Book Reviews Darwin (1991), however, this new Huxley In Holland Harvey's discoveries became an biography is a great read. integral part of Cartesian medicine, and, as such, they were contentious. In France Riolan Nicolaas Rupke, University of Gottingen championed the anti-Harvey reaction which prevailed both in Paris and Montpellier. Riolan's Roger French, William Harvey's natural changing positions on circulation are thoroughly philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 1994, investigated by French up to Riolan's final pp. xii, 393, £40.00, $64.95 (0-521-45535-9). partial admission of blood circulation. Both the German and Italian stages are The reception of Harvey's doctrines of the closely investigated by the author, who aims to movement of the heart and of the circulation of understand discussions of circulation in the blood was the result of a complex interaction institutional and religious context. French's of intellectual, political and social factors. As analysis is, however, not free of unproved French's book shows, Harvey's views were not assumptions and oversimplifications. For simply accepted or rejected; they were example, he claims that the Protestant interpreted-and often misunderstood-in the Sennert-whom he styles a "fundamentalist" light of different philosophical and religious (p. 226)-reformed medicine, "introduced ideas. In university faculties and colleges of chemistry in its Paracelsian and Protestant physicians, in both Catholic and Protestant form in Wittenberg" (pp. 224-5), and ruled out countries, the defence of tradition, order and Greek leaming as pagan. Unfortunately, this stability was often invoked against Harvey. interpretation is not correct, since Sennert The story was, however, a complex one and it advocated a moderate position in medicine and is the merit of French to give a comprehensive natural philosophy, as attested by his well- and detailed account of the reception of known De chymicorum cum Aristotelicis et Harvey's discoveries in England and on the Galenicis consensu ac dissensu, which makes Continent. Early reactions in England were it clear that he aimed at reconciling chemistry somewhat embarrassing to Harvey, who saw with Aristotelianism and Galenism. Sennert his views defended by Fludd, the Rosicrucian, also criticized Paracelsus and adopted some and attacked by Thomas Winston, censor of the crucial aspects of Aristotelian philosophy. London College of Physicians, a position In his informative study of Marco Aurelio which Harvey himself had occupied. One of Severino, the Neapolitan physician who the arguments against Harvey often employed supported Harvey's doctrines, French states by his opponents was that circulation had no that "It was undoubtedly because Severino practical significance in medicine. As French explicitly denied the truth of Aristotle's natural argues, Harvey made little attempt to meet this philosophy that he was unable to publish in criticism, since he considered his discoveries Italy" (p. 241). It is true that Severino's as part of natural philosophy, rather than of Zootomia democritaea was not published in medicine. Philosophical issues became that country, but his Vipera pithia was immediately associated with Harvey's published in Padua in 1650 and his discoveries. Ent and Glisson played a Antiperiatias. Hoc est adversus Aristoteleos ... prominent part in the production of consensus was published in Naples in 1655-1659. One in England. The former's defence of Harvey has the impression that French overstresses the became part of his fight for mechanical power of religious control in seventeenth- philosophy-which Harvey never subscribed century Catholic countries, which in fact was to. Glisson, as French shows, adopted the not as tight as he asserts. After all the anti- theory of circulation, but departed from Aristotelian philosopher Patrizi was invited to Harvey's view, as he developed it in teach in Rome, and Severino himself was connection with the notion of active matter and employed by the Neapolitan authorities during spirit. the plague.

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Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.19, on 27 Sep 2021 at 05:33:56, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300060440 Book Reviews While the study of Harvey's natural Relying primarily upon advice books, philosophy, in particular the analysis of the pamphlets, films, radio scripts and a series of anatomy lectures and of De motu cordis, is oral histories with eleven Canadian mothers insightful and persuasive, the section devoted who used these materials during the years' to philosophy teaching in Cambridge when studies. Dr Arnup notes that there are many Harvey was a student is somewhat cursory and historiographical problems in using advice it is not clear why French decided to base his books as historical documents. For example, investigation on John Case's Ancilla, which who actually read these baby care books as was published in 1599-when Harvey had opposed to simply putting them on a already moved to Padua-and on Magirus's convenient shelf?; Was the advice actually textbook, which appeared in 1608. followed?; How did these advice books change The book is handsomely illustrated with an child rearing practices? Citing the work of intelligent choice of images, but unfortunately social historian Jay Mechling, she correctly it is marred by some irksome mistakes in the notes what many paediatricians have known spelling of Latin and Greek titles. Although for years: "there is no persuasive evidence that William Harvey's natural philosophy does not the official advice affects the parent's deal with Harvey's theory of generation, it behavior" (p. 123). Nevertheless, the historical stands out as a major contribution to the documentation Arnup provides to assess the understanding of William Harvey and his r6le impact of child-care advice manuals on the in seventeenth-century medicine and natural daily lives of Canadian mothers is an almost philosophy. exclusive use of these advice manuals and materials. Antonio Clericuzio, Universita di Cassino The book briefly discusses the rise of infant health as a social and political issue in Canada during the early decades of the twentieth Katherine Arnup, Education for century. The alarming rates of infant and motherhood: advice for mothers in twentieth- maternal mortality during these years in century Canada, University of Toronto Press, Canada, as well as in many other industrialized 1994, pp. xiii, 251, illus., UK £32.00, USA nations of the era, were instrumental in the $50.00, Europe $60.00 (hardback 0-8020- movement to educate and medicalize 2861-6), UK £12.00, USA $18.95, Europe motherhood. Amup does not compare these $23.00 (paperback 0-8020-7361-1). movements abroad or even below Canada's border in her book. Not surprisingly, however, Inspired by the birth of her first child and the the advice offered to Canadian mothers during frustration of the vast amount of "expert" child- this period bears striking similarities in rearing advice she was relying upon, Katherine attitudes and tone to the infant welfare Arnup began to question the sources and movement in the United States and Great validity of twentieth-century baby care advice Britain. From Arnup's account, the reader gets manuals during her PhD training as a social little sense that there were any intellectual or historian. Her book, Education for motherhood, philosophical interactions between those attempts to situate Canadian child-rearing Canadians offering the child care advice and advice as it appeared in popular form between other child care experts practising their trade in 1900 and 1960, in its proper historical context. different national contexts. Subsequent The book's central thesis echoes the work of chapters explore the baby care advice materials historians Rima Apple, Richard Meckel, and themselves in order to assess what was being Nancy Pottishman Weiss, among others, as it advised and what impact it may have had on describes child-rearing advice more as a social the lives of Canadian mothers. construct of opinion on gender, class, and Perhaps most jarring is that a key historical society, than as an "exact science". voice is essentially absent in Education for

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Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.19, on 27 Sep 2021 at 05:33:56, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300060440