Notes to the Note on the Text and Introduction

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Notes to the Note on the Text and Introduction Notes Notes to the Note on the Text and Introduction i. Mandeville’s address is repeated at the end of the Preface: “From my House in Manchester-Court, Channel-Row, Westminster.” ii. A Treatise of the Hypochondriack and Hysterick Passions, vulgarly call’d the hypo in men and vapours in women; In which the Symptoms, Causes, and Cure of those Diseases are set forth after a Method intirely new. The whole interspers’d, with Instructive Discourses on the Real art of Physick it self; And Entertaining Remarks on the Modern Practice of Physicians and Apothecaries; Very useful to all, that have the Misfortune to stand in need of either. In three dialogues. By B. de Mandeville, M.D. (London, printed for and to be had of the author, at his house in Manchester-Court, in Channel- Row, Westminster; and D. Leach, in the Little-Old-Baily, and W. Taylor, at the Ship in Pater-Noster-­Row, and J. Woodward in Scalding-Alley, near Stocks-Market, 1711). The second 1711 issue bears the following publica- tion details: “London, printed and sold by Dryden Leach, in Elliot’s Court, in the Little-Old-Baily, and W. Taylor, at the Ship in Pater-Noster-Row, 1711”. The 1715 reprint bears the same title with different publication details (London, printed by Dryden Leach, in Elliot’s Court, in the Little Old-Baily, and sold by Charles Rivington, at the Bible and Crown, near the Chapter-House in St. Paul’s Church Yard, 1715). A Treatise of the Hypochondriack and Hysterick Diseases. In three dialogues. By B. Mandeville, M.D., The second edition: corrected and enlarged by the author (London, printed for J. Tonson in the Strand, 1730). The reprint issued in 1730 bears the same title and publication details, but is presented on the title page as “The third edition” although it is identical to the previ- ous, so called “second edition”. © Springer International Publishing AG 2017 187 S. Kleiman-Lafon (ed.), Bernard Mandeville: A Treatise of the Hypochondriack and Hysterick Diseases (1730), International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d’histoire des idées 223, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57781-4 188 S. Kleiman-Lafon iii. For further details see note 10. iv. Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees, F.B. Kaye (ed.), 2 vols. (Oxford, Clarendon, 1924), vol. 2, p. 16. Other references to The Fable of the Bees will be to Kaye’s edition throughout, unless specified otherwise. v. R. Dekker, “‘Private vices, public virtues’ revisited: The Dutch background of Bernard Mandeville”, History of European Ideas, vol. 14, n°4, 1992, p. 481–498; Sir George Clark, History of the Royal College of Physicians, 4 vols. (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1966), vol. 2, p. 476–480. vi. Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, (ed.) Joyce E. Chaplin (New York, Norton, 2012) p. 43–44. The tavern mentioned by Franklin may have been The Horn Tavern within the Doctor’s Commons. The Horn Tavern was a meeting place for a ‘free and easy’ club and, although probably later, for some masonic lodges. According to Valérie Capdeville—who tried to help me identify “the Horns”—Mandeville may have been a member of the ear- lier Hellfire Club. See John Brewer, Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 149 and 195. vii. F.B. Kaye (ed.), The Fable of the Bees, vol. 1., p. vii. viii. Joannes Groenevelt, Tuto Cantharidum in Medicina usus internus, second edition (London, John Taylor, 1703), n.p. The poem is signed “B. Mandeville, M.D.” although in the first English edition of the book, published in 1706, the translated poem is signed “I.F. Philo-Medicus”. For more on the rela- tions between Mandeville, Groenevelt and the Royal College of Physicians, see Harold J. Cook, “Treating of bodies medical and political: Dr. mandev- ille’s materialism” Erasmus Journal for Phylosophy and Economics, vol. 9, Issue 1 (Spring 2016), pp. 1–31; E.J. Hundert, The Enlightenment’s Fable. Bernard Mandeville ans the Discovery of Society (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 23; Margaret DeLacy, The Germ of an Idea; Contagionism, Religion, and Society in Britain 1660–1730 (Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2016), p. 111. ix. Some Fables after the Easie and Method of Monsieur de La Fontaine (London, s.n., 1703) republished the following year in a substantially enlarged version (Æsop Dress’d, or a Collection of Fables writ in Familiar Verses (London, R. Wellington, 1704), this subsequent edition contains Mandeville’s translation of La Fontaine’s ‘Les Membres et l’estomac’ (‘The Hands, the Feet and the Belly’) which heralds the passages on the suprem- acy of digestion included in the Treatise and hint at the body as a metaphor of government he uses in The Fable of the Bees (vol.1, p. 3). x. Typhon: or the Wars Between the Gods and Giants: A Burlesque Poem in Imitation of the Comical Mons. Scarron (London, J. Pero, 1704); The Grumbling Hive, or Knaves Turn’d Honest (London, S. Ballard, 1705); The Virgin Unmask’d or, a Female Dialogue Betwixt an Elderly Maiden Lady, and her Niece, in Several Diverting discourses on Love, Marriage, Memoirs and Morals of the Time (London, J. Morphew, 1709). Further translations of Scarron’s Typhon were included a year after the publication of the Treatise Notes 189 in Wishes to a Godson (London, J. Baker, 1712). For more details on the writings of Bernard Mandeville, see Kaye’s invaluable bibliography: F.B. Kaye, “The Writings of Bernard Mandeville: a Bibliographical Survey” Journal of English and Germanic Philology, vol. 20, October 1, 1921, p. 419–467. xi. Mandeville uses similar props in the dialogue of The Fable of the Bees, Part II. In the first dialogue, Cleomenes shows Horatio a “Dutch piece of the Nativity”, and in the third dialogue, he shows Horatio a book (the 1714 edi- tion of The Fable of the Bees) and offers to read him a passage. xii. Again, food is also used as a token of friendship in the second part of The Fable of the Bees. At the end of the first dialogue, Horatio invites Cleomenes to pursue their conversion over a fine dinner (“Hor. I am sorry to leave you […] But if you will come and eat a Bit of Mutton with me to-morrow, I’ll see no body but your self, and we’ll converse as long as you please. — Cleo. With all my Heart. I’ll not fail to wait on you.”), and in the fourth dialogue he offers to reward Cleomenes with a gift of exotic fruit (“I know you are a lover of fine Fruit, if you’ll dine with me to-morrow, I’ll give you an Ananas.”). xiii. Fable of the Bees, vol. 2, p.8. xiv. Fable of the Bees, vol. 2, p.8. Mandeville mentions Plato repeatedly in this passage. As to Plato’s opinion of dialogues, F.B. Kaye traced it back to Theætetus (143c): “Eucleides: Here is the book, Terpsion. Now this is the way I wrote the conversation: I did not represent Socrates relating it to me, as he did, but conversing with those with whom he told me he conversed. And he told me they were the geometrician Theodorus and Theaetetus. Now in order that the explanatory words between the speeches might not be annoying in the written account, such as “and I said” or “and I remarked,” whenever Socrates spoke, or “he agreed or he did not agree,” in the case of the interlocutor, I omitted all that sort of thing and represented Socrates himself as talking with them.” xv. Fable of the Bees, vol. 2, p. 9. xvi. Fable of the Bees, vol. 2, p. 10. xvii. For further reading on Mandeville’s handling of dialogues, see Timothy Dykstal, The Luxury of Skepticism: Politics, Philosophy, and Dialogue in the English Public Sphere, 1660–1740 (Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 2001), especially chapter 4, “Mandeville: Dialogue as com- merce”, pp. 105–131. See also Michael Prince, Philosophical Dialogue in the British Enlightenment: Theology, Aesthetics and the Novel (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996), especially pp. 203–212. On the devel- opment of dialogues in Mandeville’s time, see Eugene Purpus, “The Plain, easy, and familiar way: the dialogue in English literature, 1660–1725.” ELH, 17 (1950), pp. 47–58. xviii. On the Hippocratic regimen see Hynek Bartos, Philosophy and Dietetics in the Hippocratic On Regime, Studies in Ancient Medicine, vol. 44 (Leiden, Brill, 2015); Jacques Jouanna, Greek Medicine from Hippocrates to Galen: 190 S. Kleiman-Lafon Selected papers (Leiden, Brill, 2012); Serena Buzzi, Il Regime di Salute in Medicina. Dalla Dieta Ippocratica all’Epigenetica (Alessandria, Edizioni Dell’Orso, 2017). Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, what it is. With all the kindes, causes, symptomes, prognostickes, and severall cures of it. In three maine partitions with their severall sections, members, and sub- sections. Philosophically, medicinally, historically, opened and cut up. By Democritus Junior. With a satyricall preface, conducing to the following discourse (Oxford, printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, 1621). xix. The Fable of the Bees, vol. 2, p. 171. On excessive reading and on the profu- sion of information in the early modern period see Ann M. Blair, Too Much to Know. Managing Scholarly Information befoire the Modern Age (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2010). xx. On Mandeville’s Treatise as a talking cure, see Mauro Simonazzi, “Bernard Mandeville on hypochondria and self-liking”, Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, vol. 9, issue 1, spring 2016, pp. 62–81; Sylvie Kleiman-Lafon, “The Healing Power of Words: Medicine as Literature in Bernard Mandeville’s Treatise of the Hypochondriack and Hysterick Diseases” in Sophie Vasset (ed.) Medicine and Narration in the XVIIIth Century (Oxford, SVEC, 2013), pp.
Recommended publications
  • A Saint in the History of Cardiology
    Arch Cardiol Mex. 2014;84(1):47---50 www.elsevier.com.mx SPECIAL ARTICLE A saint in the history of Cardiology Alfredo de Micheli ∗, Raúl Izaguirre Ávila National Institute of Cardiology Ignacio Chavez, Tlalpan, DF, Mexico Received 19 December 2012; accepted 22 January 2013 KEYWORDS Abstract Niels Stensen (1638---1686) was born in Copenhagen. He took courses in medicine Niels Stensen; at the local university under the guidance of Professor Thomas Bartholin and later at Leiden Anatomy; under the tutelage of Franz de la Boë (Sylvius). While in Holland, he discovered the existence of Physiology; the parotid duct, which was named Stensen’s duct or stenonian duct (after his Latinized name Muscular fibers; Nicolaus Stenon). He also described the structural and functional characteristics of peripheral Heart muscles and myocardium. He demonstrated that muscular contraction could be elicited by appropriate nerve stimulation and by direct stimulation of the muscle itself and that during contraction the latter does not increase in volume. Toward the end of 1664, the Academic Senate of the University of Leiden awarded him the doctor in medicine title. Later, in Florence, he was admitted as a corresponding member in the Academia del Cimento (Experimental Academy) and collaborated with the Tuscan physician Francesco Redi in studies relating to viviparous development. In the Tuscan capital, he converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism and was shortly afterwards ordained in the clergy. After a few years, he was appointed apostolic vicar in northern Germany and died in the small town of Schwerin, capital of the Duchy of Mecklenburg- Schwerin on November 25, 1686.
    [Show full text]
  • Experimental Pharmacology and Therapeutic Innovation in the Eighteenth Century
    -e: EXPERIMENTAL PHARMACOLOGY AND THERAPEUTIC INNOVATION IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY by ANDREAS-HOLGER MAEHLE A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of London University College London 1996 ProQuest Number: 10017185 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10017185 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ABSTRACT In the historiography of pharmacology and therapeutics, the 18th century is regarded as a period of transition from traditional, Galenistic materia medica to the beginnings of modern, experimental drug research. Ackerknecht (1973) characterized the pharmacotherapy of this period as a "chaotic mixture of chemiatric and Galenistic practices", yet acknowledged an "increasing tendency toward empiricism, partly even true experimentalism". This thesis explores this transitional phase for the first time in depth, examining the relations between pharmacological experimentation, theory-building, and therapeutic practice. Furthermore, ethical aspects are highlighted. The general introduction discusses the secondary literature and presents the results of a systematic study of pharmacological articles in relevant 18th-century periodicals. The identified main areas of contemporary interest, the spectrum of methods applied, and the composition of the authorship are described and interpreted.
    [Show full text]
  • Spontaneous Generation & Origin of Life Concepts from Antiquity to The
    SIMB News News magazine of the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology April/May/June 2019 V.69 N.2 • www.simbhq.org Spontaneous Generation & Origin of Life Concepts from Antiquity to the Present :ŽƵƌŶĂůŽĨ/ŶĚƵƐƚƌŝĂůDŝĐƌŽďŝŽůŽŐLJΘŝŽƚĞĐŚŶŽůŽŐLJ Impact Factor 3.103 The Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology is an international journal which publishes papers in metabolic engineering & synthetic biology; biocatalysis; fermentation & cell culture; natural products discovery & biosynthesis; bioenergy/biofuels/biochemicals; environmental microbiology; biotechnology methods; applied genomics & systems biotechnology; and food biotechnology & probiotics Editor-in-Chief Ramon Gonzalez, University of South Florida, Tampa FL, USA Editors Special Issue ^LJŶƚŚĞƚŝĐŝŽůŽŐLJ; July 2018 S. Bagley, Michigan Tech, Houghton, MI, USA R. H. Baltz, CognoGen Biotech. Consult., Sarasota, FL, USA Impact Factor 3.500 T. W. Jeffries, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA 3.000 T. D. Leathers, USDA ARS, Peoria, IL, USA 2.500 M. J. López López, University of Almeria, Almeria, Spain C. D. Maranas, Pennsylvania State Univ., Univ. Park, PA, USA 2.000 2.505 2.439 2.745 2.810 3.103 S. Park, UNIST, Ulsan, Korea 1.500 J. L. Revuelta, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain 1.000 B. Shen, Scripps Research Institute, Jupiter, FL, USA 500 D. K. Solaiman, USDA ARS, Wyndmoor, PA, USA Y. Tang, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA E. J. Vandamme, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium H. Zhao, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA 10 Most Cited Articles Published in 2016 (Data from Web of Science: October 15, 2018) Senior Author(s) Title Citations L. Katz, R. Baltz Natural product discovery: past, present, and future 103 Genetic manipulation of secondary metabolite biosynthesis for improved production in Streptomyces and R.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Download
    Early Modern Low Countries 1 (2017) 2, pp. 273-296 - eISSN: 2543-1587 273 The Banished Scholar Beverland, Sex, and Liberty in the Seventeenth-Century Low Countries Karen Hollewand Karen Hollewand completed her ba and ma at the University of Utrecht before moving to England, where she finished her dphil on the banishment of Beverland at the University of Oxford in 2016. She is interested in the early modern social, cultural, and intellectual history of Europe and of the Low Countries in particular. Currently, she is editing her thesis for publication, working on an English translation of Beverland’s De Peccato Originali with Floris Verhaart, and developing a new research project on sex and science in the early modern period. Abstract Scholar Hadriaan Beverland was banished from Holland in 1679. Why was this humanist exiled from one of the most tolerant parts of Europe in the seventeenth century? This arti- cle argues that it was Beverland’s singular focus on sexual lust that got him into such great trouble. In his studies, he highlighted the importance of sex in human nature, history, and his own society. Dutch theologians disliked his theology, exegesis, and his use of erudition to mock their authority. His humanist colleagues did not support him either, since Bev- erland threatened the basis of the humanist enterprise by drawing attention to the sexual side of the classical world. And Dutch magistrates were happy to convict the young scholar, because he had insolently accused them of hypocrisy. By restricting sex to marriage, in compliance with Reformed doctrine, secular authorities upheld a sexual morality that was unattainable, Beverland argued, and he proposed honest discussion of the problem of sex.
    [Show full text]
  • Music Migration in the Early Modern Age
    Music Migration in the Early Modern Age Centres and Peripheries – People, Works, Styles, Paths of Dissemination and Influence Advisory Board Barbara Przybyszewska-Jarmińska, Alina Żórawska-Witkowska Published within the Project HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area) – JRP (Joint Research Programme) Music Migrations in the Early Modern Age: The Meeting of the European East, West, and South (MusMig) Music Migration in the Early Modern Age Centres and Peripheries – People, Works, Styles, Paths of Dissemination and Influence Jolanta Guzy-Pasiak, Aneta Markuszewska, Eds. Warsaw 2016 Liber Pro Arte English Language Editor Shane McMahon Cover and Layout Design Wojciech Markiewicz Typesetting Katarzyna Płońska Studio Perfectsoft ISBN 978-83-65631-06-0 Copyright by Liber Pro Arte Editor Liber Pro Arte ul. Długa 26/28 00-950 Warsaw CONTENTS Jolanta Guzy-Pasiak, Aneta Markuszewska Preface 7 Reinhard Strohm The Wanderings of Music through Space and Time 17 Alina Żórawska-Witkowska Eighteenth-Century Warsaw: Periphery, Keystone, (and) Centre of European Musical Culture 33 Harry White ‘Attending His Majesty’s State in Ireland’: English, German and Italian Musicians in Dublin, 1700–1762 53 Berthold Over Düsseldorf – Zweibrücken – Munich. Musicians’ Migrations in the Wittelsbach Dynasty 65 Gesa zur Nieden Music and the Establishment of French Huguenots in Northern Germany during the Eighteenth Century 87 Szymon Paczkowski Christoph August von Wackerbarth (1662–1734) and His ‘Cammer-Musique’ 109 Vjera Katalinić Giovanni Giornovichi / Ivan Jarnović in Stockholm: A Centre or a Periphery? 127 Katarina Trček Marušič Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Migration Flows in the Territory of Today’s Slovenia 139 Maja Milošević From the Periphery to the Centre and Back: The Case of Giuseppe Raffaelli (1767–1843) from Hvar 151 Barbara Przybyszewska-Jarmińska Music Repertory in the Seventeenth-Century Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania.
    [Show full text]
  • A History of Uremia Research
    ICURT PROCEEDINGS A History of Uremia Research Garabed Eknoyan, MD The history of uremia research begins with the discovery of urea and the subsequent association of elevated blood urea levels with the kidney disease described by Richard Bright, a well told story that needs no recounting. What this article highlights is how clinical and laboratory studies of urea launched the analysis of body fluids, first of urine and then of blood, that would beget organic chemistry, paved the way for the study of renal function and the use of urea clearance to determine ‘‘renal efficiency,’’ provided for the initial classification of kidney disease, and clarified the concepts of diffusion and osmosis that would lead to the development of dialysis. Importantly and in contrast to how the synthesis of urea in the laboratory heralded the death of ‘‘vitalism,’’ the clinical use of dialysis restored the ‘‘vitality’’ of comatose unresponsive dying uremic patients. The quest for uremic toxins that followed has made major contributions to what has been facetiously termed ‘‘molecular vitalism.’’ In the course of these major achievements derived from the study of urea, the meaning of ‘‘what is life’’ has been gradually liberated from its past attribution to supernatural forces (vital spirit, archaeus, and vital force) thereby estab- lishing the autonomy of biological life in which the kidney is the master chemist of the living body. Ó 2017 by the National Kidney Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. HE HISTORY OF uremia research can be traced to supernatural forces that had been assumed for millennia T the Scientific Revolution when urea was discovered, past, and thereby established the autonomy of biological through the Enlightenment when it was isolated and char- life in which the kidney is the master chemist of the acterized, the early modern period when it was synthesized living body.
    [Show full text]
  • The Original Documents Are Located in Box 16, Folder “6/3/75 - Rome” of the Sheila Weidenfeld Files at the Gerald R
    The original documents are located in Box 16, folder “6/3/75 - Rome” of the Sheila Weidenfeld Files at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. Copyright Notice The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Gerald R. Ford donated to the United States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections. Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public domain. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to remain with them. If you think any of the information displayed in the PDF is subject to a valid copyright claim, please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. Digitized from Box 16 of the Sheila Weidenfeld Files at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library 792 F TO C TATE WA HOC 1233 1 °"'I:::: N ,, I 0 II N ' I . ... ROME 7 480 PA S Ml TE HOUSE l'O, MS • · !? ENFELD E. • lt6~2: AO • E ~4SSIFY 11111~ TA, : ~ IP CFO D, GERALD R~) SJ 1 C I P E 10 NTIA~ VISIT REF& BRU SE 4532 UI INAl.E PAL.ACE U I A PA' ACE, TME FFtCIA~ RESIDENCE OF THE PR!S%D~NT !TA y, T ND 0 1 TH HIGHEST OF THE SEVEN HtL.~S OF ~OME, A CTENT OMA TtM , TH TEMPLES OF QUIRl US AND TME s E E ~oc T 0 ON THIS SITE. I THE CE TER OF THE PR!SENT QU?RINA~ IAZZA OR QUARE A~E ROMAN STATUES OF C~STOR ....
    [Show full text]
  • Final Copy 2020 05 12 Leen
    This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from Explore Bristol Research, http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk Author: Leendertz-Ford, Anna S T Title: Anatomy of Seventeenth-Century Alchemy and Chemistry General rights Access to the thesis is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Public License. A copy of this may be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode This license sets out your rights and the restrictions that apply to your access to the thesis so it is important you read this before proceeding. Take down policy Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions prior to having it been deposited in Explore Bristol Research. However, if you have discovered material within the thesis that you consider to be unlawful e.g. breaches of copyright (either yours or that of a third party) or any other law, including but not limited to those relating to patent, trademark, confidentiality, data protection, obscenity, defamation, libel, then please contact [email protected] and include the following information in your message: •Your contact details •Bibliographic details for the item, including a URL •An outline nature of the complaint Your claim will be investigated and, where appropriate, the item in question will be removed from public view as soon as possible. ANATOMY OF SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ALCHEMY AND CHEMISTRY ANNA STELLA THEODORA LEENDERTZ-FORD A dissertation submitted to the University of Bristol in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts, School of Philosophy.
    [Show full text]
  • Francis Bacon, Jan Baptist Van Helmont and Demetrius Cantemir
    SWEDISH JOURNAL OF ROMANIAN STUDIES FRANCIS BACON, JAN BAPTIST VAN HELMONT AND DEMETRIUS CANTEMIR. FAMILY RESEMBLANCES OF AUCTORITAS IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE Sorin CIUTACU West University of Timisoara, Romania e-mail: [email protected] Abstract: The present paper stakes out the destiny of certain ideas on scientific methods and epistemic and ontological representations that spread in 17th century Europe like a cultural epidemiology of representations against a deist, theosophical, empiricist and occult maze-like background. Our intellectual history study evaluates the family resemblances of auctoritas of three polymaths: Francis Bacon, Jan Baptist Van Helmont and Demetrius Cantemir along the cultural corridors of knowledge. If Francis Bacon was a theoretical founder of doctrines and Jan Baptist Van Helmont was a complex experimenting spirit, Demetrius Cantemir was an able disseminator of philosophy in South Eastern Europe and a creative synthetic spirit bridging the Divan ideas of Western and Eastern minds caught up in the busy exchange of ideas of the Republic of Letters. Keywords: Francis Bacon; Jan Baptist Van Helmont; Demetrius Cantemir; cultural epidemiology of representations; auctoritas; family resemblances; Early Modern Europe; polymaths; corridors of knowledge; Republic of Letters; 1. Introduction The 17th century stood for a transition period between an ontological outlook of vitalism that typified Renaissance thinking through to the early modern outlook of Francis Bacon, the founder of the scientific method to the mechanistic thinking put forward by Descartes and Newton. The present paper stakes out the destiny of certain ideas on scientific methods and epistemic and ontological representations that spread in 17th century Europe like a cultural epidemiology of representations against a deist, theosophical, empiricist and occult maze-like background (see also Sperber, 1996).
    [Show full text]
  • Hippocrates the Iatromechanist
    Medical History, 1981, 25: 113-150. HIPPOCRATES THE IATROMECHANIST by IAIN M. LONIE* INTRODUCTION THE TITLE of this essay correctly indicates that it is about Hippocrates. Yet the content is largely concerned with the writings of Friedrich Hoffmann (1660-1742), Professor of Medicine and Physics at Halle from 1693 to 1742, and the author of an influential system of medicine. This requires some explanation. It is about Hippocrates, or the Hippocratic writings, in the sense that it seeks to identify the pre- sence of certain features in them. It approaches this question, however, through the work of Hoffmann, whom it also seeks to understand in certain features of his thought. Hoffmann looked for, and found, characteristics in the Hippocratic corpus which matched those of his own medicine, a medicine which he called "mechanical". This suggests the main question with which the essay is concerned: to what extent are mechanistic features present in the Hippocratic corpus, and in what sense or senses of the word "mechanism"? Hoffmann both prompts this enquiry and maintains it in focus because, just as he is sensitive to some features, so he disregards others, curiously to my mind. In this way, he acts as a useful control upon our prejudices. So Hoffmann also becomes a subject of the essay, since we need to understand what he meant by mechanism, and why he found Hippocratic medicine congenial to it. K. E. Rothschuh has recently pointed out that Hoffmann's position in the history of medical thought has always been difficult to locate.' Historians have described him equally as a mechanist, an animist, or even as a vitalist.
    [Show full text]
  • Daily 40 No. 6 – Johann Baptista Van Helmont
    Daily 40 no. 6 – Johann Baptista van Helmont Daily 40 Hall of Fame! Congratulations to these writers! Van Helmont, a iatrochemist, was born 1579 in Belgium. He believed that matter was indestructible, and checked if his products were equal to his reactants. Van Helmont is regarded as the father of pneumatic chemistry and recognized the existence of gases different from the surrounding air. --Andrew Johann Baptista van Helmont of Belgium (1579-1644) signified the transition from alchemy to chemistry. While he claimed to have converted mercury to gold, he studied gases using experimental methods and balances, discovered carbon dioxide, and, upon carefully measuring a tree’s growth for five years, realized that matter is indestructible. --Chantal Johann Baptista van Helmont, born in 1579 in Belgium, represented the transformation between alchemy and chemistry and also recognized and characterized gases. He discovered carbon dioxide and was the first to use a balance in chemical work. He rejected Aristotle's four elements but supported air and water as foundational elements. --Gennelle Johann Baptista van Helmont was a Flemish iatrochemist who lived from 1579-1644 and founded pneumatic chemistry. He discovered that matter cannot be destroyed or created. Helmont regarded air and water as elements but he did not see earth and fire as elements. His greatest legacy is inventing the word gas. --Isaac Johann Baptista van Helmont(1579-1644) was a Flemish chemist who believed that matter was indestructible. He was interested in alchemy mainly for medicinal purposes. He tried to burn charcoal and capture the gases, which he called “spiritus silvestri, or “breath of wood.” His work heralded the transition from alchemy to chemistry.
    [Show full text]
  • Experimental Philosophers and Public Demonstrators in Augustan England
    13 J B)HS, 1995, 28, 131-56 Who did the work? Experimental philosophers and public demonstrators in Augustan England STEPHEN PUMFREY* The growth of modern science has been accompanied by the growth of professionalization. We can unquestionably speak of professional science since the nineteenth century, although historians dispute about where, when and how much. It is much more problematic and anachronistic to do so of the late seventeenth century, despite the familiar view that the period saw the origin of modern experimental science. This paper explores the broad implications of that problem. One area of scientific activity, public science lecturing and demonstrating, certainly produced its first professionals in the period 1660-1730. This was a period which Geoffrey Holmes called 'Augustan England', and which he found to be marked by the expansion of many of the professions.1 Swollen lower ranks of physicians, civil servants and teachers crowded onto the ladder up to gentility, and even solicitors achieved respectability. Alongside these established types the professional scientist, such as the public lecturer, was a novelty. Later, in the high Georgian era, a small army of men like Stephen Demainbray and Benjamin Martin made recognized if precarious livings from public experimentation, but the first generation pioneers were entering new and risky territory. As Larry Stewart has shown, 'the rise of public science' was a successful social and economic transformation of the highest significance in the history of science which was part of what has been called England's commercial revolution.2 We are accustomed to think of early, pioneering professionals like Robert Hooke, Francis Hauksbee or Denis Papin as 'notable scientists'.
    [Show full text]