Galen and Aristotle - The Importance of Experience in Medicine

The ancient Greek writer Galen is the source for most of what we know about pre-Galenic medicine. In several works on this subject he describes three major sects: rationalists, empiricists and Methodists. Sextus Empiricus was a great skeptic philosopher who believed that experience should play an important role in developing medical theories. He claimed that we need only use experience and that no theory is required.