimen in Health nor the work cited in On the Natural Faculties is extant. If On Diagnosis from Dreams is not by Galen, it may be an attempt by some later medical writer to reconstruct his doctrine on the basis of the hints in his commentary on the Epidemics, or perhaps from the lost work On Regimen in Health. A third possibility remains. At On Treatment by Venesection 2 (Kühn XI.254) Galen acknowledges that he could prepare short treatises on specific topics for readers who found his major works too much to handle. On Diagnosis from Dreams may well be such an excerpt, prepared not by an anonymous redactor but by Galen himself. Manuscript tradition
On Diagnosis from Dreams has come down to us as an independent treatise in 12 manuscripts. The oldest, Vaticanus Lat. 1063, dates to the 13th Century; the most modern, Oxoniensis misc. 130, to the 17th. Giulio Guidorizzi grouped these manuscripts into three families: Further reading
H. Diels (1905), "Die Handschriften der antiken &Aumnl;rzte, I," Abhandlungen Preuss. Akad. Wiss.
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