Pathology in Practice

Diseases and Dissections in Early Modern Europe
1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4724-6381-4
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 246 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 540 g

Reihe: The History of Medicine in Context

Post-mortems may have become a staple of our TV viewing, but the long history of this practice is still little known. This book provides a fresh account of the dissections that took place across early modern Europe on those who had died of a disease or in unclear circumstances. Drawing on different approaches and on sources as varied as notes taken at the dissection table, legal records and learned publications, the chapters explore how autopsies informed the understanding of pathology of all those involved. With a broad geography, including Rome, Amsterdam and Geneva, the book recaptures the lost worlds of physicians, surgeons, patients, families and civic authorities as they used corpses to understand diseases and make sense of suffering. The evidence from post-mortems was not straightforward, but between 1500 and 1750 medical practitioners rose to the challenge, proposing various solutions to the difficulties they encountered and creating a remarkable body of knowledge. The book shows the scope and diversity of this tradition and how laypeople contributed their knowledge and expectations to the wide-ranging exchanges stimulated by the opening of bodies.

Autoren/Hrsg.

de Renzi, Silvia

Bresadola, Marco

Conforti, Maria

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Part 1: Framing the Practice

1. Pathological Dissections in Early Modern Europe: Practice and Knowledge

Silvia De Renzi, Marco Bresadola and Maria Conforti

2. Humanist Post-Mortems: Philology and Therapy

Gionata Liboni

3. Organising Pathological Knowledge: Théophile Bonet’s Sepulchretum and the Making of a Tradition

Massimo Rinaldi

4. The Problems of Anatomia Practica and How to Solve Them: Pathological Dissection Around 1700

Marco Bresadola

Part 2: Multiple Pathologies

5. Post-Mortems, Anatomical Dissections and Humoural Pathology in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries

Michael Stolberg

6. Seats and Series: Dissecting Diseases in the Seventeenth Century

Silvia De Renzi

7. Visible Signs, Invisible Processes: Explaining Poison in the Late Seventeenth Century

Maria Conforti

8. Frederik Ruysch, Surgical Anatomy and the Amsterdam Republic of Medicine

Rina Knoeff

Part 3: Productive Dialogues

9. Pre- and Post-Mortem Inquiries: Assessing Poisoning in the Law Courts of Sixteenth-Century Rome

Elisa Andretta

10. Dissecting Pain: Patients, Families and Medical Expertise in Early Modern Germany

Annemarie Kinzelbach

11. Therapeutic Post-Mortems in and Around Eighteenth-Century Geneva

Philip Rieder

Über Autor(innen)

Silvia De Renzi teaches history of medicine at the Open University, UK.

Marco Bresadola teaches history of science at the University of Ferrara, Italy, where he is director of the MA in science communication.

Maria Conforti teaches history of medicine at Sapienza, University of Rome, Italy.