Medicine and the Body in Early Modern Europe

This volume brings together essays examining a wide range of topics related to early modern medicine, including the notion of climacterical years, which recurred every seventh year and shaped early modern perceptions of life; the origins and development of palliative care in premodern medicine; and the early modern understanding of melancholia as a disease rather than just a temperament. Delving into the casuistic training, empirical observations, and public self-fashioning of learned physicians, this book explores key concepts of ancient and early modern medical theory, such as the notion of total substance, and the idea of a super-elementary innate heat. These ideas are traced through Avicennas Canon of Medicine and the works of Daniel Sennert, who connected them to his atomistic view of the human body and its diseases. Published for the first time in English, these essays offer readers illuminating insights into the fascinating world of early modern medicine.