Galen on whether healthy living belongs to medicine or physical training
From the wiki: “Palaestra scene, tondo of an Attic red-figure plate by Epictetos, ca. 520 BC–510 BC, from Vulci.” Louvre. Image by Marie-Lan Nguyen via Wikimedia Commons.
“That’s why it amazes me when I hear athletes’ trainers these days arguing that healthy living is a part of their own art. In fact, it’s not a part of true physical training at all; rather, it’s the other way around: physical training is a part of healthy living. So why should we dispute about their false art, which is not at all a part of the art concerning the body and which sells a practice that’s held in contempt not only by Plato and Hippocrates, but also by all the other doctors and philosophers?”
ᾗ καὶ θαυμάζειν ἐπέρχεταί μοι τῶν νῦν τοὺς ἀθλητὰς γυμναζόντων, ὅταν ἀμφισβητούντων ἀκούσω μέρος εἶναι τῆς ἑαυτῶν τέχνης τὸ ὑγιεινόν. ὅπου γὰρ οὐδὲ τῆς ὄντως γυμναστικῆς μέρος ἐστὶν ἀλλ' ἔμπαλιν ἐκείνη μέρος ὑγιεινοῦ, τί χρὴ περὶ τῆς τούτων κακοτεχνίας ἀμφιβάλλειν, ἣ μήτε μέρος ἐστὶν ὅλως τῆς περὶ τὸ σῶμα τέχνης ἐπιτηδεύματός τε προέστηκεν οὐχ ὑπὸ Πλάτωνος μόνον ἢ Ἱπποκράτους, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἁπάντων ἰατρῶν τε καὶ φιλοσόφων ἀτιμαζομένου;