Customer Reviews

Galen and the Gateway to Medicine (Living History Library)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Our 10 year old grandson started the book and couldn't put it down. He declared early in his young life that he wants to be a scientist, so this is perfect for him.

We are great fans of all that Bethlehem Books publishes. They are very accurate in their judgement of age appropriateness.

This book does a tremendous job of taking the reader back to the medical knowledge that existed at the time. It very clearly shows how doctors and scientists gathered their knowledge and practiced their research despite an almost total lack of technology.

I thought the early chapters on the life of patrician families set the stage for the book very well. This time period is very foreign to kids, but the book brought it closer.

The explanation of the body's "four humors" was the best I have ever read. That alone was worth the price of the book -- all sorts of novels I've read have talked about an imbalance of humors, etc. You figure out what they are talking about, but this book makes it very clear.

The maps, diagrams, and illustrations are clear, informative, and perfect for the book.

Oh, and the phonetic pronunciations are part of the text, so you can get a handle on all the Greek and Roman names. Excellent.

In short, this book is not just for 3rd graders. I'm glad I read it and I know it will be great for my kids.

This biography of Galen is packed with information but very easy to understand. We read it for our homeschool science class on famous scientists.

When I read her Archimedes title, I was surprised that a book I bought for my kids captured my imagination as well. Even now several months later, I remember the story of his irrigation screw, how Archimedes used pulleys to move a ship, how he figured out that the king's crown was not pure gold, and his invention of more advanced weaponry to protect his city.

This story of Galen was not quite as engaging or memorable, or perhaps it's just because I had higher expectations at this point? All I remember from the story after reading it several days ago is that Galen was an amazing physician, an authority for many centuries, and all the ways ancient medicine was wrong (four humors, how the left and right chambers of the heart were connected, etc). Perhaps it's because medicine was less accessible to Galen than physics was to Archimedes - but I didn't enjoy this book as much as Archimedes.