Health Over Time Media

Dr. Grant Cooper and Dr. Zinovy Meyler host Dr. Katherine D. Van Schaik on the Performance Initiative Podcast to discuss her book, 'How to Be Healthy: An Ancient Guide to Wellness,' and the influential ancient physician Galen. The conversation explores Galen’s impact on modern medical practices, his philosophical approach to holistic health, and historical medical practices of ancient Rome. Key topics include exercise, diet, mental well-being, pain management, and the risks of surgery in ancient times. They also examine maternal and infant mortality, social consequences of childbirth, and the overall experience of illness in ancient homes. The dialogue considers the integration of AI in medicine, empathy in human experience, and the enduring relevance of classical texts in today’s world.

From Greek tragedies and Buddhism to actual practices from ancient doctors like Galen, there are a myriad of important lessons about anxiety that can be gleaned from the past. Indeed, the ancients had a lot to say about anxiety and mental conditions in general... and their perspective and observations were at times very different from those found in our modern era.

While many technological interventions of today and the future will help usher in a new era of medicine, health and wellbeing, it is all too tempting to paint a picture of something of a panacea; a cure for all. Perhaps, rather than focusing on technologies, some of the truths about living a long and healthy life can be learned in wisdom from the past.

It can be tempting, amid the chaos of modern life, to look backwards – to yearn for simpler times when smartphones didn’t exist and no one had ever uttered the word “microplastics”. Some turn to Freud, others to the stoics. For one week, I turned to one of the most famous physicians of the ancient world: Galen.

A fellow in radiology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), Van Schaik (pronounced Shake) is as comfortable translating texts from ancient Greek into English and scanning the mottled skulls of 18th-century sailors, as she is interpreting imaging studies of her patients.

In How to Be Healthy: An Ancient Guide to Wellness (Princeton UP, 2024), practicing physician and classical historian Katherine Van Schaik presents a collection of Galen’s enduring insights about how we can take care of our bodies and minds, prevent disease, and reach a healthy old age. Although we now know that many of Galen’s ideas about physiology are wrong, How to Be Healthy shows that much of his advice remains sound. In these selections from his writings, presented in fresh translations, Galen discusses the art of medicine, exercise and diet, the mind-body connection, the difficulty of applying general medical principles to individuals, and much more. Featuring an introduction, brief commentaries that connect ancient medical practices to modern ones, and the original Greek on facing pages, How to Be Healthy offers an entertaining and enlightening new perspective on the age-old pursuit of wellness, from the importance of “the exercise with a small ball” to the benefits of “avoiding distress.”