Learned Physicians and Everyday Medical Practice in the Renaissance by Michael Stolberg (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by:

• Learned Physicians and Everyday Medical Practice in the Renaissance by Michael Stolberg
• Erik Heinrichs

Michael Stolberg. Learned Physicians and Everyday Medical Practice in the Renaissance. Translated by Logan Kennedy and Leonhard Unglaub. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022. xxvi + 616 pp. Ill. $118.99 (978-3-11-073835-3).

This important book stands out among early modern histories of medicine as a deep examination of medical practice and physicians' experiences in the sixteenth century. It is based on decades of scholarship into the immense personal writings of the Bohemian physician Georg Handsch (1529–78), who until recently has been a neglected figure of history. While Handsch's manuscript notes on his life and career are unique for their sheer volume (over four thousand pages), [End Page 644] Stolberg contextualizes this source with practice notes from other contemporary physicians. On the broader dimensions of a physician's career, the author turns to the biographies of many early modern physicians. Through these rich sources, Stolberg aims to establish what exactly a sixteenth-century physician did during his career as well as to correct myths that have dominated accounts of early modern physicians.

Handsch's career is well suited to gain insight to medical practice in various social and cultural contexts. He grew up in Bohemia in a German-speaking family, studied at Padua and Ferrara, and practiced medicine in Prague and Innsbruck. As one of the court physicians to Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria, Handsch practiced alongside celebrated physicians, including Pietro Mattioli and Andrea Gallo. His notes from his student days also provide great insight to education at northern Italian universities, including on pivotal topics such as anatomy and botany. There Handsch studied or worked with many of the great medical men of the time, such as Giovanni Battista da Monte and Gabriele Falloppio.

The heart of the book presents a broad examination of all aspects of sixteenth-century medical practice, from the nuts and bolts of a physician's career to methods of diagnosis and the vast array of treatments available. Stolberg joins recent historians to emphasize that physicians treated patients of all types—rich, poor, and middling, men, women, and children. They were sometimes difficult and non-compliant. Stolberg also adds to recent historians' views on how physicians sought to relate to their broad patient base within a shared medical culture. Namely, when explaining sickness physicians deemphasized humoral theory but used concepts of impurity and obstruction instead. Patients seem to have experienced their sick bodies most often in these terms—that corrupted matter somehow built up in the body, requiring treatments aimed at removing it. Stolberg presents many examples of such treatments and therapies in action, including when they go wrong. At the Austrian court Handsch recorded how people blamed Andrea Gallo for the death of a woman after he had given her a powerful purgative. Furthermore, Handsch's notes provide insight to the medical activities at various levels of society. Certainly there is an emphasis on the elite world of the Austrian court, including specific treatments that Archduke Ferdinand II underwent. Also represented are popular healing practices, especially for the regions of Bohemia and Tyrol.

One quarter the book's pages are devoted to understanding disease concepts and patient experiences with such diseases, utilizing perspectives from healers and patients of different social levels. Stolberg pursues disease categories according to historical terms, such as fevers, podagra, cancer, apoplexy, and so forth. Here the author collects a treasure trove of examples to illustrate these past diseases and their treatments, presented in vivid and sometimes gruesome ways. Again Handsch's notes provide great insights to patient experiences, including Handsch's perceptions of his own sicknesses, such as his very painful bout with bladder stones. The section on the French Disease reveals much about the sexually transmitted diseases of the Austrian court, including among its physicians. Another colorful passage tells the tale of what happened when a "slightly drunk barber" tried his hand at tooth pulling (p. 315). [End Page 645]

Stolberg finds a limited impact by Paracelsus and his followers during the sixteenth century. Handsch was interested in the medicines and recipes of the Paracelsians, although the theories and theology of Paracelsus...