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Fiber, Medicine, and Culture in the British Enlightenment

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Fiber, Medicine, and Culture in the British Enlightenment Fiber, Medicine, and Culture in the British Enlightenment Hisao Ishizuka Fiber, Medicine, and Culture in the British Enlightenment Hisao Ishizuka Fiber, Medicine, and Culture in the British Enlightenment Hisao Ishizuka Senshu University Japan Kawasaki shi, Tama-Ku , Japan ISBN 978-1-137-58092-4 ISBN 978-1-349-93268-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-93268-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016957418 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub- lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Cover illustration: © Stocktrek Images, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Nature America Inc. The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004, U.S.A. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project has a fairly long history going back to my years (1998–1999) of postdoctoral research fellowship granted in England by the Wellcome Trust under the title “Fiber Theory in Eighteenth-Century Medicine.” Therefore, my fi rst debt goes to the Wellcome Trust and Catherine Crawford at Essex University, who not only helped me to gain this grant but also led me to fi nd this fascinating topic. The research on this project was substantially fi nished in the early 2000s, but several circumstances here in Japan combined to prevent publication for some years. During these years, however, I profi ted from valuable criticism given by my friends, especially those brilliant scholars joining together as the work- shop “BMC” (Body, Medicine, and Culture) at Keio University, Hiyoshi. I also wish to thank my colleagues in the Department of English at Senshu University for providing an ideal environment in which to write and teach. Portions of this book have appeared in earlier form in the following publications. An earlier version of Chap. 1 appeared as “Visualizing the Fibre-Woven Body: Nehemiah Grew’s Plant Anatomy and the Emergence of the Fibre Body,” in Anatomy and the Organization of Knowledge, 1500–1850 , edited by Matthew Landers and Brian Muňoz (Pickering & Chattos [now Routledge], 2012, 113–28), and is included here with per- mission from Taylor & Francis. An earlier version of Chap. 2 and a por- tion of the Introduction and Conclusion were published as “‘Fibre Body’: The Concept of Fibre in Eighteenth-Century Medicine, c.1700–c.1740,” in Medical History [56 (October 2012): 562–584] and appear here by permission of Cambridge University Press. An earlier version of Chap. 3 v vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS appeared as “The Elasticity of the Animal Fibre: Movement and Life in Enlightenment Medicine,” in History of Science [44 (December 2006): 435–68], and is printed here by permission of Sage. An original Japanese draft of Chap. 6 appeared as “Maku to Hida no Kaibougaku: Faiba bodi to Barokisumu” in Jinbungaku-Nenpo [ The Annual Bulletin of the Humanities ] [42 (2012): 1–34]; the revised English version of it appears here by permission of The Institute of Humanities, Senshu University. All materials are expanded here. I am grateful to the editors and the anony- mous reviewers for all their comments and suggestions on these papers. My foremost thanks go to the commissioning editor at Palgrave Macmillan who was fi rst interested in my project and gave me an oppor- tunity to compile my works into book form. I would also like to thank the editors and anonymous reader at Palgrave Macmillan for their care- ful reading of the manuscript and for their interest in my work. I wish to express my gratitude for their helpful comments and suggestions, although of course I am solely responsible for any errors and shortcomings. This book is dedicated to my parents and my mother-in-law. It is a meager return for all that I owe them. Finally, my deepest thanks go to my wife, Aoi, whose unfailing love has always encouraged me. Without her kind support and warm affection I could not have completed this project. CONTENTS Part I Prelude to the Fiber Body in the Latter Half of the Seventeenth Century, c.1650–1700 1 1 Visualizing the Fiber-Woven Body: Emergence of the Fiber Body 3 Part II The Fiber Body in Eighteenth-Century Medicine 27 2 “Fiber Body” in the Era of Iatromechanism, c. 1700 to 1740s 29 3 Elasticity of Animal Fiber: Motion, Tone, and Life of the Fiber Body 63 4 Continuity and Change: “Fiber Body” in the Era of Iatro-Vitalism, c.1750–1800 109 vii viii CONTENTS 5 Interlude: Fiber Psychology 163 Part III Fiber and Culture 175 6 The Fiber Body and the Baroque: The Anatomy of Membranes and Folds 177 7 The Fiber Body and the Culture of Sensibility: From Nervous Man to Fiber Man 211 Conclusion 241 Bibliography 247 Index 269 LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 1.1 Internal parts of the body, from Bibliotheca Anatomica (1711–1714); Wellcome Trust Image Collection 11 Fig. 1.2 “Contexture of Perpendicular and Horizontal Fibers,” from Nehemiah Grew, The Anatomy of Plants (1682), table 40; Wellcome Trust Image Collection 14 Fig. 6.1 Flayed man, from John Browne, Myographia Nova (1697), table 18; Wellcome Trust Image Collection 178 Fig. 6.2 Flayed man with his own skin, from Juan de Valverde de Amusco, Anatomia del corpo humano (1560); Wellcome Trust Image Collection 181 Fig. 6.3 The various textures of tissues, from Govard Bidloo’s Anatomia humani corporis (1685), table 4; Wellcome Trust Image Collection 184 Fig. 6.4 The brain of a swordfi sh, from Marcello Malpighi, Opera omnia (1687) ( De Cerebro , tom II page 120); reproduced with permission of the Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo 186 Fig. 6.5 The nymph (pupa) of a fl y, from Jan Swammerdam, The Book of Nature (1758), table 16; reproduced with permission of the International Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) 193 ix x LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 6.6 and Fig. 6.7 Caterpillar’s internal anatomy from Pierre Lyonet, Traité anatomique de la chenille, qui ronge le bois de saule (1760), table 6, 8; reproduced with permission of Université de Strasbourg, Service Commun de la Documentation (France) 196 INTROD UCTION Fiber vibrated at the heart of eighteenth-century medicine. Although almost forgotten now, fi ber attracted enormous interest among eighteenth- century medical scientists. Unsurprisingly, Herman Boerhaave and Albrecht von Haller , the two doyens of eighteenth-century medi- cine, both subscribed to the idea of fi ber to develop and systematize their respective medical theories, which indicates how critical the concept of fi ber was during the century. It is no exaggeration to say that if the nine- teenth century was the age of the cell, the eighteenth century was the age of fi ber. This book is the fi rst full-length and in-depth study of fi ber and the “ fi ber body ,” the body confi gured and informed by the concept of fi ber, during the British Enlightenment. It explores the pivotal role fi ber played in eighteenth-century medicine as a defi ning, underlying concept in varied fi elds from anatomy, physiology, pathology, and therapeutics to the life sci- ences. The era of the Enlightenment witnessed the rise and development of “ fi ber medicine ,” a body of medical knowledge based on the notion of fi ber. Setting the fi ber as the ultimate building unit of the animal body, many eighteenth-century medical authors fabricated fi ber theory (i.e., the theoretical articulation of fi bers) in multifarious forms. The human body, formerly seen as the expression of the four humors, was now reconfi gured as wholly composed of solid fi bers. Consequently, the body’s health and illness were believed to depend on the condition, qualities, and state of the fi bers. xi xii INTRODUCTION Any medical historians reasonably familiar with eighteenth-century medicine are aware of how full the medical discourses are of mentions of the fi bers, and they may have dimly sensed that the fi bers are a criti- cal key in disclosing the knowledge of Enlightenment medicine, both of iatromechanism and of iatro-vitalism. With so obvious an omnipresence of fi bers, however, historians have never yet engaged in a project to gain an overall picture of fi ber medicine in Enlightenment medicine. 1 Kevin Siena’s recent overview of the medical knowledge of the Enlightenment contains a useful summary of medical theory of the era but fails to recog- nize the signifi cance of the concept of fi ber, which should have constituted the physiological bedrock of what Siena presented as the “pliable body,” a malleable, porous body that constantly interacts with the environment.
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