engleski

How to Create a Medical Knowledge: the Case of Georgius Baglivi (1668-1707)

Georgius Baglivi (1668-1707), Italian scientist of Ragusan origin, who worked as second physician to Pope Innocent XII and 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 iatrophysics, Baglivi conceptualised 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 the dura mater, were not unanimously accepted by his colleagues. Therefore, the interpretative focus of this article will be directed at Baglivi’s last 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 and methodological insights of the rhetoric of science, this article aims at highlighting literary techniques, 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 as a Baroque erudite. In this manner Baglivi’s case will 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 within the early modern "res publica literaria".

Georgius Baglivi, Canones de medicina solidorum, solidist medicine, fibrillar pathology and therapeutics, rhetoric of science

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