mus, a neighbor of his, and how he came to visit him every night (Galen, 77-79). Galen was with this man through every step of his illness. One interesting thing is the way the man sits and waits for Galen every night. After Galen takes his pulse, Eudemus hangs on Galen’s every word and feels better after he has talked to him. This shows again the close relationship between healer and patient and how Galen’s presence and prognosis gave him peace of mind, which promotes healing. Other writings, such as “Epidemics, Book 1” in which there are day-by-day accounts of each patient’s condition also give us a sense of the doctor’s intimate knowledge of the person they are treating (Epidemics, 44-45). These doctors recorded every detail of sickness and any and all symptoms that the patient reported to them. These doctors wanted to try their hardest to heal their patients or if nothing else try to tell them when they would die. It appears that healers took better care of each individual and focused more of their time on each sick person. I have mentioned that the relationship between healers and patients in ancient times was different and therefore payment in ancient times was also different. Many times, healers in ancient Rome were not paid at all, or if they were paid, payment was usually not in the form of money. Vivian Nutton says in his article that, “A doctor was a person, male or female, who carried out medical treatment for a fee, or who, like Galen, devoted much of his time to healing, even if he never actually made any monetary charge but merely received presents” (32). This proves that many times doctors did not heal for the money but to learn and to heal for the satisfaction of helping others. Galen himself does not specifically mention payment but there was for him the satisfaction of knowing that he had cured Eudemus and had predicted what happened to him better than all th...
