This open access book offers new insights into the Venetian physician Sanctorius Sanctorius (1561–1636) and into the origins of quantification in medicine. At the turn of the seventeenth century, Sanctorius developed instruments to measure and quantify physiological change. As trivial as the quantitative assessment of health issues might seem to us today – in times of fitness trackers and smart watches – it was highly innovative at that time. With his instruments, Sanctorius introduced quantitative research into the field of physiology. Historical accounts of Sanctorius and his work tend to tell the story of a genius who, almost out of the blue, invented a new medical science, based on measurement and quantification, that profoundly influenced modernity. Abandoning the “genius narrative,” this book examines Sanctorius and his work in the broader perspective of processes of knowledge transformation in early modern medicine. It is the first systematic study to include the entire range of the physician’s intellectual and practical activities. Adopting a material culture perspective, the research draws on the contemporary reconstruction of Sanctorius’s most famous instrument: the Sanctorian weighing chair. And here it departs from past studies that focus mainly on Sanctorius’s thinking rather than on his making and doing. The book also re-evaluates Sanctorius’s role in the wider process of the early transformation of medical culture in the early modern period, a process that ultimately led to the abandonment of Galenic medicine and to the introduction of a new medical science, based on the use of quantification and measurement in medical research. The book is therefore an important contribution to the history of medicine and historical epistemology aimed at historians of science and philosophy.
Author(s): Teresa Hollerbach
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 339
City: Cham
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Contents
Abbreviations and Short Titles
List of Figures
Chapter 1: Introduction
References
Chapter 2: Sanctorius Sanctorius: Between Koper and Venice
2.1 Childhood and Education
2.2 Sanctorius’s Early Practice: Travels, Relations, and Much Uncertainty
2.3 Professorship at the University of Padua
2.4 The Collegio Veneto
2.4.1 Quarrels with the Church
2.4.2 Quarrels with the German Nation of Artists
2.5 Failed Reappointment and Resignation
2.6 Retirement in Venice: The Continuation of a Busy Life
2.7 Sanctorius’s Role in the Treatment of the Plague
2.8 Death and Legacy
References
Chapter 3: Sanctorius’s Galenism
3.1 The “Six Non-Natural Things”
3.1.1 The Origin of the “Six Non-Natural Things”
3.1.2 The Role of the Non-Naturals in Pathology
3.1.3 The Role of the Non-Naturals in Therapy
3.2 The Concept of perspiratio insensibilis
3.2.1 Early Ideas on perspiratio insensibilis
3.2.2 Sources of Sanctorius’s Concept of perspiratio insensibilis
3.2.3 Sanctorius’s Conception of perspiratio insensibilis
3.2.4 The Dual Origin of perspiratio insensibilis
3.2.5 Digestion
3.2.6 Respiration
3.2.7 Perspiratio insensibilis and Sweat
3.2.8 The Composition of perspiratio insensibilis
3.2.9 Perspiratio impedita
3.2.10 The Doctrine of Sympathy
3.2.11 The Influence of Medical Methodism
3.3 The Non-Naturals Reconsidered
3.3.1 Air and Water
3.3.2 Food and Drink
3.3.3 Sleep and Wake
3.3.4 Exercise and Rest
3.3.5 Coitus
3.3.6 Affections of the Mind
3.3.7 The Ars … de statica medicina and Its Galenic Context
References
Chapter 4: Sanctorius’s Work in Its Practical Context
4.1 The Ars … de statica medicina and Its Practical Context
4.1.1 The Aphoristic Form
4.1.2 The Medieval Regimina sanitatis
4.2 The Use of Instruments
4.2.1 Surgical Instruments and Anatomy
4.2.2 Instruments for the Improvement and Alleviation of the Sick
4.2.3 Instruments to Demonstrate Optical Phenomena
4.3 A New Approach to theoria—Head and Hand?
References
Chapter 5: Quantification in Galenic Medicine
5.1 The Quantification of Food and Drink
5.2 Degrees, Computation, and Proportions
5.2.1 The Latitude of Health
5.2.2 Pharmacology and the Latitude of Qualities
5.2.3 Pharmacological Practice
5.2.4 Pharmacology and Dietetics
5.3 Erasistratus and Nicolaus Cusanus—Two Early Quantitative Approaches
5.3.1 Erasistratus
5.3.2 Nicolaus Cusanus
5.4 Three Instances of Quantitative Physiological Reasoning
5.4.1 Galen and the Quantification of Urine
5.4.2 Leonardo Botallo and the Production of Blood
5.4.3 Cesare Cremonini and the Quantity of Arterial Blood
5.4.4 Quantification—A Growing Trend
References
Chapter 6: Quantification and Certainty
6.1 Measuring the Quantity of Diseases: Four Instruments
6.1.1 Galen’s Latitude of Health Quantified: The Measurement of Disease, Virtue, and Humors
6.1.2 The Relation of the De statica medicina to the Measuring Instruments
6.2 The Question of Certainty in Medicine
6.2.1 Medicine—ars or scientia?
6.2.2 Enhancing Certainty in Medicine through Quantification
6.2.3 The Role of Reasoning and the Method of the Six Fontes
6.2.4 The Role of Experience and Empirical Knowledge
6.2.5 Experience or Experiment?
References
Chapter 7: The Measuring Instruments
7.1 Two Balances to Measure Climatic Conditions
7.1.1 Technical Interpretation of the Steelyards
7.1.2 The Technological Context
7.1.3 The Dietetic Context: The Six Non-Natural Things
7.1.4 The Context of Pharmacology
7.2 The Pulsilogia
7.2.1 The Use of the Pendulum: How Did the Pulsilogia Measure?
7.2.2 The Pulsilogia in Context
7.2.3 The Purpose of the Instruments: What Did the Pulsilogia Measure?
7.3 The Thermoscopes
7.3.1 Design and Basic Functioning of the Thermoscopes
7.3.2 What Did the Thermoscopes Measure?
7.3.3 Measuring the Heat of the Moon
7.3.4 The Thermoscopes in Context
7.4 The Hygrometers
7.4.1 Four Methods to Measure the Humidity of Air
7.4.2 Two Hygrometers
7.4.3 What Did the Hygrometers Measure?
7.4.4 The Hygrometers in Context
7.5 The Sanctorian Chair
7.5.1 Sanctorius’s Presentation and Use of the Weighing Chair
7.5.2 The Reconstruction of the Sanctorian Chair
7.5.3 Experimenting with the Reconstruction
7.5.4 The Weighing Procedures of Sanctorius
7.5.5 Measuring Respiration
7.5.6 The Sanctorian Chair: A Multifunctional Instrument?
7.5.7 The Reception of the Sanctorian Chair—A Few Thoughts
7.5.8 Sanctorius’s Measuring Instruments in Context
References
Chapter 8: Sanctorius Revisited
8.1 Tradition and Innovation: Continuities, Reinterpretation, and Reorganization
8.2 Theory and Practice—An Uneasy Relation
8.3 Quantifying Health
References
Appendices
Appendix I: Annotator Used to Study Sanctorius’s Books
Brief Description
Appendix II: Editions and Translations of the De statica medicina
Editions
Translations
