This article discusses the notion of the art of medicine in the work of Galen of Pergamon (129 ‒ ca. 213). On the one hand Galen propagates an exalted role and status for medicine as a genuine science based on unshakable theoretical foundations and of equal standing to philosophy; on the other hand, he seems to operate with ‘lower’ notion of medicine, as based on experience but also as conjectural and fallible