In Horis Sanguinis: Physiology and Generation in the Pseudo-Galenic De Spermate

Authors

• Outi Merisalo

Abstract

Among texts made popular during the late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Galenic Renaissance at European universities and among practitioners figures the Pseudo-Galenic De spermate, most likely a Latin translation of a Late Antique Greek text, which has very little in common with the authentic Peri spermatos by Galen. This paper traces the textual history from the earliest witnesses until the age of printing, and examines the teachings on physiology and generation of this treatise, which presents an interesting variant of the doctrine of the four humours as applied to determining the characteristics of the individual by means of a complicated chrono-biological system.