Ceratum Galeni: An Old Eponym Honoring Galen and his Cold Cream.
Fiche publication
Date publication
septembre 2023
Journal
Clinics in dermatology
Auteurs
Membres identifiés du Cancéropôle Est :
Pr LIPSKER Dan
Tous les auteurs :
Lipsker D, Nwabudike LC, Parish LC, Hoenig LJ
Lien Pubmed
Résumé
Ceratum Galeni is an old eponym honoring the name of Galen of Pergamum (129-circa 216 CE) and a cold cream he described over 1800 years ago. We traced this eponym back to the Fourteenth and Sixteenth Centuries in published medical texts by Guy de Chauliac (circa 1300-1368) and Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564). We also found a fourth-century reference in a medical work by Oribasius (circa 320-403 CE) to a mixture of wax and oil of roses based on Galen's cold cream formula. We present the images of a nineteenth-century apothecary white porcelain jar from Paris, France on which appears the words Cerat Galeni, as well as a twentieth-century oil painting by the American artist Robert Thom (1915-1979), that shows Galen administering his cold cream to a woman. Today, the composition of cold cream is formulated differently from Galen's original version, although the basic concept of cold cream as an oil and water emulsion remains the same. The widespread mention of Ceratum Galeni across the centuries and the popularity of cold creams today is a striking example of Galen's enormous influence on medicine as one of its founding fathers.
Mots clés
Ceratum Galeni, Galen, cold cream
Référence
Clin Dermatol. 2023 09 22;: