Galen on the Pulse

Abstract This chapter sets out Galen’s theory and method concerning the pulse. It walks the reader through the clinical and diagnostic process related to the pulse, as Galen perceived it and following the path he set in his instruction of “the art of the pulse”: from physiology, through the classification of the different pulses, to the practical method of taking the pulse, identifying its characteristics and drawing diagnostic conclusions from it. The core of this chapter focuses on his pulse works and his teachings there; the penultimate section explores the extent to which those teachings are reflected in the rest of the Galenic corpus. The conclusion offers some overarching observations concerning Galen’s pulse works and the difference between the handbook style of other pulse works of the time and Galen’s extensive polemical and discursive treatises.