Curatio et sanatio : les définitions et les questionnements de la médecine au tournant des XVIe et XVIIe siècles
As long as the humoral theory inherited from Galen prevailed, curing and healing were defined as the restoration of balance in temperament. A large number of medical treatises began with an account of what Fernel called Physiologie in 1554. Under no obligation to heal, practitioners nonetheless had...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Institut du Monde Anglophone
2025-03-01
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| Series: | Etudes Epistémè |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/20042 |
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| Summary: | As long as the humoral theory inherited from Galen prevailed, curing and healing were defined as the restoration of balance in temperament. A large number of medical treatises began with an account of what Fernel called Physiologie in 1554. Under no obligation to heal, practitioners nonetheless had to follow prevailing norms when treating their patients. They had to know about the four temperaments, the four humours and the different characteristics of the human body. They also had to be aware of external influences affecting the body, such as the environment and modes of behaviour. Thus they were able to identify the causes of a disease. This rational approach, however, turned into a dogma, which was undermined, from the second half of the sixteenth century onwards, not only by the followers of Paracelsus, but also by a new aetiology embracing the specificities of certain “occult” affections, which could not be explained by an imbalance in the humours. These doctrinal developments led to divergences in therapeutic strategies, emphasised by chemical medicine and the importation of simples from the “New World”, which revolutionised pharmacopoeia. In the face of these divergences, physicians such as Guillaume de Baillou in France and Thomas Sydenham in England adopted a much more pragmatic method, based on Hippocratic principles. Paving the way for clinical practice, they called for medicine to be an “art of healing” rather than an “art of discourse”. |
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| ISSN: | 1634-0450 |