27/05 4:30pm-6:30pm: CHMST Research Seminar: ,"Intuitive eating: a seventeenth-century guide”. Philippa Carter, Cambridge University

warwickhistory — Tue, 05 May 2026 09:17:18 GMT

When: 4:30pm - 6:30pm, Wed, 27 May '26

Where: Oculus Building OC1.07

Abstract: This paper explores the reconfiguration of diet, appetite and digestion in seventeenth-century chemical medicine. Comparing the writings of two self-styled physician-philosophers, Jan Baptist Van Helmont (1580–1644) and Everard Maynwaring (c. 1629–1713), it considers how subtle differences in their accounts of 'human nature' translated into practice: in Van Helmont’s case, as a stout rejection of the value of dietetics, and in Maynwaring’s, as an embrace of the same. Ultimately, I argue, Maynwaring chose to modify elements of his Helmontian anthropology rather than abandon his longstanding commitment to diet as the cornerstone of good health.

History » History Department Events Calendar

27/05 4:30pm-6:30pm: CHMST Research Seminar: ,"Intuitive eating: a seventeenth-century guide”. Philippa Carter, Cambridge University