Medicine and the Body in Early Modern Europe

This volume brings together essays examining a wide range of topics related to early modern medicine, including the notion of ‘climacterical’ years, which recurred every seventh year and shaped early modern perceptions of life; the origins and development of ‘palliative’ care in premodern medicine; and the early modern understanding of ‘melancholia’ as a disease rather than just a temperament. Delving into the casuistic training, empirical observations, and public self-fashioning of learned physicians, this book explores key concepts of ancient and early modern medical theory, such as the notion of ‘total substance,’ and the idea of a super-elementary ‘innate heat.’ These ideas are traced through Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine and the works of Daniel Sennert, who connected them to his atomistic view of the human body and its diseases. Published for the first time in English, these essays offer readers illuminating insights into the fascinating world of early modern medicine. Michael Stolberg is a Senior Professor at the University of Würzburg, in Germany. Originally trained as a physician, he began working as an Assistant Professor at the Institute for the History of Medicine and Medical Sociology in Munich in 1989 and, in 1994, received a doctorate in history and philosophy at the University of Munich. Over the following years, he worked as a Research Fellow in Venice, Cambridge (UK) and Munich. Michael has published widely on learned medical theory and practice, the patient experience, and body history in early modern Europe. Among his books are Experiencing Illness and the Sick Body in Early Modern Europe (Palgrave, 2011) and A History of Palliative Care, 1500–1970 (Springer, 2017).