Histories of Science and the History of Medicine
Historians of science are historians. Since historians of medicine are historians as well, it stands to reason that they have a lot in common. Both fields are anchored in general history, with its evolving methods and interests and with its concern for broad social, political and economic events. In this seminar we look at some emerging themes in the history of knowledge that blur the boundaries between the history of science and the history of medicine. One theme is connoisseurship, the art of making fine judgments of value, whether about paintings or sculptures or anything else. Another is the history of global history--the history of changing perceptions about how different world regions have interacted. The third theme is materiality, the way the physical properties of objects shape human life. These themes are relevant to any time and place, but the case studies are taken from the long eighteenth century, c. 1660-1815. The distinction between science and medicine became institutionalised in this period, but old forms of knowledge--from humoural theory to court culture to Jesuit missionaries--were surprisingly persistent.
Read the three articles below and think about these questions with respect to each article:
- What is 'medical' about the events covered in the article? You might think of medicine in terms of ideas, institutions, methods, or whatever.
- What is 'scientific' about the events in the article? Again, think broadly about what 'science' can mean.
- How might one characterise the relationship between science and medicine in the article? Are the two complimentary, antagonistic, indistinguishable, convergent, divergent, or what?
- How might these articles shed light on other topics or themes covered in this module?
Required reading:
Duygu Yıldırım, "Coffee: Of Melancholic Turkish Bodeis and Sensory Experiences," in Mackenzie Cooley, Anna Toledano, and Duygu Yıldırım, eds, Natural Things in Early Modern Worlds (London: Routledge, 2023), 183-206. Course Extract, available via Library.
Alexander Statman, "Chapter 4: The Yin-Yang Theory of Animal Magnetism," in A Global Enlightenment: Western Progress and Chinese Science (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 2023), 148-91
Alexander Wragge-Morley, "Connoisseurship and the Communication of Anatomical Knowledge: The Case of William Cheselden’s Osteographia (1733)", in Adriana Carciun and Simon Schaffer, eds, The Material Cultures of Enlightenment Arts and Sciences (London: Palgrave, 2016), 271-89
Further reading:
Thomas Bronan, "The Medical Sciences," in Roy Porter, ed., Cambridge History of Science, vol. 4: The Eighteenth Century, 463-84
Michael Bycroft, "Science Beyond the Enlightenment," Journal of Early Modern Studies 12, no. 1 (2023).
Michael Bycroft and Alexander Wragge-Morley, "Science and Connoisseurship in the European Enlightenment," History of Science 60, no. 4 (2022): 437-57
Staffan Müller-Wille, "History of Science and Medicine," in Mark Jackson, ed., Oxford Handbook of the History of Medicine (Oxford: OUP, 2011), 469-83
James Poskett, Horizons: A Global History of Science (London: Penguin, 2021), "Part II: Empire and Enlightenment."
Emma C. Spary, "Health and Medicine in the Enlightenment," in Mark Jackson, ed., Oxford Handbook of the History of Medicine (Oxford: OUP, 2011), 82-99