Book Reviews Findings, Evenden Dismisses Almost Completely. These
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Book Reviews findings, Evenden dismisses almost Renate Wilson, Pious traders in medicine: completely. These texts, predominantly a German pharmaceutical network in written by male medical practitioners, are, eighteenth-century North America, in her view, of little use to illuminate the Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000, world of female birth practice. She argues pp. xiv, 258, illus., $37.50 (hardback 0-271- that male practitioners had hardly any 02052-0). obstetrical practice, and, with regard to the theoretical basis, their treatises present only Not many books try to bring together the an untidy mixture of useless Galenic or history of religious movements and the humoral theory, marred by superstition. description of (in today's view) "secular Evenden's unwillingness to admit the practices" like pharmaceutical trade. The limitations of her material enables her, title of Renate Wilson's study Pious traders however, to reconstruct a conflict-free in medicine shows the author's conviction female world revolving around the birth that eighteenth-century medical practice was event. According to her, seventeenth-century fundamentally influenced by its religious London midwives were united in a "proud context. The book aims at reconstructing sisterhood", fully aware of their the Pietist medical and pharmaceutical responsibilities and commitments to their network, which-according to sister midwives as well as their clients. In Wilson-originated in the Francke this happy world, men are "aliens", and Foundations at Halle (Germany) and which male medical practitioners are constructed was established in the American colonies as incompetent and totally unskilled during the eighteenth-century. Wilson wants aggressors threatening not only the lives of to show how German "Pietist medicine" helpless, pregnant women but also the interacted with the American environment livelihood of competent midwives. and to what extent European traditions of I am sceptical about the existence of such voluntarism and philanthropy were a "golden age of midwifery". Some recent integrated into the social policies of the studies have, for example, pointed out that emerging American republic. The study is the daily experience of midwifery was to a based on records mainly from the archive of large degree shaped by tension, friction, and the Francke Foundations at Halle as well as conflict occurring in the midwives' on secondary literature on Halle Pietism associations with other official and non- and on eighteenth-century medicine and official midwives, with their apprentices and, pharmaceutics. ultimately with their patients. The work of The first part of the book deals with the midwifery differed widely in early modern German and European scene of the story. Europe. Evenden's book has convinced me Wilson describes the institutional centre of that concerning their training and economic Halle Pietism, the orphanage and the status, the officially licensed seventeenth- schools founded by the theologian August century London midwives were much better Hermann Francke, who had been driven off than many of their colleagues on the from Leipzig and Erfurt and had found continent. But how these women conceived refuge in Brandenburg-Prussia. Mainly their art and interpreted their role as borrowing from older studies by Werner women workers, as wives or widows, or Piechocki and Wolfram Kaiser, Wilson active members of their community, remains describes the "medical institutions" of the somehow sketchy and superficial. This story Francke Foundations, the infirmary and the still needs to be written. dispensary, where in mid-century (according to the medical director Johann Juncker) 12,000 Claudia Stein, poor outpatients were treated every year. University of Warwick These charitable institutions were financed 596 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.58, on 30 Sep 2021 at 06:21:56, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300069829 Book Reviews by the production and sale of books and "Szindely" instead of Zsindely, "Arnold pharmaceuticals. The pharmaceuticals Sames" instead of Arno Sames), the business, which peaked in the early 1760s reproductions are sometimes of poor quality with net profits of 35,000 Reichsthaler (especially Fig. 4.1), and there is no list of annually, was promoted by popular medical the archival records quoted. For German- handbooks written by Christian Friedrich speaking readers it would have been useful, Richter and David Samuel von Madai. if the quotations from documents-in In the second part of the book Wilson addition to the author's English minutely documents and analyses the translations-had also been given in the transatlantic traffic and trade in original language. But despite these pharmaceuticals, books and ideas. In the comments I do not regret having spent American colonies there was a growing some instructive hours with this book. market for Halle pharmaceuticals, which was influenced by the German population's Jdirgen Helm, preference for German medical providers, Martin-Luther-Universitat, German pharmaceuticals and German self- Halle-Wittenberg help texts. The consumption of Halle medicines was also fostered by Halle-trained Pietist ministers in the German Lutheran congregations. Some of them-as in rural Rene Sigrist, Vincent Barras, Marc European areas-were actively practising Ratcliff, Louis Jurine, chirurgien et medicine and pharmacy. According to the naturaliste (1751-1819), Bibliotheque order lists from North America, preserved d'Histoire des Sciences 2, Chene-Bourg, in the Francke Archive, the Halle Editions Medecine et Hygiene, Departement pharmaceuticals were delivered to the livre Georg, 1999, pp. 494, illus., SFr 50.00 clergy, to secular medical providers, to (paperback 2-8257-0640-X). merchants, and to the educated laity. The persistence of this pharmaceutical trade The renowned Genevan surgeon and between North America and Halle during naturalist Louis Jurine was largely forgotten the eighteenth-century laid the ground for a after his death. Using surviving materials, constant awareness of the Francke historians based in Geneva and Lausanne Foundations as an example of a private and have explored every aspect of Jurine's voluntary non-profit organization. As medical and scientific activities. The result is Wilson argues, this example might have this volume, the only major biography of served as a model for similar institutions in Jurine. It is exemplary in its thoroughness late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century and attention to detail, and representative America. of the growing number of writings being In short, Renate Wilson's study is a published by this particular group of pioneering work about the North American scholars. Like several other recent works, medical and pharmaceutical market during this book capitalizes upon the rich mine of the eighteenth-century. One substantial archival materials that have enabled the criticism concerns her use of terms such as history of Genevan medicine and sciences in "Pietist medicine", "Pietist physician", and the eighteenth-century to be documented. "Pietist therapy", because she does not Other studies, closely related to this, include explain what makes the difference between Rene Sigrist's Les origines de la Societe de eighteenth-century Pietists and Physique et d'Histoire naturelle (1990), contemporary non-Pietists in medical Micheline Louis-Courvoisier's Soigner et matters. Furthermore, there are some little consoler (2000), on the daily life of Geneva's mistakes in the bibliography (for example, general hospital, and a second edited 597 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.58, on 30 Sep 2021 at 06:21:56, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300069829.