Early Science and Medicine最新文献

This article examines the intellectual legacy of Daniel Sennert (1572–1637) in Swedish academic disputations from 1600 to 1651. It analyzes how his ideas, particularly on medicine and natural philosophy, influenced the intellectual milieu of the universities of Uppsala, Tartu, and Turku. Through the lens of disputations, a key academic genre of early modern Europe, the study highlights Sennert’s prominence as a cited authority. Despite limited medical activity in Swedish universities during this period, Sennert’s works were widely utilized as textbooks, especially in philosophy and physics, reflecting his significant role in disseminating scientific knowledge. The findings reveal that Sennert’s ideas reached Swedish academia primarily through alumni of Wittenberg University, where he taught. The study underscores the textual transmission of knowledge and the role of institutional libraries in amplifying Sennert’s influence within early modern Sweden’s unique and uniform academic framework.

This essay explores the ties between Daniel Sennert and the University of Padua. It first reconstructs personal ties due to the circulation of students, books and ideas between Wittenberg and Padua as mediated by the German Nation of Artists in Padua. Secondly, it examines debates in Padua on the origins of life, that Sennert followed and to which he reacted. As this essay shows, authors such as Fortunio Liceti were important references for Sennert. But he also adopted from radical Paduan thinkers such as Pietro Pomponazzi and Cesare Cremonini a rational attitude to questions of natural philosophy that informed his own approach to theologically controversial problems. Believing that there were different approaches to the truth, Sennert viewed rational inquiry and revelation as complementary, while embracing a naturalistic approach to questions of the origins of life and the operations of the soul, including the rational faculty. He excluded the separability of soul and body in the domain of natural philosophy, while not excluding this very possibility for God, who operates beyond the limits of physics. His naturalistic position alarmed the Inquisition, much to the displeasure of Italian authors who praised Sennert.

The Medicinae Alumni Vitebergenses project maintains a prosopographical database of standardized, machine-readable short biographies of all Wittenberg medical students between 1502 and 1648, along with their printed works. Selected works are indexed with keywords and summarized with the aim of visualizing Wittenberg’s influence on the development and dissemination of a specifically Protestant medicine. The database does not view early modern physicians as isolated scholars, but rather attempts to trace possible social and intellectual influences. In this way, it can provide new impulses for research on Sennert in particular, since Sennert’s relationship to his teachers has not been sufficiently researched. The database provides this information by automatically tracing teacher – student relationships, constructing networks, and creating comparable publication and teaching profiles. As this is an ongoing project, this article provides insights into ongoing research that will not be accessible before October 2025.

This article opts for a book-historical approach that has not to date attracted much of a following in studies on Daniel Sennert. It focuses on a selection of Italian, French, Dutch and English printed works published outside of Germany after 1630, and illustrates how Sennert’s European fame began to rise from that time onwards. Likewise, it establishes that Latin editions remained common through most parts of Europe, with the exception of England and the Netherlands. Unlike the rest of Europe, the Dutch and English translations point to a growing interest among a non-Latinate reading public in the works of the Wittenberg professor. Whereas the scope of the Dutch translations is limited, a considerable number of Sennert’s work appeared on the English book market of the second half of the seventeenth century.

Renaissance natural philosophers and physicians engaged in intense debates on occult qualities at the threshold of the Scientific Revolution. Daniel Sennert of Wittenberg played a significant role in these debates through his assiduous research. His efforts were crystallized in two works of his mature period: an inquiry into occult qualities as the second book of his Physical Memoirs (1636); and the massive volume On Occult Diseases (1635). Indeed, the Renaissance debates on occult qualities were closely related to those of occult diseases, as both issues were intertwined and fervently advanced by Jean Fernel of Paris. Sennert’s lifelong quest for occult qualities and occult diseases was a critical response to Fernel’s ideas.

The diffusion of Paracelsian chymistry raised many debates in late-Renaissance medicine. One important innovation was the Paracelsian conception of therapy and pharmacy, which went against the tenets of the medical tradition. This led a series of German physicians to harmonize the Paracelsian system with Galenic medicine in order to introduce chymical remedies in their method of treatment. Among the actors of such chymical compromise, Daniel Sennert (1572–1637) emerged as a major figure of early modern medicine and natural philosophy. This article examines his stance on chymical therapy in De chymicorum liber (1619), where he surveyed some early digests of Paracelsian medicine by European adepts and detractors, including Severinus, Libavius, and Du Chesne, as well as lesser-known figures such as Francus, Scheunemann, and Dienheim, among others. In appraising their views, Sennert addressed important issues, such as the religious vocation of the Paracelsian adepts, the notion of “universal cure,” the doctrine of “signatures,” and the use of metallic ingredients for drug making. His resulting account of drugs and treatment sheds light on the diffusion of chymistry in seventeenth-century learned medicine.

This paper examines the themes of secrecy, deception, and openness in early modern chymistry and medicine, focusing on episodes from the correspondence of the prominent German physician and natural philosopher Daniel Sennert. It highlights how Sennert and his brother-in-law, the Breslau municipal physician Michael Döring, confronted a culture rife with fraudulent claims and secretive practices that were especially prevalent amid the economic and political instability that prevailed during the Thirty Years’ War. The paper reveals their struggles against the charlatanism of those who sought to exploit the chaotic medical marketplace of the time, and the analysis extends to the broader implications of their advocacy for transparency that drew upon humanist literature and Christian religious ideals. This work positions Sennert as an archetypical figure in the transition towards skepticism and openness in science, highlighting the significant role of German chymical physicians in shaping early modern scientific discourse.