A Cultural History of Medicine in the Renaissance

Since the ‘cultural turn’ of the 1980s the history of Renaissance medicine has been radically transformed, with older narratives stood on their head as concepts and categories for research have been re-thought. At the core of this change – for the period now familiarly referred to (not insignificantly) as ‘early modern’ – stands an epistemological reconsideration of the production of natural knowledge, and of power in relation to the core of medicine’s subject, the human body. Additionally, at issue are the origins of modernity itself.

Building on the foundations of this historiographical transformation, the essays in this volume elaborate, refine and challenge what are now standard interpretations in the study of medicine and the body in the early modern period. They broaden the scope of study through exploration of the contact zones between European knowledges and practices with other indigenous cultures. They draw attention to the riches of early modern material and visual culture as they take stock of how key epistemological notions for the study and practice of medicine, such as ‘experience’ and ‘authority’, were shaped and redefined. Moreover, essays on such topics as food, animals, environment, and mind and brain demonstrate how the cultural turn has revived and given new urgency to themes long central to the study of sickness and health. Wetting appetites and distilling the recent past, these essays work collectively to remind readers that the ‘cultural turn’ is far from over.