A Subtle and Mysterious Machine: The Medical World of Walter Charleston (1619–1707)

305 Pages·2005·1.536 MB·English

by  S. Gaukroger (auth.), Emily Booth (eds.)

‘A SUBTLE AND MYSTERIOUS MACHINE’
STUDIES IN HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
VOLUME 18
General Editor:
S. GAUKROGER,University of Sydney
Editorial Advisory Board:
K. HUTCHISON, University of Melbourne
J. McCALMAN, University of Melbourne
D. MILLER, University of New South Wales
G. C. NERLICH, University of Adelaide
D. R. OLDROYD, University of New South Wales
E. RICHARDS,University of Sydney
J. SCHUSTER, University of New South Wales
R. YEO, Griffith University
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
EMILY BOOTH
‘A SUBTLE AND
MYSTERIOUS MACHINE’
The Medical World of
Walter Charleton (1619-1707)
A C.I.P.Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library ofCongress.
ISBN-10 1-4020-3377-X (HB)
ISBN-10 1-4020-3378-8 (e-book)
ISBN-13 978-1-4020-3377-3 (HB)
ISBN-13 978-1-4020-3378-0 (e-book)
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
I. Introduction 1
II. Rewriting Walter Charleton:Physick and Natural Philosophy 32
III. ‘The Alembic of our Pen’:Charleton’s Identity as a Physician 52
IV. ‘The Animal Oeconomy’:
Natural History (1659) in the Context of English Physiology 81
V. ‘The Republick of Letters’:
Charleton’s Identity in the Royal Society & College
of Physicians 109
VI. Enquiries into Human Nature (1680):
Charleton’s Anatomy and Physiology after the Royal Society 137
VII. Three Anatomic Lectures (1683):
Ways of Knowing and the Anatomical Body 178
VIII. Conclusions 216
Annotated bibliography of the works of Walter Charleton 223
Primary Sources 243
Secondary Sources 254
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful for the assistance of the Wellcome Institute for the History of
Medicine,London,in the research toward this volume.Thanks also to Cathy Fowler
at the Library of the Royal College of Physicians of London for her kind help.
This book would never have eventuated if it were not for the guidance (and
endless patience) of Lotte Mulligan—a tireless reader, rigorous critic and true
friend.My profound thanks to Inga Clendinnen for reminding me why it was all
worth it. Thanks also to John Cashmere for his kindness and enthusiasm, and
to the History Department at La Trobe University,the support of whom I have
been lucky enough to enjoy.
I’m immensely grateful to Stephen Gaukroger and John Schuster, for their
patient and detailed editorial suggestions. And to John Henry and Conal
Condren,for their thoughtful insights into the work’s strengths and weaknesses.
Needless to say,all failings are my own.
I would long ago have faltered were it not for the wisdom, clarity and excel-
lent company of Lisa MacKinney, Jo Wallwork and Marina Bollinger. All of
them have helped me in ways more significant than they’ll ever realise.My won-
derful family has been a source of unquestioning support and love throughout
this project,and I could not have finished this book were it not for them.
My most humble debt of gratitude is to Darren James, whose intelligence,
love and humour are a continual inspiration,and whose effortless insights into
Walter Charleton have never ceased to infuriate me.Thankyou.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Walter Charleton is an intriguing character—he flits through the diaries of
Pepys and Evelyn, the correspondence of Margaret Cavendish, and his texts
appear in the libraries of better-known contemporaries. We catch sight of him
conversing with Pepys about teeth,1arguing with Inigo Jones about the origin of
Stonehenge,being lampooned in contemporary satire,2stealing from the Royal
Society, and embarrassing himself in anatomical procedures. While extremely
active in a broad range of Royal Society investigations,his main discovery there
seems to have been that tadpoles turned into frogs.
As a practising physician of limited means,Walter Charleton was reliant for
his living upon patrons and his medical practice—in addition he had the mis-
fortune to live in an era of dramatic political change, and consequently of
unpredictable fortune.His achievements were known on the Continent.Despite
his embarrassments in Royal Society anatomical investigation he was offered the
prestigious chair of anatomy at the University of Padua. He turned down this
extraordinary opportunity,only to die destitute in his native country a couple of
decades later. The lugubrious doctor is without doubt an enigma. Charleton’s
Anglicanism and staunch Royalism were unwavering throughout his career.The
latter caused difficulties for him when he attempted to gain membership of the
College of Physicians during the interregnum.His religious views were a source
of concern when he was offered the position at Padua.
At the forefront of contemporary thought in his translation of the continen-
tal philosophies first of Van Helmont and then of Gassendi,Charleton seems to
have swerved publicly from hermetic to atomistic philosophy in the 1650s.Partly
for this reason, his writings have been annexed by historians over the years
almost uniformly to perpetuate the idea of ‘scientific revolution’. He has been
depicted as a ‘barometer’of contemporary thought.3This book aims to present
1 Pepys records that on 28 July 1666 he dined with Charleton,Lord Brouncker and his mistress and
Sir William Warren,at the Pope’s Head,where Charleton delivered a ‘very pretty discourse...con-
cerning Nature’s fashioning every creature’s teeth according to the food she intends them.’The Diary
of Samuel Pepys, ed. R. Latham and W. Matthews, London, Bell, 1970-1983, vol. 7, pp. 223-4.
Nicholas Dew discusses this occasion in detail in ‘The Politics ofthe Body in Restoration England:
Anatomy and Theology in the Work ofWalter Charleton’,MSc Dissertation,Oxford,1995,p.1.
2 See Samuel Butler,‘An occasional reflection on Dr Charleton’s feeling a dog’s pulse at Gresham
College by R[obert] B[oyle]’,in The Genuine Remains in Verse and Prose of Mr Samuel Butler,
1749,vol.1,pp.404-10.
3 C. Webster, The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine and Reform, 1626-1660, London,
Duckworth,1975,p.278.
1
2 CHAPTER I
him as a historically contextualised figure,against a background that he himself
would have recognised, rather than as a symbol of a theoretical perspective
derived from our own era.
Those who claim for Charleton a transition from ‘ancient’to ‘modern’argue
that this took place in the 1650s, when he allegedly rejected hermeticism for
atomism.Examinations of his writings are thus often restricted to the texts sur-
rounding this alleged transition. This characterisation is not particularly help-
ful,or accurate,in relation to his medical thought,the study of which does not
support the view of him promoted by scholars who look at him solely as a nat-
ural philosopher. Definitions of Charleton’s career as contemporaneous and
commensurate with the process of scientific revolution have promoted a reading
which omits his medical writings.His publications ranged over numerous disci-
plines, from his first triad of Helmontian texts to his translation from Pierre
Gassendi; several ‘physico-theologicall’ treatises; translations from classical
authors;a history of the passions;a history of Stonehenge,and finally a series
of physiological and anatomical medical tracts. Although his life was founded
on the practice of physic he is depicted by scholars as a natural philosopher in
both identity and aim. His medical status and his medical texts are neglected
aspects of his career.
This book considers the works he published in the discipline within which he
made his living, as they illuminate aspects of his self-presentation not widely
recognised. His medical works are the centrepiece of my study, which explores
Charleton’s construction of an authoritative identity. I also consider the rela-
tionship between identity and epistemology, primarily in Charleton’s medical
writings.Just as these writings have been neglected in existing historiography,so
has their author’s status as a professional physician. The restricted view of
Charleton as a man preoccupied with natural philosophy has led us to neglect
some of the major insights that his works offer into other areas of his career,
and into the professional and intellectual landscape of the seventeenth century
physician.
One of the most important and fascinating insights offered by his medical
works is that he operated within a truly eclectic mode. Charleton tended to
repeat rather than generate original explanations, and deliberately presented
himself as a compiler,rather than an innovator.His openness to a variety of the-
ories, and willingness to explore them without adopting any single systematic
framework, illustrates important features of the genres within which he wrote.
Some recent historiography of epistemology emphasises the significance of
eclecticism. While I concur with the emphasis, I disagree with the tendency of
that school to link eclecticism solely with the skepticism of the virtuosi, and
therefore with empirical practice.This study highlights the importance of eclec-
ticism as an influence upon Charleton’s self-presentation as a physician.I argue
that eclecticism is manifest in his works both as a method and a philosophical
approach. Far more than simply a sign of uncertainty (as it is sometimes
depicted),eclecticism was integral to Charleton’s ability to assimilate and main-
INTRODUCTION 3
tain ancient authority and to craft an appropriate medical persona. A detailed
account of the origins of eclecticism as a philosophical tradition is a topic on
which more research is required, and is beyond the scope of this volume. This
study illustrates how important further research into this subject might be for a
closer understanding of seventeenth century thinkers such as Charleton.
While experimental experience has been ascribed primary epistemological sig-
nificance by historians of the period,it is crucial to look at the value Charleton
himself placed upon empirical evidence in his anatomical and physiological
writings. Those who perceive practices as the centrepiece of identity fail to
recognise the important discrepancies that can emerge between practices and
textual presentation. I examine not only the experimental practices with which
Charleton was involved,but also how he treated experiment,and whether it con-
stituted a persuasive and frequently-invoked aspect of his physiological expla-
nation.I believe that there is an important discrepancy between his experimental
activities and his self-presentation.
Identified by many scholars as a ‘virtuoso’experimental philosopher,Charleton
is generally assumed to have complied with the practices associated with the natu-
ral philosophical community. Prominent historians Shapin, Dear and Henry see
this as entailing participation in the collaborative empirical generation of units of
knowledge,known as ‘matters of fact’,and an emphasis upon experimental iden-
tity and upon the laboratory as the authoritative context for the construction of
knowledge.In contrast,I argue that Charleton’s medical works illustrate the con-
tinued importance of many activities ignored by this model. These include an
emphasis on textual authority,an eclectic acceptance of a range of alternative the-
ories, and an emphasis upon the meditative and solitary creation of knowledge.
While these characteristics would have been shared by many in the natural philo-
sophical community,they are not recognised in the works of many historians,and
it is with this important omission that I take issue.
To understand Charleton’s medical writings, and his role in the late seven-
teenth century intellectual landscape, we must place him within the context in
which he lived and worked:that of a professional physician.This,I argue,sheds
new light upon his life, and offers an understanding not afforded by his por-
trayal as a natural philosopher.
This study examines some of the reasons why Charleton’s self-construction
differed from that of the ‘virtuosi’,as well as exploring the ways in which it did
differ.In doing this,epistemological issues central to our understanding of sev-
enteenth century thought about the study of the natural order are augmented.
WHO WAS WALTER CHARLETON?
The following is a sketch of some of the main phases in Charleton’s life, and
is designed to illuminate features relevant to the context within which he
wrote and practised. The content of specific works is left for later chapters.