MAX-PLANCK-INSTITUT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTSGESCHICHTE Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

Event

Jul 10, 2020
Reforming Medicine, ca. 1500-1700: Reforming the Christian Soul and Body

Reforming Medicine

Hendrick Goltzius, In the Beginning When the Physician is Needed, He is Considered the Equal of God the Saviour, Plate 1 from the series Allegories of the Medical Profession (1587)

In his Religio Medici (1642), the English physician Thomas Browne called the popular proverb, “ubi tres medici, duo athei” (where there are three doctors, there are two atheists), the “general scandal of [his] profession.” Concerns that medical knowledge and practice could lead to skepticism about unobservable causes, and worse, to materialism, heretical beliefs, and atheism, were widespread in late medieval and early modern medical and medico-religious circles, but especially during the reformations of anatomy and medicine in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

This working group invites scholars to reflect on the relationships between projects and practices of reforming Christianity and the developments in academic medicine (both theoretical and practical) and non-university medical training, accreditation, and practice between 1500 and 1700.

Organizer(s)
Contact and Registration

Please email Julia Reed at jreed@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de if you would like to join us via Zoom and receive copies of the pre-circulated papers. Papers and links to the Zoom meetings will be sent out one week before each meeting.

Schedule—Virtual Working Group: Reforming Medicine, ca. 1500–1700
2020-07-10T16:00:00SAVE IN I-CAL 2020-07-10 16:00:00 2020-07-10 18:00:00 Reforming Medicine, ca. 1500-1700: Reforming the Christian Soul and Body i Hendrick Goltzius, In the Beginning When the Physician is Needed, He is Considered the Equal of God the Saviour, Plate 1 from the series Allegories of the Medical Profession (1587) In his Religio Medici (1642), the English physician Thomas Browne called the popular proverb, “ubi tres medici, duo athei” (where there are three doctors, there are two atheists), the “general scandal of [his] profession.” Concerns that medical knowledge and practice could lead to skepticism about unobservable causes, and worse, to materialism, heretical beliefs, and atheism, were widespread in late medieval and early modern medical and medico-religious circles, but especially during the reformations of anatomy and medicine in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This working group invites scholars to reflect on the relationships between projects and practices of reforming Christianity and the developments in academic medicine (both theoretical and practical) and non-university medical training, accreditation, and practice between 1500 and 1700. Julia Reed Julia Reed Europe/Berlin public