A STRANGE GUEST: THE DEMONOLOGICAL FRAMING OF THE PATHOLOGICAL IN HELMONTIAN MEDICINE Laura Sumrall A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Science in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History and Philosophy of Science The University of Sydney September 2020 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................................................. iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ........................................................................................................................... iv ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................................... v INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 1 Jan Baptista van Helmont and His Histories ........................................................................... 3 Present Purposes .......................................................................................................................... 6 Descriptive Outline ...................................................................................................................... 6 PART I: DEMONS ...................................................................................................................................... 8 CHAPTER 1: THE REGURGITATED KNIFE: DEMONIC POWER AND THE BOUNDARIES OF NATURE ............................................................................................. 9 I: Incredible Illness ............................................................................................................ 12 II: The Demon’s Domain ................................................................................................. 19 III: Medicine Made Manifest ............................................................................................ 25 IV: Recourse to the Devil ................................................................................................. 29 CHAPTER 2: POWERS OF HEALING AND HARMING: A THEORY OF MAGIC ..................... 32 I: The Power of the Witch ................................................................................................ 36 II: The Power of Imagination .......................................................................................... 39 III: The Power of the Devil ............................................................................................. 43 IV: The Power of Medicine .............................................................................................. 47 V: The Ends and Means of Magic ................................................................................... 50 VI: Powers of Healing and Harming .............................................................................. 54 PART II: DISEASES .................................................................................................................................. 56 CHAPTER 3: A STRANGE GUEST: THE DEMONOLOGICAL FRAMING OF DISEASE .......... 57 I: Disease Is ......................................................................................................................... 58 II: The Seed ......................................................................................................................... 59 III: The Ferment ................................................................................................................ 63 IV: The Archeus ................................................................................................................. 65 V: Creating Disease ............................................................................................................ 68 VI: Classifying Disease ...................................................................................................... 71 ii VII: Wounds and Tempests ............................................................................................. 76 VIII: Foreign Yet Familiar ................................................................................................ 81 IX: A Strange Guest .......................................................................................................... 84 PART III: DEPARTURES ........................................................................................................................ 87 CHAPTER 4: UNNATURAL BODIES: THE HELMONTIAN CRITIQUE OF ANATOMICAL INVESTIGATION ................................................................................... 88 I: A True Disciple of Helmont ........................................................................................ 93 II: The Plague Anatomized .............................................................................................. 99 III: Natural Bodies, Unnatural Diseases ....................................................................... 107 IV: A New Anatomy ....................................................................................................... 112 V: Pyrotechny Asserted ................................................................................................... 117 CHAPTER 5: THE SPOOR OF DISEASE: VENATIC EPISTEMOLOGY AND UNIVERSAL MEDICINE .............................................................................................. 122 I: The Liquor Alkahest .................................................................................................... 123 II: On Dropsy: Thomas Sydenham ............................................................................... 129 III: On Dropsy: Van Helmont ....................................................................................... 136 IV: Curing Generally ....................................................................................................... 142 V: Perfecting Knowledge ................................................................................................ 145 VI: Dispossessing the Demon ....................................................................................... 148 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................................... 150 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................................ 152 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am foremost indebted to my supervisor, Ofer Gal, for spending years sharing his experience and expertise in the History and Philosophy of Science, in the process never declining to read last- minute drafts, to share coffee and conversation, or to offer advice. I would not be the historian I am – or perhaps an historian at all – without his longsuffering guidance. I count myself lucky to have found my way to the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney, where I have been since beginning my postgraduate study. My particular thanks go to Debbie Castle and Daniela Helbig for their advice and support. I also had the fortune to spend time researching at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and at Brown University, where I learned from impressive scholars how to be more scholarly myself. Among these scholars, I would like to thank Harold Cook, Sietske Fransen, and Elaine Leong in particular for their generosity. I would be remiss not to also acknowledge the people without whom I would have never embarked on an academic career (emphasizing that I accept all blame for this decision myself): Michael Farmer, Mark Clark, and Kelly Sellers. Seven years ago, I bought a one-way ticket to Australia, where I intended to live and study for only two years. It would be impossible to acknowledge every debt I’ve accrued since then, to the many people who have made foreign places familiar to me. That said, it would have been impossible to complete this thesis – however imperfect – without the support of my fellow postgraduates at Sydney and elsewhere, whom I have the privilege of calling friends. Among them: Chris Hesselbein, Paddy Holt, Claire Kennedy, Ian Lawson, Sam Lewin, James Ley, Eamon Little, Nicolas Michel, Alex Pereira, and Sahar Tavakoli. Finally (and particularly for my mother’s peace of mind) I leave an assurance originally penned by Eliza Butler: There are others who might be mentioned; but it will be abundantly clear to my readers that, although this volume sprang from a Faustian impulse (the desire for more knowledge than I could attain to), I have not invoked the devil’s aid and need tender no thanks to him. Así fui revelando los años, así fui entrando en posesión de lo que ya era mío. Jorge Luis Borges iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1: Portrait of Andreas Grünheide, the Prussian knife-swallower ....................................................... 16 Figure 2: Margaret’s Knife .......................................................................................................................... 19 Figure 3: The Phalanx of Diseases .............................................................................................................. 74 Figure 4: An Advertisement from the Society of Chymical Physitians ........................................................... 91 Figure 5: Loimotomia ............................................................................................................................... 100 v ABSTRACT