GALENISTS, in Medical History, a name given to the followers of Galen, in contradistinction to the practitioners of the chemical school. The distinction of galenical and chemical in the method of treating diseases was occasioned by a division of the practitioners of medicine into two sects, on the introduction of chemistry into medicine. The term galenical was applied to those medicines that were easily formed, as by infusion or decoction, in contradistinction to chemical, or such as required more elaborate preparation, as by calcination, digestion, fermentation, and the like.