How did Galen connect a patient’s symptoms with findings in the body after death?

Galen did not typically connect a patient’s symptoms with findings from human autopsies, as Roman social taboos largely prohibited the dissection of human corpses during his lifetime. Instead, he relied on his extensive experience as a surgeon to gladiators and his systematic dissection and vivisection of animals—such as pigs, goats, and Barbary apes—to infer the internal structures and functions of the human body.12

By observing these animals, Galen developed a physiological framework based on the humours, arguing that illnesses resulted from imbalances of blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. He modified earlier theories to suggest that these imbalances could be localized to specific organs, which allowed him to diagnose patients and prescribe remedies. While his observations were often accurate regarding animal anatomy, his inability to perform human autopsies led to significant errors in his understanding of human structures, such as the uterus, which he modeled after that of a dog.12