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How to make solid medical knowledge: the case of Georgius Baglivi (1668-1707)

Georgius Baglivi (1668-1707), Italian scientist of Ragusan origin, who worked as a second physician of Pope Innocent XII and a professor of anatomy and theoretical medicine at the College of Sapienza in Rome, was one of the first promotors of the fibre medical theory. Strongly influenced by Santorio Santorio's iatrophysicism, Baglivi conceptualized and propagated a “third path” between humoral and solidist medicine which explained all physiological and pathological processes by the living properties of fibres. In addition to this, Baglivi advocated a (Neo)methodist theory which stated that life and health were determined by the physical balance of the active solids (fibres) and the more passive fluids of the body. Despite his distinguished institutional status and professional prestige, Baglivi's medical theories, especially those concerning the function of dura mater, were not unanimously accepted by his colleagues. Therefore, in the interpretative focus of this paper will be Baglivi's latest work Canones de medicina solidorum ad rectum statices usum (Leiden, 1707), which is accompanied by three treatises in epistolary form dedicated to the Dutch botanist and professor of medicine, Peter Houttuyn (1648-1709). By following theoretical insights of New Historicism and historical praxeology, this paper is aimed to highlight “literary technologies” (Shapin), i. e. subtle discursive strategies which Baglivi used to shape and legitimise his own system of medical knowledge as well as to fashion his personal habitus of a Baroque erudite. In that manner, Baglivi's case would demonstrate how mechanisms and modalities of knowledge production and fashioning of scientific habitus were deeply interwoven with the processes of accumulation and distribution of “science capital” (Bourdieu) within the early modern res publica literaria.

Georgius Baglivi (1668-1707), Canones de medicina solidorum, knowledge production, literary technologies

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