Athenaeus of Attalia was a physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

, and the founder of the Pneumatic school

Pneumatic school

The Pneumatic school of medicine was an ancient school of medicine in ancient Greece and Rome. They were founded in Rome by Athenaeus of Cilicia, in the 1st century AD....

 of medicine. He was born in Cilicia

Cilicia

In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...

, at Attalia according to Galen

Galen

Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamon , was a prominent Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher...

, or at Tarsus

Tarsus (city)

Tarsus is a historic city in south-central Turkey, 20 km inland from the Mediterranean Sea. It is part of the Adana-Mersin Metropolitan Area, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Turkey with a population of 2.75 million...

 according Caelius Aurelianus

Caelius Aurelianus

Caelius Aurelianus of Sicca in Numidia was a Roman physician and writer on medical topics. He is best known for his translation from Greek to Latin of a work by Soranus of Ephesus, On Acute and Chronic Diseases. He probably flourished in the 5th century, although some place him two or even three...

. He was the tutor to Theodorus, and appears to have practised medicine at Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 with great success.

He appears to have written extensively, as the twenty-fourth volume of one of his works is quoted by Galen, and the twenty-ninth by Oribasius

Oribasius

Oribasius or Oreibasius was a Greek medical writer and the personal physician of the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate. He studied at Alexandria under physician Zeno of Cyprus before joining Julian's retinue. He was involved in Julian's coronation in 361, and remained with the emperor until...

. Nothing, however, remains but the titles (his chief work being Περὶ βοηθημάτων), and some fragments preserved by Oribasius.

Galen gives the following report:

Athenaeus of Attaleia ... founded the medical school known as the Pneumatists.
It suits his doctrine to speak of a containing cause in illness since he bases himself upon the Stoics and he was a pupil and disciple of Posidonius

Posidonius

Posidonius "of Apameia" or "of Rhodes" , was a Greek Stoic philosopher, politician, astronomer, geographer, historian and teacher native to Apamea, Syria. He was acclaimed as the greatest polymath of his age...

... Athenaeus’ three types are as follows: the first consists of containing causes, the second of preceding causes, and the third of the matter of antecedent causes: for this is what they call everything external to
the body which harms it and produces disease in it. If what is produced in the body belongs to the class of what causes disease, then, while it has not actually brought the disease about, it is called the preceding cause. Alterations are produced in the natural pneuma by these [i.e., preceding] causes together with those which are external [i.e., antecedent causes], and with
the body moistened or desiccated, chilled or heated, these are said to be the containing causes of diseases.(Galen, On Sustaining Causes 2.1–4)