This book surveys a neglected set of sources, German plague prints and treatises published between 1473 and 1573, in order to explore the intertwined histories of plague, print, medicine and religion during the Reformation era. It argues that a particularly German reform of healing flourished in printed texts during the Renaissance and Reformation as physicians and clerics devised innovative responses to the era’s persistent epidemics. These reforms are "German" since they reflect the innovative trends that originated in or were particularly strong within German-speaking lands, including the rapid growth of vernacular print, Protestantism, and new interest in alchemy and the native plants of Northern Europe that were unknown to the ancients. Their reforms are also "German" in the sense that they unfolded mainly in vernacular print, which encouraged physicians to produce local knowledge, grounded in personal experience and local observations as much as universal theories. This book contributes to the history of medicine and science by tracing the growth of more empirical forms of medical knowledge. It also contributes to the history of the Renaissance and Reformation by uncovering the innovative contributions of various forgotten physicians. This book presents the broadest study of German plague treatises in any language.

"This book surveys a neglected set of sources, German plague prints and treatises published between 1473 and 1573, in order to explore the intertwined histories of plague, print, medicine and religion during the Reformation era. It argues that a particularly German reform of healing flourished in printed texts during the Renaissance and Reformation as physicians and clerics devised innovative responses to the era's persistent epidemics. These reforms are 'German' since they reflect the innovative trends that originated in or were particularly strong within German-speaking lands, including the rapid growth of vernacular print, Protestantism, and new interest in alchemy and the native plants of Northern Europe that were unknown to the ancients. Their reforms are also 'German' in the sense that they unfolded mainly in vernacular print, which encouraged physicians to produce local knowledge, grounded in personal experience and local observations as much as universal theories. This book contributes to the history of medicine and science by tracing the growth of more empirical forms of medical knowledge. It also contributes to the history of the Renaissance and Reformation by uncovering the innovative contributions of various forgotten physicians. This book presents the broadest study of German plague treatises in any language"--Provided by publisher.

A critical reading of both literary and non-literary German texts published between 1490 and 1540 exposes a populist backlash against perceived social and political disruptions, the dramatic expansion of spatial and epistemological horizons, and the growth of global trade networks. These texts opposed the twin phenomena of pluralization and secularization, which promoted a Humanist tolerance for ambiguity, boosted globalization and spatial expansion around 1500, and promoted new ways of imagining the world. Part I considers threats to the political order and the protestations against them, above all a vigorous defense of the common good. Part II traces the intellectual and epistemological upheaval triggered by the spatial discoveries and the new methods of visual and verbal representation of space. Part III examines the nationalistic backlash triggered by the rising global trade and related abusive trading practices and by perceived undue foreign influences. It is the basic premise of this book that the texts examined here protested the observed disruptions of the status quo and sought to reestablish a stable imperial order in the face of political and social upheaval and of the felt cultural decline of the German nation.

Sixteenth-century Augsburg comes to life in this beautifully chosen and elegantly translated selection of original documents. Ranging across the whole panoply of social activity from the legislative reformation to work, recreation, and family life, these extracts make plain the subtle system of checks and balances, violence, and self-regulation that brought order and vibrancy to a sophisticated city community. Most of all we hear sixteenth-century people speak: in their petitions and complaints, their nervous responses under interrogation, their rage and laughter. Tlusty has done an invaluable service in crafting a collection that should be an indispensable part of the teaching syllabus. --Andrew Pettegree, University of St. Andrews

In recent decades, researchers have studied the cultures of medicine and the ways in which context and identity shape both individual experiences and structural barriers in medical education. The essays in this collection offer new insights into the deep histories of these processes, across time and around the globe. Transforming Medical Education compiles twenty-one historical case studies that foreground processes of learning, teaching, and defining medical communities in educational contexts. The chapters are organized around the themes of knowledge transmission, social justice, identity, pedagogy, and the surprising affinities between medical and historical practice. By juxtaposing original research on diverse geographies and eras – from medieval Japan to twentieth-century Canada, and from colonial Cameroon to early Republican China – the volume disrupts traditional historiographies of medical education by making room for schools of medicine for revolutionaries, digital cadavers, emotional medical students, and the world’s first mandatory Indigenous community placement in an accredited medical curriculum. This unique collection of international scholarship honours historian, physician, and professor Jacalyn Duffin for her outstanding contributions to the history of medicine and medical education. An invaluable scholarly resource and teaching tool, Transforming Medical Education offers a provocative study of what it means to teach, learn, and belong in medicine.

For centuries, recurrent plague outbreaks took a grim toll on populations across Europe and Asia. While medical interventions and treatments did not change significantly from the fourteenth century to the eighteenth century, understandings of where and how plague originated did. Through an innovative reading of medical advice literature produced in England and France, Patterns of Plague explores these changing perceptions across four centuries. When plague appeared in the Mediterranean region in 1348, physicians believed the epidemic’s timing and spread could be explained logically and the disease could be successfully treated. This confidence resulted in the widespread and long-term circulation of plague tracts, which described the causes and signs of the disease, offered advice for preventing infection, and recommended therapies in a largely consistent style. What, where, and especially who was blamed for plague outbreaks changed considerably, however, as political, religious, economic, intellectual, medical, and even publication circumstances evolved. Patterns of Plague sheds light on what was consistent about plague thinking and what was idiosyncratic to particular places and times, revealing the many factors that influence how people understand and respond to epidemic disease.

People in the Middle Ages and the early modern age more often suffered from imprisonment and enslavement than we might have assumed. Incarceration and Slavery in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age approaches these topics from a wide variety of perspectives and demonstrates collectively the great relevance of the issues involved. Both incarceration and slavery were (and continue to be) most painful experiences, and no one was guaranteed exemption from it. High-ranking nobles and royalties were often the victims of imprisonment and, at times, had to wait many years until their ransom was paid. Similarly, slavery existed throughout Christian Europe and in the Arab world. However, while imprisonment occasionally proved to be the catalyst for major writings and creativity, slaves in the Ottoman empire and in Egypt succeeded in rising to the highest position in society (Janissaries, Mamluks, and others).

The study of pre-modern anthropology requires the close examination of the relationship between nature and human society, which has been both precarious and threatening as well as productive, soothing, inviting, and pleasurable. Much depends on the specific circumstances, as the works by philosophers, theologians, poets, artists, and medical practitioners have regularly demonstrated. It would not be good enough, as previous scholarship has commonly done, to examine simply what the various writers or artists had to say about nature. While modern scientists consider just the hard-core data of the objective world, cultural historians and literary scholars endeavor to comprehend the deeper meaning of the concept of nature presented by countless writers and artists. Only when we have a good grasp of the interactions between people and their natural environment, are we in a position to identify and interpret mental structures, social and economic relationships, medical and scientific concepts of human health, and the messages about all existence as depicted in major art works. In light of the current conditions threatening to bring upon us a global crisis, it matters centrally to take into consideration pre-modern discourses on nature and its enormous powers to understand the topoi and tropes determining the concepts through which we perceive nature. Nature thus proves to be a force far beyond all human comprehensibility, being both material and spiritual depending on our critical approaches.

With its innovative studies and its extensive catalogue of texts erroneously attributed to Paracelsus (1493/4-1541), this volume explores largely overlooked aspects of the Paracelsian movement in Renaissance and early modern medicine, science, natural philosophy, theology and religion.