When, in the second century, the imperial
physician Galen gave himself a pat on the back*, it wasn't self-congratulation**; it was science.
*Galen "gives himself a pat on the back in the first book of
On Anatomical Procedures" —William Frank Richardson, in his translation of
On the Fabric of the Human Body by Andreas Vesalius
**
Patented self-congratulatory apparatus via Futility Closet