Blood, sweat, and tears : the changing concepts of physiology from antiquity into early modern Europe

800 Pages·2012·19.31 MB·English

by  H F J Horstmanshoff

Blood, Sweat and Tears – The Changing
Concepts of Physiology from Antiquity
into Early Modern Europe
Intersections
Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture
General Editor
Karl A.E. Enenkel
Chair of Medieval and Neo-Latin Literature
Westfälische Wilhelmsuniversität Münster
e-mail: kenen_01@uni_muenster.de
Editorial Board
W. van Anrooij (University of Leiden)
W. de Boer (Miami University)
K.A.E. Enenkel (University of Münster)
J.L. de Jong (University of Groningen)
W.S. Melion (Emory University)
K. Murphy (University of Oxford)
W. Neuber (NYU Abu Dhabi)
P.J. Smith (University of Leiden)
A. Traninger (Freie Universität Berlin)
C. Zittel (Freie Universität Berlin)
VOLUME 25 – 2012
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/inte
Intersections
Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture
General Editor
Karl A.E. Enenkel
Chair of Medieval and Neo-Latin Literature
Westfälische Wilhelmsuniversität Münster
e-mail: kenen_01@uni_muenster.de
Editorial Board
W. van Anrooij (University of Leiden)
W. de Boer (Miami University)
K.A.E. Enenkel (University of Münster)
J.L. de Jong (University of Groningen)
W.S. Melion (Emory University)
K. Murphy (University of Oxford)
W. Neuber (NYU Abu Dhabi)
P.J. Smith (University of Leiden)
A. Traninger (Freie Universität Berlin)
C. Zittel (Freie Universität Berlin)
VOLUME 25 – 2012
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/inte
Tobias Cohn, Ma’aseh Tobiyyah (Work of Tobias), published in Venice in 1708, illustrated the
human body as a house (fol. 107 recto). The house of the body divides body space so that the head
is the roof, the spleen the cellar, and the legs the foundations. The functions of the body are seen
according to a thermodynamic model that uses comparisons with the apparatus of distillation.
Blood, Sweat and Tears –
The Changing Concepts of
Physiology from Antiquity into
Early Modern Europe
Edited by
Manfred Horstmanshoff, Helen King
and Claus Zittel

LEIDEN • BOSTON
2012
Cover illustration: Tobias Cohn, Ma’aseh Tobiyyah (Work of Tobias), published in Venice in 1708. See
Introduction 9.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Blood, sweat, and tears : the changing concepts of physiology from antiquity into early modern
europe / edited by Manfred Horstmanshoff, Helen King, and Claus Zittel.
  p. cm. — (Intersections ; 25)
 Includes index.
 ISBN 978-90-04-22918-1 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-22920-4 (e-book) 1. Medicine,
Ancient. 2. Medicine—History. 3. Physiology—History. I. Horstmanshoff, H. F. J. II. King, Helen,
1957– III. Zittel, Claus.
 R135.B56 2012
 610—dc23
2012010504
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters
covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the
humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.nl/brill-typeface.
ISSN 1568-1811
ISBN 978 90 04 22918 1 (hardback)
ISBN 978 90 04 22920 4 (e-book)
Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV
provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center,
222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA.
Fees are subject to change.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
CONTENTS
Preface and Acknowledgements  ................................................................ ix
Notes on the Editors  ...................................................................................... xi
Notes on the Contributors  ........................................................................... xiii
List of Illustrations  .......................................................................................... xxi
Introduction  ..................................................................................................... 1
Helen King
PART ONE
HISTORY OF PHYSIOLOGY IN CONTEXT:
CONCEPTS, METAPHORS, ANALOGIES
Physiologia from Galen to Jacob Bording  ................................................ 27
Vivian Nutton
Physiological Analogies and Metaphors In Explanations of the
Earth and the Cosmos  .............................................................................. 41
Liba Taub
The Reception of the Hippocratic Treatise On Glands  ....................... 65
Elizabeth Craik
Between Atoms and Humours. Lucretius’ Didactic Poetry as a
Model of Integrated and Bifocal Physiology  ..................................... 83
Fabio Tutrone
Losing Ground. The Disappearance of Attraction from the
Kidneys  .......................................................................................................... 103
Michael R. McVaugh
The Art of the Distillation of ‘Spirits’ as a Technological Model
for Human Physiology. The Cases of Marsilio Ficino,
Joseph Duchesne and Francis Bacon  ................................................... 139
Sergius Kodera
vi contents
The Body is a Battlefield. Conflict and Control in Seventeenth-
Century Physiology and Political Thought  ........................................ 171
Sabine Kalff
Herman Boerhaave’s Neurology and the Unchanging Nature of
Physiology  .................................................................................................... 195
Rina Knoeff
The Anatomy and Physiology of Mind. David Hume’s Vitalistic
Account  ......................................................................................................... 217
Tamás Demeter
More than a Fading Flame. The Physiology of Old Age between
Speculative Analogy and Experimental Method  .............................. 241
Daniel Schäfer
Suffering Bodies, Sensible Artists. Vitalist Medicine and the
Visualising of Corporeal Life in Diderot  ............................................. 267
Tomas Macsotay
PART TWO
BLOOD
Blood, Clotting and the Four Humours  ................................................... 295
Hans L. Haak
An Issue of Blood. The Healing of the Woman with the
Haemorrhage (Mark 5.24b–34; Luke 8.42b–48; Matthew 9.19–22)
in Early Medieval Visual Culture  .......................................................... 307
Barbara Baert, Liesbet Kusters and Emma Sidgwick
The Nature of the Soul and the Passage of Blood through the
Lungs. Galen, Ibn al-Nafīs, Servetus, İtaki, ‘Aṭṭār  ............................. 339
Rainer Brömer
Sperm and Blood, Form and Food. Late Medieval Medical Notions
of Male and Female in the Embryology of Membra  ....................... 363
Karine van ’t Land
contents vii
The Music of the Pulse in Marsilio Ficino’s Timaeus
Commentary  ................................................................................................ 393
Jacomien Prins
‘For the Life of a Creature is in the Blood’ (Leviticus 17:11). Some
Considerations on Blood as the Source of Life in Sixteenth-
Century Religion and Medicine and their Interconnections  ....... 415
Catrien Santing
White Blood and Red Milk. Analogical Reasoning in Medical
Practice and Experimental Physiology (1560–1730)  ........................ 443
Barbara Orland
PART THREE
SWEAT AND SKIN
The “Body without Skin” in the Homeric Poems  .................................. 481
Valeria Gavrylenko
Sweat. Learned Concepts and Popular Perceptions, 1500–1800  ....... 503
Michael Stolberg
Of the Fisherman’s Net and Skin Pores. Reframing Conceptions of
the Skin in Medicine 1572–1714  .............................................................. 523
Mieneke te Hennepe
PART FOUR
TEARS AND SIGHT
Vision and Vision Disorders. Galen’s Physiology of Sight  .................. 551
Véronique Boudon-Millot
Early Modern Medical Thinking on Vision and the Camera
Obscura. V.F. Plempius’ Ophthalmographia  ...................................... 569
Katrien Vanagt
viii contents
The Tertium Comparationis of the Elementa Physiologiae. –
Johann Gottfried von Herder’s Conception of “Tears” as Mediators
between the Sublime and the Actual Bodily Physiology  ............... 595
Frank W. Stahnisch
PART FIVE
BODY AND SOUL
From Doubt to Certainty. Aspects of the Conceptualisation and
Interpretation of Galen’s Natural Pneuma  ........................................ 629
Julius Rocca
Metabolisms of the Soul. The Physiology of Bernardino Telesio in
Oliva Sabuco’s Nueva Filosofía de la Naturaleza del Hombre
(1587)  .............................................................................................................. 661
Marlen Bidwell-Steiner
“Full of Rapture”. Maternal Vocality and Melancholy in Webster’s
Duchess of Malfi  .......................................................................................... 685
Marion A. Wells
The Sleeping Musician. Aristotle’s Vegetative Soul and Ralph
Cudworth’s Plastic Nature  ....................................................................... 713
Diana Stanciu

Index Locorum  ................................................................................................ 751
Index Generalis ................................................................................................ 760