History of Science Society

University of Chicago Press

Review
Author(s): Allen G. Debus
Review by: Allen G. Debus
Source: Isis, Vol. 77, No. 2 (Jun., 1986), pp. 374-375
Published by: University of Chicago Press on behalf of History of Science Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/232709
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374 BOOKREVIEWS-ISIS, 77: 2: 287 (1986)

the crisis broughton by the plague reveals practice that could adequately serve the
a more accuratepicture. generalpopulation.In fact, also contraryto
The Black Death brought not only dis- common opinion, the records show that
credit to the physicians and misgivings to only a fractionof privatepracticewas dedi-
their sons, who otherwise would have suc- cated to aristocraticpatients.
ceeded them, but also an influx of empirics In addition to the physicians' careers as
and other newcomersfrom outside the city. documentedin the archives, their libraries
This crisis provoked efforts to restore pub- and writings belie the image of medical
lic confidence, to tighten licensing, to pro- scholasticism as mired in stagnant dogma
tect the interests of the native Florentine and alien to contemporary culture. This
physicians, and to concentratetheir control imagebecame a stereotype throughthe dia-
over the medical branch of the guild in a tribes of the Humanists, but Park argues
College of Doctors. The failure of these at- that the celebrated invective has obscured
tempts suggests that academic consolida- the scholastic doctors' interest in the new
tion without political influence was insuffi- art and learningas well as their full partici-
cient to account for the development of a pation in the corporate life of Florence.
profession. Meanwhile, however, the com- Her account of this participation,of inter-
munal provision of medical care expanded nal guild dynamics, and of the practi-
so that most people, at least in the city, had tioners' personal motives may strike some
a wide variety of health services available skeptics as too sympathetic. To others her
throughpublic doctors, apothecaryclinics, theses may seem hardly applicableoutside
membershipin confraternities,and the hos- the northernItaliancity-states. Even skep-
pitals, which were becoming more devoted tics, however, will agree that Katharine
to sick care. Such evidence challenges the Park's lucid and richly documented study
conventionalview that academic organiza- belongs with the best of recent scholarship
tion, a prerequisiteto professionalization, both on Florence and on the early medical
was followed much later by a system of milieu.
LUKE E. DEMAITRE

A. Wear; R. K. French; I. M. Lonie (Edi-

tors). The Medical Renaissance of the Six-
teenth Century. xvi + 349 pp., bibl., index.
Cambridge/London/NewYork: Cambridge
University Press, 1985. $59.50.
H - This volume of essays results from a con-
:lS'
~~~~~~~~'r
I T R. ference held at Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge,in September1983. It is clearly
a valuable book on an importantsubject.
Most of the authors are acknowledgedau-
thorities in the field, and the papers are
substantial. Among the contributors we
:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.
.. . . ..-...jE
find C. B. Schmitt, N. G. Siraisi, R. K.
French, V. Nutton, A. Wear, I. M. Lonie,
J. J. Bylebyl, and L. Garcia-Ballester.Top-
ics include the relation of philosophy to
medicine in sixteenth-centuryuniversities,
the meaning of humanism in Renaissance
1E
medicine and surgery, Jean Fernel's use of
E~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~:
occult causes in his explanationof disease,
and the pulse controversy prior to William
Harvey. I found particularly interesting
Andrew Cunningham'spaper, in which he
asserts that Girolamo Fabrici was con-
sciously recreatingthe researchprogramof
Aristotle in his anatomicalwork at Padua,
and Garcia-Ballester's discussion of the
Petrus de Montagnana rapid decline of the medicine of the mo-
early Renaissance physician. riscos in the sixteenth century.

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 BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 77: 2 287 (1986) 375

But, granted the many good points of the even the earliest plan for an official phar-
volume, there are real faults as well. The macopoeia discussed by the Royal College
group represented here forms a rather small of Physicians (1589) included a section of
international fraternity, and they were pri- chemical medicines. Frankly, the unfortu-
marily talking to each other. Many poten- nate death of Walter Pagel is no excuse for
tial readers would have benefited from an the omission from this volume of such an
introductory chapter setting the scene- important part of Renaissance medicine,
one that might have explained the basic since there are a number of scholars who
differences between Arabic and Greek might have been called on to substitute for
medicine or the conflict between the Aris- him-not only in England, but from the
totelians and the Galenists. These are sub- Continent or North America. I think that
jects that recur frequently; they are impor- this omission is symptomatic of the persis-
tant and deserve some discussion early in tent reluctance of historians of medicine to
the volume. deal with chemistry, even when it is ob-
A more serious problem is the title cho- viously germane to a given topic. In the end
sen for this volume, which is clearly mis- only Richard Palmer's "Pharmacy in the
leading. A large percentage of the papers Republic of Venice in the Sixteenth Cen-
deal with a "Galenic renaissance" and med- tury" contains any material on the new
ical education in the sixteenth century. But medicines. The seven pages he devotes to
it is difficult to understand how anyone the topic give new information on the Ital-
could organize a conference on sixteenth- ian scene, but the subject is of enough sig-
century medicine without highlighting in nificance to warrant far more attention than
some way the work and influence of Para- it received.
celsus or his followers. The short introduc- It should be added by way of a postscript
tion notes that Walter Pagel had started that this is an expensive volume. We nor-
such a study for this book but died before it mally expect quality bindings from Cam-
was completed. And, to be sure, lip service bridge University Press, but this volume
is paid to the need for such a chapter: "For was bound with plastic-covered boards.
this book, the existence of Paracelsian Surely we deserve better for our sixty-dol-
medicine is significant because it shows lar outlay.
that there was a radical alternative to Ga- ALLEN G. DEBUS
lenic medicine; it provided a place for those
who were so dissatisfied with Galenic med-
icine that they could not be content to * Seventeenth & Eighteenth Centuries
merely modify it" (pp. xv-xvi). But it is im-
plied that such a chapter is not absolutely
Marius D'Assigny. The Art of Memory: A
necessary, since "[Paracelsus's] followers
Treatise Usefil foor Such as Are to Speak in
did not exert any influence until the second
Puiblick. With an introduction by Michael
half of the century and it was not until the
V. DePorte. (Scientific Awakening in the
beginning of the seventeenth century that
Restoration, 1.) xiv + xxiv + 91 pp. New
they made a major impact on the bastions
York: AMS Press, 1985. $45.
of Galenic orthodoxy in countries such as
England and France." This statement is not Walter Charleton. The Immortality of' the
entirely true: the Parisian medical estab- Hluman Solul, Demonstrated by the Light of
lishment had surely taken a stand against Natlure. With an introduction by J. M. Ar-
the new chemical remedies by 1578; and mistead. (Scientific Awakening in the Res-
Guenther von Andernach, whose teaching toration, 2.) xix + 188 pp., illus. New
in Paris and work as a medical humanist are York: AMS Press, 1985. $87.50.
mentioned a number of times, praised the
Samuel Parker. A Free and Impartial Cen-
Paracelsian remedies in 1571 in his work on
slure of the Platonick Philosophie: Being a
the old and the new medicine. There was
Letter Written to His Much Honolured
an increasing interest in the use of distilla-
Friend, M.N.B. With an introduction by
tion methods throughout the century, and
Ken Robinson. (Scientific Awakening in the
this is reflected in the herbals of the period.
Restoration, 3.) xv + 115 pp. New York:
Wlodzimierz Hubicki pointed to the fact
AMS Press, 1985. $45.
that the chemical chapters in the works of
Arnald of Villanova were frequently re- These reprints represent the first three
quired reading for sixteenth-century medi- offerings in a series that one hopes will con-
cal students, and George Urdang noted that tribute to the ongoing reassessment of the

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