Archigenes (), an ancient Greco-Syrian

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

, who lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. Archigenes was the most celebrated of the sect of the Eclectici, and was a native of Apamea in

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

; he practiced at

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

in the time of

Trajan Trajan ( ; born Marcus Ulpius Traianus, 18 September 53) was a Roman emperor from AD 98 to 117, remembered as the second of the Five Good Emperors of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. He was a philanthropic ruler and a successful soldier ...

, 98–117, where he enjoyed a very high reputation for his professional skill. He is, however, reprobated as having been fond of introducing new and obscure terms into the science, and having attempted to give to medical writings a

dialectic Dialectic (; ), also known as the dialectical method, refers originally to dialogue between people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to arrive at the truth through reasoned argument. Dialectic resembles debate, but the ...

form, which produced rather the appearance than the reality of accuracy. Archigenes published a treatise on the

pulse In medicine, the pulse refers to the rhythmic pulsations (expansion and contraction) of an artery in response to the cardiac cycle (heartbeat). The pulse may be felt ( palpated) in any place that allows an artery to be compressed near the surfac ...

, on which

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus (; September 129 – AD), often Anglicization, anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Ancient Rome, Roman and Greeks, Greek physician, surgeon, and Philosophy, philosopher. Considered to be one o ...

wrote a ''Commentary''; it appears to have contained a number of minute and subtle distinctions, many of which have no real existence, and were for the most part the result rather of a preconceived hypothesis than of actual observation; and the same remark may be applied to an arrangement which he proposed of fevers. Archigenes, however, not only enjoyed a considerable degree of the public confidence during his lifetime, but left behind him a number of disciples, who for many years maintained a respectable rank in their profession. The name of the father of Archigenes was Philippus; he was a pupil of Agathinus, whose life he once saved; and he died at the age either of 63 or 83. The titles of several of Archigenes' works are preserved, of which, however, nothing but a few fragments remain; some of these have been preserved by other ancient authors, and some are still in manuscript in the

King's Library The King's Library was one of the most important collections of books and pamphlets of the Age of Enlightenment.British LibraryGeorge III Collection: the King's Libraryaccessed 26 May 2010 Assembled by George III (r.1760–1820), this schola ...

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. By some writers he is considered to have belonged to the sect of the Pneumatici. Archigenes is mentioned several times by

Juvenal Decimus Junius Juvenalis (), known in English as Juvenal ( ; 55–128), was a Roman poet. He is the author of the '' Satires'', a collection of satirical poems. The details of Juvenal's life are unclear, but references in his works to people f ...

, in his '' Satires''.Juvenal, ''Satires'', vi. 236, xiii. 98, xiv. 252.

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