Hippocrates, for example, In particular, Galen readily adopted Hippocrates 'four humours'
approach to the body, and this was one of the main reasons it endured for so long.

 

that is not say Galen was at all lacking in orig-inal material and thinking. He was meticulous and methodical in his approach to his own medical investigations, above all in anatomy.
Many important dignitaries came to the shrine of Asklepios, the god of healing in Galen's home
town, to seek cures for ailments. Thus Galen was able to observe first hand the symptoms and
treat-ments of diseases. After spells in Smyrna (now lzmir), Corinth, and Alexandria studying both philosophy and medicine, which he considered inextricably linked, and including work on the dissection of animals, he returned to Pergamum in 157.

There he took up a four-year appointment as a physician to gladiators, giving him further first hand experience in practical anatomical medicine.