Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine – Serie

Each chapter focuses on a different bodily fluid – saliva, blood, urine, milk, sweat, semen – to investigate how doctors gained new insights into physiological processes through chemical experimentation on these bodily fluids.

Each chapter focuses on a different bodily fluid – saliva, blood, urine, milk, sweat, semen – to investigate how doctors gained new insights into physiological processes through chemical experimentation on these bodily fluids.

This book examines the life and works of Santorio Santori and his impact on the history of medicine and natural philosophy. Reputed as the father of experimental medicine and procedures, he is also known for his invention of numerous scientific instruments, including early precision medical devices (pulsimeters, hygrometers, thermometers, anemometers), as well as clinical and surgical tools. The chapters in this volume explore Santorio’s legacy through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They highlight the role played by medical practitioners such as Santorio in the development of corpuscularian ideas, central to the ‘new science’ of the period, and place new emphasis on the role of the life sciences, chemistry and medicine in encouraging new forms of experimentation and instrument-making.Chapters 1 and 2 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book examines the life and works of Santorio Santori and his impact on the history of medicine and natural philosophy. Reputed as the father of experimental medicine and procedures, he is also known for his invention of numerous scientific instruments, including early precision medical devices (pulsimeters, hygrometers, thermometers, anemometers), as well as clinical and surgical tools. The chapters in this volume explore Santorio’s legacy through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They highlight the role played by medical practitioners such as Santorio in the development of corpuscularian ideas, central to the ‘new science’ of the period, and place new emphasis on the role of the life sciences, chemistry and medicine in encouraging new forms of experimentation and instrument-making.Chapters 1 and 2 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book is the first transcription and extensive commentary on a fascinating but almost entirely overlooked manuscript compilation of medical recipes and letters, which is held in the University of Nottingham. Collected by the Marquess and Marchioness of Newcastle, William and Margaret Cavendish, during the 1640s and 1650s, this manuscript features letters of advice, recipes, and sundry philosophical and medical reflections by some of the most formidable and influential physicians, philosophers, and courtly scholars of the early seventeenth century. These include “Europe’s physician” Theodore de Mayerne, the adventurer and courtier Kenelm Digby, and the natural philosopher, poet, and playwright Margaret Cavendish. While the transcription and accompanying annotations will allow a diverse array of readers to appreciate the manuscript for the first time, the introduction situates the Cavendishes’ recipe collecting habits, medical preoccupations, natural philosophical views, and politics within their social, cultural, and philosophical contexts, and draws out some of the most significant implications of this important document.

This book is the first transcription and extensive commentary on a fascinating but almost entirely overlooked manuscript compilation of medical recipes and letters, which is held in the University of Nottingham. Collected by the Marquess and Marchioness of Newcastle, William and Margaret Cavendish, during the 1640s and 1650s, this manuscript features letters of advice, recipes, and sundry philosophical and medical reflections by some of the most formidable and influential physicians, philosophers, and courtly scholars of the early seventeenth century. These include “Europe’s physician” Theodore de Mayerne, the adventurer and courtier Kenelm Digby, and the natural philosopher, poet, and playwright Margaret Cavendish. While the transcription and accompanying annotations will allow a diverse array of readers to appreciate the manuscript for the first time, the introduction situates the Cavendishes’ recipe collecting habits, medical preoccupations, natural philosophical views, and politics within their social, cultural, and philosophical contexts, and draws out some of the most significant implications of this important document.

This book examines the Franciscan alchemist Roger Bacon’s (1220-1292) interest in the role of alchemy in medicine, and how this interest connected with the thirteenth-century milieu in which he was writing.

This book examines the Franciscan alchemist Roger Bacon’s (1220-1292) interest in the role of alchemy in medicine, and how this interest connected with the thirteenth-century milieu in which he was writing. Though twelfth-century Latin alchemy had largely been concerned with transmuting base metals into noble ones, Bacon believed that the natural principles taught in alchemy would be better used in medicine. In an age where many physicians were theorizing about ways to prevent the effects of aging, Bacon held that combining alchemy and humoral medicine would allow one to extend their life by decades, even centuries. By examining Bacon’s alchemical, medical, and mathematical works, this book argues that Bacon combined a number of sources to create a unique plan for prolonging human life. His understanding of disease and aging was ultimately Galenic in nature, and his understanding of how pharmaceuticals work can be traced back to his mathematical theories, especially that of the multiplication of species. The book provides a new system for organizing Bacon’s alchemically-produced medicines, and explains what Bacon saw as the difference between each, and how they could have different physiological effects. Bacon is situated within the thirteenth-century contexts in which he was writing – that of the university-educated and newly professionalized medical practitioners, who were invested in finding ways to extend human life; and the Franciscan order, with their understanding of the innate goodness of the physical body, the resurrection, and corporeal union with God. Filling a major lacuna in scholarship on the history of medieval medical writings, this book provides vital reading for historians of medicine, pre- and early modern European science, and medieval philosophy and religion.

This edited volume explores the intersection of medicine and philosophy throughout history, calling attention to the role of quantification in understanding the medical body.

This edited volume explores the intersection of medicine and philosophy throughout history, calling attention to the role of quantification in understanding the medical body.

This book provides the first comprehensive treatment of Albert the Great’s (c.

This book provides the first comprehensive treatment of Albert the Great’s (c.

This book traces how city councils, medical practitioners and urban society developed their understandings of and responses to the ‘French pox,’ a pandemic that swept through Europe during the winter of 1494-1495, and is now more commonly known as syphilis. Focusing on the disease in Frankfurt am Main and Nuremberg, two major cities in early modern Germany (1495-1700),  and using a range of primary sources, including government records, medical publications, and writings of the sick, the author argues that the city councils’ responses to the disease, the orders that they issued to control its spread and their provision of poor relief, were driven by three key factors: contagion, practicality (considerations on finances and resources), and morality. Their understandings of these elements led to a response that prioritised the provision of aid to support the sick as a way to control the disease, protect the economy and population, and satisfy moral beliefs. Moreover, the book demonstrates the significant and enduring influence of non-sexual contagion theories - the belief that the French pox spread through mechanisms like shared clothing, cutlery, and money - in law, medical thinking, and the self-portrayals of the sick. Making an important contribution to our understanding of early modern contagion theories and their role in municipal authorities’ responses to disease, this timely book will provide new insights for early modern historians researching the social history of medicine and welfare.

Focussing on late medieval and early modern philosophy and medicine, this edited collection explores the replacement of hylomorphism—the dominant theory of bodies in the Middle Ages—with new theories of matter such as corpuscularianism and atomism at the dawn of the Modern period.

This edited collection explores Dante Alighieri’s contribution to medical, scientific, and spiritual thought in medieval and early modern times. Covering questions on the body, soul, matter, politics, and physics, this valuable book presents an overview of Dante’s relationship with medical thought and the medieval sciences.

This monograph presents a study of the most significant book in the history of anatomy, Fleming Andreas Vesalius’ (1514-1564) De humani corporis fabrica.

This is a revised critical edition of philosopher and scientist, Francesco Patrizi's manuscript, Il Delfino, overo del bacio (c.1555), with an English translation and commentary.

This volume brings together essays on a wide range of topics, from the popular notion of ‘climacterical’ years believed to recur every seventh year, and the origins and development of the concept of ‘palliative’ care in premodern medicine, to the early modern understanding of ‘melancholia’ as a disease rather than just a temperament, and its visual representation in the famous ‘Melancholia’ paintings of Lukas Cranach the Elder. It examines the casuistic training, empirical observations, and public self-fashioning of learned physicians, and explores major concepts of early modern medical theory, such as ‘innate heat’ and diseases of the ‘total substance’ as presented and elaborated in Avicenna's ‘Canon medicinae and in Daniel Sennert's atomistic interpretation of body and soul. Published for the first time in an English translation, these essays offer readers many illuminating insights into the fascinating world of early modern medicine.

What does it mean to be human in an age of rapid technological advancement? Are we on the brink of transcending our biological limitations, or are we losing touch with the essence of what it means to be human? Emerging technologies challenge our understanding of identity, ethics, and existence.Bringing together leading voices from history, philosophy, science, and ethics, this volume delves into the intricate intersections of transhumanism and posthumanism, offering a thought-provoking exploration of historical and philosophical debates from the Renaissance to the present. It examines how transhumanist thought envisions the enhancement of human capabilities through science and technology, while posthumanism questions the very boundaries that define what it means to be human. A must-read for scholars, students, and anyone intrigued by the future of humanity, this volume is an essential guide to the debates shaping our technological era.