Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614-1790: Corpuscularianism, Technology and Experimentation (Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine) 3030795861, 9783030795863

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN MEDICINE

Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614–1790 Corpuscularianism, Technology and Experimentation Edited by Jonathan Barry Fabrizio Bigotti

Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine Series Editors Jonathan Barry Department of History University of Exeter Exeter, UK Fabrizio Bigotti Institute for the History of Medicine Julius Maximilian University Würzburg, Germany

The series focuses on the intellectual tradition of western medicine as related to the philosophies, institutions, practices, and technologies that developed throughout the medieval and early modern period (500-1800). Partnered with the Centre for the Study of Medicine and the Body in the Renaissance (CSMBR), it seeks to explore the range of interactions between various conceptualisations of the body, including their import for the arts (e.g. literature, painting, music, dance, and architecture) and the way different medical traditions overlapped and borrowed from each other. The series particularly welcomes contributions from young authors. The editors will consider proposals for single monographs, as well as edited collections and translations/editions of texts, either at a standard length (70-120,000 words) or as Palgrave Pivots (upto 50,000 words). Associate Editors Alexandra Bamji, University of Leeds Carmen Caballero-Navas, University of Granada Klaus-Dietrich Fischer, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz David Gentilcore, University of Leicester Guido Maria Giglioni, University of Macerata Benjamin Goldberg, University of South Florida Georgiana Hedesan, University of Oxford John Henderson, Birkbeck University of London Martin Kemp, University of Oxford Ian MacLean, University of Oxford Cecilia Martini Bonadeo, University of Padua Heikki Mikkeli, University of Helsinki William Royall Newman, Indiana University Vivian Nutton, Centre for the Study of Medicine and the Body in the Renaissance (CSMBR) Antoine Pietrobelli, Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne Aurélien Robert, Centre d’Etudes Supérieures de la Renaissance Tours Hester Schadee, University of Exeter Giovanni Silvano, University of Padova Michael Stolberg, Julius Maximilian University, Würzburg Alain Touwaide, Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions, Washington DC & Los Angeles Giulia Martina Welston, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London John Wilkins, University of Exeter Fabio Zampieri, University of Padova Fabiola Zurlini, Studio Firmano for the History of Medicine and Science Editorial Board Justin Begley, University of Helsinki Andreas Blank, Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt Silvana D’Alessio, University of Salerno Hiro Hirai, Radboud University Nijmegen (Netherlands) Luca Tonetti, ‘La Sapienza’ University of Rome Ruben Verwaal, Durham University Alun Withey, University of Exeter

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/16206

Jonathan Barry  •  Fabrizio Bigotti Editors

Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614–1790 Corpuscularianism, Technology and Experimentation

Editors Jonathan Barry Centre for Medical History University of Exeter Exeter, UK

Fabrizio Bigotti Institute for the History of Medicine Julius Maximilian University Würzburg, Germany

ISSN 2524-7387     ISSN 2524-7395 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine ISBN 978-3-030-79586-3    ISBN 978-3-030-79587-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79587-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Chapters 1 and 2 are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). For further details see licence information in the chapters. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © The Phoebus Foundation This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

This book seeks to re-establish the centrality of Santorio Santori,1 not only in the history of medicine but also in the history of science and technology, by showing how, through studying his work and legacy, we obtain a new and fuller perspective on the nature and development of corpuscularianism and early modern experimental philosophy. It does so by establishing not only Santorio’s own contribution to both natural philosophy and experimentation but also his legacy over the following two centuries, in which his work was a fundamental reference point to many leading figures. This legacy, however, was never one of simple acceptance of Santorio’s ideas and findings: just as he sought to follow Aristotle and Galen by adopting their methods rather than simply repeating their conclusions, so successive generations of scholars were inspired to conduct their own programmes of experimentation and theorising by following his lead, even if they often sought to explain his results through their own preferred natural philosophies. Yet, ironically, many of them did so applying versions of corpuscularian and mechanical philosophy which (though they probably did not know it) had been pioneered by Santorio himself, although his own corpuscularian and mechanical models of nature remained largely implicit in the construction of his instruments and experiments, or were expressed only briefly in his medical commentaries. The reader may well wonder why, if Santorio was so important to early modern science and medicine, has he been so little known or studied in recent times? One answer might be the paradoxical one that Santorio was a victim of his own success. His name became indelibly associated with v

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his Medicina statica, which was constantly reprinted, translated and commented on for the next two centuries. In particular his name became synonymous with the weighing chair he invented (the Sanctorian chair) and with the measurement of insensible perspiration for which it was designed (widely known as Sanctorian perspiration in the eighteenth century). Although these remained a living part of scientific and medical theory and practice until at least the time of Lavoisier, they were sidelined by new forms of science and medicine in the nineteenth century, and Santorio became seen as a ‘dead end’ in terms of the progress of science and medicine. Although Lucia Dacome and others have done much to re-establish the significance of medical statics in the early modern period, they have tended to present this as an aspect of medical thinking and practice tied closely to dietetics and the application of the six non-naturals to health regimes, rather than exploring the broader implications of Santorio’s work, which this collection seeks to emphasise. The contributions cover different aspects and developments of Santorio’s legacy throughout European medicine up to Lavoisier and explore the ‘dissemination’ of his ‘seminal’ ideas. They also demonstrate that Santorio’s researches, both experimental and theoretical, extended well beyond medicine to cover theory of matter, optics, clinical practice, technology and even astronomy, fields in which his contributions served as a fountainhead of new ideas and pioneered new approaches. Santorio has also suffered from the downplaying of medicine as a source of scientific development during the ‘scientific revolution’, and in particular as a source of mathematical, experimental and ‘mechanical’ models of nature (including the human body) during this period. Traditionally the focus has been on physics, and especially the development of a ‘mechanical worldview’ through development in astronomy associated with men like Galileo and Newton. More recently, this unilateral view has been rightly criticised and supplemented by a recognition of the importance of ‘chymistry’ (a term for pre-Lavoiserian chemistry developed by Newman and Principe in their pioneering work in this area), not least in the work of Boyle and Newton, which has in turn brought medicine back into the picture, given the strong links between chymistry and medicine. Historians have also identified the crucial role played by medical practitioners in the development of all the sciences, including natural history (e.g. Linnaeus), while even those natural philosophers not directly practising medicine, such as Descartes and Leibniz, have been shown to be centrally concerned with medical developments. Gradually this is filtering into general accounts of scientific change.

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As a collection of studies on the development of corpuscularianism and technology, a clarification as to what we mean by the former term is required. We have taken corpuscularianism (from the Latin corpusculum meaning ‘little body’) as that set of theories that explain natural transformations as the result of the interaction of particles. Most notably, we have interpreted corpuscularianism as a ‘theory of form’ whereby corpuscles result from the action of an agent (forma substantialis) that divides the continuum of matter into portions (corpuscula, particulae) that are provided with the same specific quality and quantity. Resulting from the division of a homogeneous and continuous magnitude, corpuscles can always be further divided into smaller and smaller parts and for this reason they are substantially different from atoms and seeds. Thus, as distinct from both physical and geometrical atomism, corpuscularianism is a development of Aristotle’s minima naturalia and it remained a subject of debate within Aristotelian natural philosophy (as well as among its opponents) until the late seventeenth century. In this sense, while corpuscularianism is often associated with the emergence of early modern mechanical philosophy, and especially with the work of Daniel Sennert (1572–1637), René Descartes (1596–1650) and Robert Boyle (1627–1691), corpuscularian theories can be found throughout Western philosophy. A new phase of corpuscularianism occurred in the early modern period (roughly from Galileo to Newton) when corpuscles were postulated as a necessary aspect of the mechanical model of the world and thus endowed with properties, such as shape, discrete quantity and weight. This represented a transition from the Aristotelian physics of qualities towards a rigorous atomism. But during this period many authors conflate together different aspects of the two traditions in ways that are peculiar to their approach to the continuum and the elemental composition of matter. Although coming to full bloom in the seventeenth century, the trend towards the mathematisation of forms started in the late fourteenth century. In order to be responsive to mathematical treatment, matter ought to be particulate and divisible into minima of time, intensity, space, light, motion and so on. This ‘mathematical minimism’ opened up the possibility of reinterpreting the metaphysical concept of form, which was redefined as a structure or ‘geometrical configuration’ whereby forms are reduced to numerical entities and the emergence of new properties is seen as the result of a different spatial arrangement of the material substratum. Early attempts to develop this new idea, however, were tied up to the Aristotelian conception of place, which requires the existence of absolute directions,

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and thus retained the concept of form as an active principle able to guide the motion of corpuscles in an orderly manner. Such attempts are part of what has been defined as an ‘Aristotelian corpuscularianism’ predominantly linked to North Italian philosophers (especially in Padua), including Santorio. Compared to other Aristotelians, these thinkers, mainly physicians, upheld a more direct commitment to the physical existence of minima in their study of the combination of artificial substances to pursue a truly quantitative and chymical analysis of them. In many cases, however, they remained committed to the existence of substantial forms which they used to explain the emergence of new properties. Santorio’s own version of corpuscularianism and the adaptations and responses to this found in the other natural philosophers reveal the complexity of this process. This volume explores one particular aspect of this new approach by detailing Santorio’s approach to medicine in the light of the theories he developed, the instruments he invented and the experimental practices he pioneered. It collects papers resulting from the international conference on ‘Humours, Mixtures and Corpuscles. A Medical Approach to Corpuscularianism in the Seventeenth Century’ that we organised in Pisa in May 2017 with support from the Wellcome Trust (Grant no. WT106580/Z/14/Z) and the Institutio Santoriana—Fondazione Comel. Bigotti’s contributions on Santorio himself, and the chapters on Obizzi, an early opponent (by Zurlini), and on Santorio’s views on plague (D’Alessio and Nutton), reveal both his continued commitment to a model of nature which underpinned a medicine delivered with certainty by the rational physician and the fundamental departures from traditional medical orthodoxy which his approach produced. The subsequent chapters of this volume explore these themes for such key figures as Sennert (Newman), Beeckman (Moreau), Descartes (Baldassarri), Leibniz (Blank) and Boyle (Ricciardo). It is clear that Santorio himself was read differently depending on the particular approach of each author and indeed our contributors (like their subjects) take rather different positions on the degree to which a corpuscularian approach presumed, for example, the rejection of substantial forms. With the establishment by the end of the century of forms of ‘mechanical philosophy’ such as Newtonianism and the associated iatromechanical model of the body/medicine, Santorio ceased, for a period, to be a direct source of inspiration for theories of matter as a whole. However, his mathematical approach to the study of the body and his version of the notion of ‘insensible perspiration’ remained very important to experimental traditions within medicine and natural philosophy, as is shown by the later chapters on Borelli (Zampieri), Baglivi (Tonetti), De Gorter (Verwaal) and

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Linnaeus (Thomaz). The work of Lavoisier and Séguin (explored in the final chapter by Antonelli) also shows how Santorio’s legacy could take on new life and meaning as a new form of chemistry was forged. In addition to its substantive contributions, we also hope that this volume will contribute methodologically, both to the historiography that places medicine at the centre of broader scientific developments in the early modern period and to those approaches which stress the complexity of how both old and new models and practices were combined, recovering the significance of figures such as Santorio who may not fit neatly into paradigms of ‘scientific revolution’ as marked by dramatic changes of worldview, but nevertheless reveal that more incremental changes can nevertheless embody significant new approaches that underpin crucial features of our own understandings of nature, the body, and medicine. Exeter, UK Würzburg, Germany 

Jonathan Barry Fabrizio Bigotti

Note 1. We have chosen Santori as the most accurate rendering of his surname, as found in original documents letters, but he is often called Santorio Santorio or simply Sanctorius. However, we have used Santorio as the short form of his name in line with how Galileo’s name is usually rendered in English forms of his titles (Galileo Galilei = Galileo).

Acknowledgments

The introduction (by Bigotti and Barry) was made possible by research funded by the Wellcome Trust under grants 106580/Z/14/Z—Wellcome Research Fellowship for Bigotti entitled ‘Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantifying Procedures in Medicine at the end of the Renaissance: Problems, Context, Ideas’—and grant SIA 097782/Z/11/Z—Wellcome Senior Investigator in the Medical Humanities award for Barry for his project ‘The Medical World of Early Modern England, Wales and Ireland, c1500–1715’. The chapter by Bigotti was made possible by research funded by the Wellcome Trust under grants 106580/Z/14/Z—Wellcome Research Fellowship for Bigotti entitled ‘Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantifying Procedures in Medicine at the end of the Renaissance: Problems, Context, Ideas’.

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Contents

1 Introduction  1 Fabrizio Bigotti and Jonathan Barry 1 A Tale of Oblivion and Rebirth  2 2 Santorio’s Life and Works  5 3 ‘Not that Close’: The Problematic Relations Between Santorio and Galileo 26 4 New Instruments for a New Medicine 34 5 Outlines for a Conclusion 38 2 ‘Gears of an Inner Clock’: Santorio’s Theory of Matter and Its Applications 65 Fabrizio Bigotti 1 Purpose, Context and Development of Santorio’s Natural Philosophy 66 2 The Architecture of the Theory 68 3 Limits, Strengths and Applications 80 4 Conclusions 90 3 The Uncertainty of Medicine: Readings and Reactions to Santorio Between Tradition and Reformation (1615–1721)103 Fabiola Zurlini 1 The Philosophical and Cultural Backdrop of Obizzi’s Polemic105 xiii

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2 Obizzi’s Motifs and Arguments in the ‘Staticomastix’106 3 Leonardo Di Capua: Uncertainty as Intrinsic to Medical Practice110 4 Santorio in England: Popular and Learned Criticisms111 5 Conclusions113 4 Daniel Sennert’s Response to Santorio Santori in the Light of Chymical Atomism119 William R. Newman 1 Atomism and Occult Qualities119 2 Sennert Versus Santorio126 3 Conclusion130 5 Atoms, Mixture, and Temperament in Early Modern Medicine: The Alchemical and Mechanical Views of Sennert and Beeckman137 Elisabeth Moreau 1 Sennert on Minimal Particles and the Superior Form140 2 Isaac Beeckman on Atomic Elements and Geometrical Proportion147 3 Santorio’s Theory of Mixture in Light of Sennert and Beeckman153 4 Conclusion156 6 Santorio, Regius, and Descartes: The Quantification and Mechanization of the Passions in Seventeenth-Century Medicine165 Fabrizio Baldassarri 1 Henricus Regius Between Santorio and Descartes167 2 Regius Against Descartes: The Status of the Mind171 3 Descartes’ Mechanics of Passions172 4 Regius on Passions174 5 Santorio: Weighing the Passions176 6 Conclusion: A Complementary Association179

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7 Santorio and Leibniz on Natural Immortality: The Question of Emergence and the Question of Emanative Causation191 Andreas Blank 1 Introduction191 2 Natural Immortality and the Question of Emergence194 3 Natural Immortality and the Question of Emanative Causation203 4 Conclusion208 8 Santorio Santori on Plague: Ideas and Experience Between Venice and Naples217 Vivian Nutton and Silvana D’Alessio 9 “An inquisitive man, considering when and where he liv’d”: Robert Boyle on Santorio Santori and Insensible Perspiration239 Salvatore Ricciardo 1 Introduction239 2 Boyle’s Early Atomism and Santorio245 3 The Doctrine of Effluvia and Boyle’s Corpuscular Philosophy247 4 The Human Body and Insensible Perspiration: Between Chymistry and Mechanics250 5 Experimenting on Insensible Perspiration256 6 Epilogue257 10 Giovanni Alfonso Borelli and Santorio on the Explanation of Fevers273 Fabio Zampieri 1 Introduction: Borelli’s Life and Work273 2 Borelli’s Work on Pestilential Fevers277 3 Conclusion284

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11 Bodies in Balance: Santorio’s Legacy in Baglivi’s Medicine289 Luca Tonetti 1 Introduction289 2 A New Interpretation of Santorio’s Statics: Towards a Fibrillary Conception of Human Body294 3 Does a “statica mentis” Exist?301 4 Conclusions305 12 Disputing Santorio: Johannes de Gorter’s Neurological Theory of Insensible Perspiration317 Ruben E. Verwaal 1 Balancing Ingestion and Excretion320 2 Perspiration and the Nerves323 3 Spirits and Effluvia329 4 Sweating it Out334 13 Santorio’s Influence on the Dietetics of Carl Linnaeus347 Luciana Costa Lima Thomaz 1 A Work to Be Kissed347 2 On the Development of Carl Linnaeus’ Medical Thinking348 3 Santorio in Linnaeus’ Dietetic353 4 Linked by Aphorisms363 5 Conclusions364 14 Weighing Authority: Lavoisier’s and Séguin’s Reassessment of Santorio’s Experiments on Transpiration371 Francesca Antonelli 1 Lavoisier’s Chemical Education and Medicine371 2 Lavoisier and Santorio376 3 The “chemical” Physiology of Respiration and Transpiration: Lavoisier’s and Séguin’s Response to the Sanctorian Tradition382 4 Conclusion390 Index403

Notes on Contributors

Francesca  Antonelli is currently research fellow at the University of Bologna. In May 2021 she obtained a PhD in History of Science at the University of Bologna and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, with a thesis on Marie-Anne Paulze-Lavoisier (1758–1836) and Lavoisier’s Registres de laboratoire. Her main research interests concern scientific practices, sociability, and gender in the long eighteenth century. Fabrizio Baldassarri  is a Marie Skłodovska Curie fellow at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and Indiana University Bloomington. His research focuses on early modern natural philosophy, with an emphasis on the naturalistic studies of Descartes, plants, and the early modern life sciences. He has been a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Bucharest, at Gotha Centre, at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, at Utrecht University, at HAB in Wolfenbüttel, and has published on early modern natural philosophy, botany, medicine, and sciences Jonathan Barry  is an Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Exeter, UK, and guest professor at Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich, Germany. He is an early modern social and cultural historian with a particular interest in the history of science, medicine, and witchcraft and co-editor of Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic. He was co-founder of the Centre for Medical History at Exeter and a Wellcome Senior Investigator in Medical Humanities (2012–2018) for a project on medical practice in England, Ireland, and Wales 1500–1715.

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Fabrizio Bigotti  is the Director of the Centre for the Study of Medicine and the Body in the Renaissance (CSMBR), as well as a research fellow at the Institute for the History of Medicine at the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg in Germany and an honorary Research Fellow at the College of Humanities at the University of Exeter, UK. As an intellectual historian, he specialises in the history of science, medicine, and technology of the late medieval and early modern period (1300–1700), focusing particularly on on the history of quantification and the role that classical and medieval philosophies played in the development of early modern logic, theory of matter, anatomy, and physiology. His publications include works on late Renaissance Galenism, Vesalius, Acquapendente, Santorio Santori, Scholasticism, early modern corpuscularianism and the invention of precision instruments. Andreas Blank  holds a research position funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) at Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt. He has been a visiting associate professor at the University of Hamburg and Bard College Berlin and visiting fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science (University of Pittsburgh), the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas (Tel Aviv University), and the Istituto per il Lessico Intellettuale e Storia delle Idee (CNR, Rome). He is the author of some 80 articles, mainly on early modern philosophy, in edited volumes and journals such as Annals of Science, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Early Science and Medicine, Eighteenth-Century Studies, European Journal of Philosophy, History of European Ideas, History of Philosophy Quarterly, Hypatia, Intellectual History Review, Journal of Early Modern Studies, Journal of Modern Philosophy, Journal of the History of Ideas, Journal of International Political Theory, The Monist, Perspectives on Science, Science in Context, and Studia Leibnitiana. Silvana  D’Alessio  is Professor of Modern History at the University of Salerno; her main interests are the revolt in Naples in 1647–1648, the plague in the kingdom of Naples in 1656 and Hippocratic medicine in the early modern age (especially in Pietro Andrea Canoniero’s treatises). Her main works on medical themes are Per un principe “medico publico”. Il percorso di Pietro Andrea Canoniero (Scandicci: CET, 2015); “Usi politici della medicina nella prima età moderna”, in Interpretare e curare. Medicina e salute nel Rinascimento, ed. by M. Conforti, A. Carlino and A.  Clericuzio, Rome, Carocci, 2013, pp.  269–282; “On the Plague in Naples, 1656: Expedients and Remedies” in C.  De Caprio, D.  Cecere,

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L. Gianfrancesco, P. Palmieri (eds.), Disaster Narratives in Early Modern Naples. Politics, Communication and Culture, 2018, pp. 187–204; “L’aria innocente. Geronimo Gatta e le sue fonti,” in Mediterranea-ricerche storiche, a. XV, n. 44, dic. 2018, pp.  587–612; “Un allievo di Marco Aurelio Severino sulla peste di Napoli,” Medicina Historica, vol. 4 (1). Elisabeth Moreau  is an FNRS Postdoctoral Researcher at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium. Trained in history and philosophy of science, she started her postdoctoral research at Princeton University in 2019. Her project, “From the Alembic to the Stomach: Nutrition and Pharmacology in Early Modern Medicine,” is centred on the medical and alchemical conceptions of digestion between 1550 and 1650 in Europe. Previous to this project, her doctoral dissertation focused on the emergence of atomistic and corpuscular theories in late Renaissance Galenic medicine. William  R.  Newman is Distinguished Professor and Ruth N.  Halls Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University. Most of his work in the history of science has been devoted to  alchemy  and “chymistry,” the art-nature debate, and matter theories, particularly  atomism. Newman is also General Editor of the  Chymistry of Isaac Newton, an online resource combining born-­ digital editions of Newton’s alchemical writings with multimedia replications of Newton’s alchemical experiments. In addition, he was Director of the Catapult Center for Digital Humanities and Computational Analysis of Texts at Indiana University. He is on the editorial boards of Archimedes, Early Science and Medicine, and HOPOS. Vivian  Nutton  is an Emeritus Professor of the History of Medicine at University College London. A Cambridge classicist by training, he developed his interest in the Renaissance when he moved to the then Wellcome Institute in 1977. Since then he has written widely on almost all aspects of medicine from Antiquity to the seventeenth century. His most recent publications include annotated translations of Johann Guinter and Andreas Vesalius’ Principles of Anatomy (2017) and of John Caius’ autobibliography (2018), as well as a study of Galen of Pergamum (2020). His Renaissance medicine. A short history of medicine in the sixteenth century is scheduled for publication in 2022. As well as being a member of learned Academies around Europe, he is also a member of the Ancient Society of College Youths of London.

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Salvatore  Ricciardo teaches history of science at the University of Bergamo, Department of Human and Social Sciences. He has published articles and books on early modern science and philosophy, and he is ­co-­author of “The Reappearance of Galileo’s Original Letter to Benedetto Castelli” in Notes and Records. The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science, 2018. His research interests include the relations between science and religion, the seventeenth-century debates over the theory of matter, and the seventeenth-century Italian scientific academies. Luciana  Costa  Lima  Thomaz  is a physician, specialist in the field of integrative medicine. Her master’s and doctoral research, developed in the History of Science programme at the Pontifical University of São Paulo, focused on the history of medicine, especially in complementary and alternative medicine in the twentieth century. Her postdoctoral research, developed in the same programme in association with the Department of History of Science and Ideas at the University of Uppsala, concerned the medicine of Carl von Linné and his particular way of observing the physiology of the human body. Luca  Tonetti is currently Research Fellow in History of Science at University of Bologna. He received his PhD in History and Philosophy of Science from Sapienza University of Rome, with a dissertation on Giorgio Baglivi and his reform of medical practice in De praxi medica (1696). He has since held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance (CESR), University of Tours, and at the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel. Since 2017 he is a member of the editorial team of Nuncius. Journal of the Material and Visual History of Science (Brill), and is now serving as Book Review Editor. His work focuses on the history of medicine, particularly on anatomy and medical practice in Italy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Ruben E. Verwaal  (PhD, 2018) is a Dutch Research Council Rubicon Research Fellow at the Institute for Medical Humanities, Durham University, and curator of the medical collections at Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam. He has a particular interest in the history and material culture of early modern science and medicine. His first book is titled Bodily Fluids, Chemistry and Medicine in the Eighteenth-Century Boerhaave School (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). Verwaal is working on the medical perceptions and personal experiences of deafness and hardness of hearing in early modern Europe.

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Fabiola  Zurlini  is Vice-Director and Director in Chief of the Studio Firmano for the History of Medicine and Science (Fermo). Her research interests and publications focus on the early modern history of medical libraries and medical bibliography, medical education, and the medical profession, with a special focus on medicine at the Roman court of the Queen Christina of Sweden. She is working on publications devoted to the physicians working at the Roman Court of Queen Christina.

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1

Santorio’s Coat of Arms as portrayed on the engraving by Jacopo Piccini (1659) 6 Fig. 1.2 Santorio’s Coat of Arms in the Atrium of Palazzo BelgramoniTacco (seventeenth century). Regional Museum, Koper (Capodistria)6 Fig. 1.3 Santorio in his weighing chair. From Santorio 1625, col. 781 15 Fig. 1.4 Ideal portrait of Santorio as sitting on his chair. Letterhead from Stephan Mack, Scriptores Medico-Statici, Ms 11100, p. 159, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna 16 Fig. 1.5 Anonymous (Frans Pourbus II?) Portrait of Santorio Santori. (Identified by Fabrizio Bigotti in 2017). Oil on panel, 91 x 76. Antwerp, The Phoebus Foundation. © The Phoebus Foundation 2020 20 Fig. 1.6 Santorio Santori engraved by Jacopo Piccini in 1659. From Santorio 1660 21 Fig. 1.7 Santorio’s burial at the Ateneo Veneto in Venice (originally from the cloister of the Convento dei Serviti). From Paola Rossi, ‘La memoria funebre di Santorio Santorio’, Venezia Arti, 17–18 (2003–2004), 51–56 22 Fig. 1.8 Santorio’s autograph Letter to Galileo—9 February 1615; MS Gal 89, c. 239r, National Library of Florence 29 Fig. 1.9 Santorio’s autograph Letter to Galileo—9 February 1615; MS Gal 89, c. 239v, National Library of Florence 30 Fig. 1.10 Santorio’s autograph Letter to Galileo—9 February 1615; MS Gal 89, c. 240r, National Library of Florence 31 Fig. 1.11 Tabulated data from James Keill’s Medicina statica Britannica (1718)39 xxiii

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Fig. 1.12 Tabulated data from Joseph Rogers’ Medicina statica Hybernica (1734) 40 Fig. 2.1 Santorio’s scheme of the Galenic classification of ill-composed parts (malae compositiones). To be noted the overlapping of Santorio’s terminology (situs, figura, numerus) with Galen’s rationale. From Santorio 1630: coll. 15–16 78 Fig. 2.2 Santorio’s experiment likening the transformation of firewater into volatile spirit to the generation of the tunics of the embryo. From Santorio 1625: col. 684D 81 Fig. 2.3 Pneumatic cupping. A syringe is attached to a medical cup in order to enhance the effects of void. The instrument was used in paracentesis to dilate the region around the umbilicus and prepare it for the introduction of the syringe. From Santorio 1625, col. 512D-E 88 Fig. 2.4 Mouth thermometer. The instrument’s functioning is based on the contractibility of air. Reacting to the body temperature, air expands or contracts accordingly compelling the water inside the glass tube to rise or decrease at different levels. From Santorio 1625, col 219 (‘instrumentum primum’) 88 Fig. 2.5 Hygrometer, clockwork-type. The instrument’s functioning depends on the contractibility of silk or tortoise cords which, impregnated to various degrees by the humidity of environmental air, stretch and contract accordingly. From Santorio 1625, col. 215C-D 89 Fig. 2.6 Pulsilogium type A2 (Bigotti-Taylor 2017). This pendulumregulated device tracks the variations in pulse frequency by means of a tapered peg (right) which shortens or lengthens the pendulum wire. The position of the wooden ball on the bar displays the variations in terms of segments lengths 89 Fig. 3.1 Ippolito Obizzi, Staticomastix (Ferrara 1615). Biblioteca Civica “Romolo Spezioli”, Fermo. (Copy annotated by the physician Romolo Spezioli) 104 Fig. 3.2 Santorio’s 1634 edition of Ars de statica medicina containing his reply to Obizzi’s Staticomastix (De responsione ad Staticomostacen)109 Fig. 6.1 The report of Regius’ graduation at Padua University. Archivio storico Università degli Studi di Padova—ASUP, Archivio Antico, ms. 274, p. 160. (Courtesy of Università degli Studi di Padova—Ufficio Gestione Documentale) 169 Fig. 9.1 Santorio’s measurement of the heat of the moon. The source of light is indicated with the letter A, while the instruments used to perform the experiment are indicated as B: glass to reflect,

  List of Figures 

Fig. 9.2

Fig. 11.1

Fig. 12.1 Fig. 12.2 Fig. 12.3 Fig. 12.4 Fig. 13.1 Fig. 14.1

Fig. 14.2 Fig. 14.3

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concentrate, and direct the moonlight; C: thermometer; D: pulsilogium type D (Bigotti-Taylor classification); E: pulsilogium type B (Bigotti-Taylor Classification). From Santorio 1625: coll. 77–78242 Santorio’s measurement of the heat of the moon. The engraving is only partially provided with letters. The source of light is measured with instruments A: thermometer; B (not shown in the engraving): pulsilogium type D (Bigotti-Taylor Classification); and C: translucent glass bulb to reflect, concentrate, and direct the moonlight. From Santorio 1625: col. 346 243 Santorio’s De medicina statica libri octo … (Rome: Typis Bernabò, 1704). Title page and inscription by Giorgio Baglivi. (Courtesy of Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, Call 42. 2.B.18)291 Portrait of Johannes de Gorter. Line engraving by Jacob Houbraken after Jan Maurits Quinkhard, 1735. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, CC0 1.0 318 The weighing chair in Heydentryck Overkamp, Verklaring over de doorwazeming van Sanctorius (Amsterdam, 1694). The Hague, KB National Library of the Netherlands 321 A young man emanating insensible perspiration. Colour stipple engraving by John Pass, in Ebenezer Sibly, The Medical Mirror (London, 1794). London, Wellcome Collection, CC BY 324 Jacobus van der Spijk, hygrometer by Petrus Belkmeer, published in De Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili (Leiden, 1736). Allard Pierson, University of Amsterdam, O 62-6242 336 Linnaeus’ copy of Santorio’s Medicina statica (1647). (Courtesy of the Uppsala University Library ‘Caterina Rediviva’) 355 Santorio sitting on his weighing chair. From Santorio Santori, De statica medicina aphorismorum sectiones septem: accedunt hoc opus commentarii Martini Lister et Georgii Baglivi (Patavii: typis Jo. Baptistæ Conzatti, 1710) 379 Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze-­Lavoisier, Expériences sur la respiration de l’homme au repos, Detail (Private Collection) 382 Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze-Lavoisier, A man seated with his head in a glass container lit by a candle, Detail (Courtesy of Wellcome Library, London. The title is that provided by the Wellcome Library) 383

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Fig. 14.4 Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze-Lavoisier, A man being weighed on a huge set of scales, and a man with his head in a glass container (Courtesy of Wellcome Library, London. The title is that provided by the Wellcome Library) Fig. 14.5 An Adapation of Santorio’s Chair. From Santorio Santori, Science de la transpiration ou médecine statique. C’est à dire manière ingénieuse de se peser pour conserver et rétablir la santé par la connoissance exacte du poids de l’insensible transpiration … Traduction de M. Alemand, Docteur en Médecine (Lyon: chez Jaques Lyons, 1694)

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction Fabrizio Bigotti and Jonathan Barry

Anatomists have in effect discovered many elegant things, but the majority seems to be more curious than useful matters, and the origin of diseases should be pursued not so much by hands but by adopting a precise logic, which—except for Santorio amongst the earlier [priores], and Descartes amongst the most recent [novissimi]—I find in very few authors. —G. W. Leibniz Leibniz to Herman Conring (Hanover, 24 August 1677) in Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe, II.1 (Berlin: Academie Verlag, 2006), 563 (original quote with context): ‘Quid enim est post studium pietatis cura sanitatis utilius. Nam in plerisque rebus nobis consulere possumus mediocri prudentia: at sanitatis conservationem fere casui committere coguntur homines,

F. Bigotti (*) Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] J. Barry Department of History, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2022 J. Barry, F. Bigotti (eds.), Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614–1790, Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79587-0_1

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Few, concise remarks, rife with admiration. Leibniz’s words bear witness to the influence that the Italian physician Santorio Santori (1561–1636) exerted on European medicine and natural philosophy. His works introduced quantification in the life sciences, his devices helped Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608–1679) to understand the vegetation of plants, Robert Boyle (1627–1691) to conceive his hydrostatic medicine, Giorgio Baglivi (1668–1707) to formulate his doctrine of fluids and solids, and Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) his dietetics.1 Santorio’s masterwork, Medicina statica (Venice 1614), became the textbook for generations of physicians and a benchmark of experimental medicine. Praised by Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738) as the ultimate example of medical perfection, it set the groundwork for the studies of Archibald Pitcairne (1652–1713) on fevers, John Floyer (1649–1743) on asthma, James Keill (1673–1719) on digestion, Jean Bernoulli (1667–1748) on nutrition, Jean-Antoine Nollet (1700–1770) on electricity up to Lavoisier’s and Séguin’s researches on oxidation and metabolism.2 In learned circles Santorio’s authority was equally heralded to uphold the existence of atoms, to explain action at a distance as a stream of particles (effluvia Sanctorii) and to validate the belief in the resurrection of the dead.3 And yet so pivotal a figure, likened to William Harvey for importance and to Descartes for clarity of method, is today little known, even by the most committed scholars.4 While applying to all languages, the lack of studies is particularly conspicuous in the English-speaking world, where the only available monographs are translations of nineteenth-century Italian works, obsolete in their interpretative framework and full of misleading information.

1   A Tale of Oblivion and Rebirth In part at least, Santorio himself was to blame for conveying such an image of obsolescence. At a quick glance, he might easily pass for the classic Renaissance Paduan physician, busy in providing students with commentaries to the canonical works of Hippocrates, Galen and Avicenna.

in tanta verarum causarum ignorantia, quidquid etiam felicitas seculi jactetur. Quanquam enim multa elegantia detexerint Anatomici, pleraque tamen curiosa magis quam utilia videntur, et morborum origines non tam manibus quam accurata ratiocinandi methodo assequi licet. Quam si Sanctorium ex prioribus, Cartesium ex novissimis eximas, in paucis scriptoribus agnosco’ (italics added).

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Santorio himself once joked about the fact that the destiny of commentaries is to fall into oblivion,5 a prediction that has so far proved correct. His fame instead rested on his Medicina statica and in particular on its dual emphasis on insensible perspiration and the weighing of the body by using the weighing chair he invented. Although, as we shall see, these inventions rested on his wider corpuscularian philosophy and his experimental methodology, they took on a life of their own, not always necessarily associated with Santorio’s philosophical outlook, and eventually eclipsed the latter. Changes in medicine which appeared to render the medical statics obsolete left Santorio in obscurity, and although recent scholarship—particularly thanks to the contribution of Lucia Dacome6— has helped to recover the importance of his statics, such a recovery has not, generally at least, been accompanied by the same interest in Santorio’s output as a whole. Indeed, the context and content of Santorio’s works seem so at odds with each other that they have been regarded as a trick history played at his expense.7 This way of looking at his legacy began in the nineteenth century with Charles Daremberg (1817–1872), to whom Santorio was ‘a more or less forgotten relic of the ancient physiology’: […] we cannot share the enthusiasm of Baglivi, Boerhaave and many other 17th- and 18th-century physicians for the medical statics. I do not believe that for this work alone one would erect a marble statue to Sanctorius today, as was done after his death. Sanctorius is more or less forgotten: it is not even read anymore. The whole edifice of his Ars statica is based on the old physiology. […] One would be astonished to find so many ingenious instruments in a commentary which is, moreover, entirely scholastic, if one forgot that Sanctorius was above all a physicist and a mechanic, always in search of novelties; so that medical statics is less the result of a medical system than the application of studies directed towards the work of mechanics proper.8

Many have borrowed this interpretation acritically,9 though others have more recently delved into Santorio’s works and acknowledged the ground-­ breaking nature of his ideas.10 In spite of this, the overall attention devoted to the Venetian physician has hitherto been patchy and very limited in scope. The historiographical reasons for this are not difficult to recount. Particularly damaging to Santorio’s legacy have been attempts to read his ideas as an embodiment of Galileo’s. The attempt was consistent with a reading of history as a progression towards the final triumph of the scientific method, which had eventually replaced Santorio’s rudimental trials

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with Lavoisier’s precise chemistry. The life sciences sat at odds with the picture positivists were keen to sketch, and medicine in particular was regarded as an empirical pursuit led by outdated methods and theories. Thus, when the phenomenon of the ‘insensible perspiration’, to which Santorio’s contributions had meanwhile been reduced, ceased to be a pressing concern for medical practice, Santorio was praised instead for having applied Galileo’s methods to medicine.11 Not less problematic, in the least, is the contemporary attempt to counterbalance such an approach. If framing major scientific changes in terms of ‘revolutions’ does get away from Whig history, it sets the discussion of historical problems within a structuralist dichotomy (old/new, before/after, closed/open, etc.), which hinders any attempt to grapple with the complexity of historical sources. Worse still, in a Panglossian move that reduces everything to language and text, it advocates for the necessity of accommodating historical actors and empirical evidence to narratives and historiographic paradigms, thus requiring historians to locate events on the one side or the other of an imaginary threshold, which does not exist. As with all a priori approaches, it works best in challenging established accounts, but it is of little help when—as in this case—the task is that of evaluating the merits of historical figures that have been forgotten or whose contributions defy easy encapsulation. In this sense, the relevance of authors such as Santorio—but the same would apply to Daniel Sennert, as William Newman shows in his contribution—is that they are a constant reminder that there is ‘no simple way’ to deal with history. To approach early modern authors, texts must be studied closely and historical evidence used to enlarge and enrich our tentative characterisations of a period or a trend. Thus, in locating Santorio’s legacy, we pose as reference the existence of a ‘constellation of problems’ that are shaped by both converging and diverging historical accounts, each in turn seen as the result of various actors, ideas, methods and aims admitting of different solutions, where the old and the new survive, commix and react, in a way that is impossible to distil into a unifying picture, be it a paradigm or an episteme.12 Such an approach will lead to a better understanding of Santorio’s intellectual legacy reversing the oblivion that has affected an author whose contributions are still reduced nowadays to the caricature of a man living on a weighing chair.13 This new approach ought to start necessarily from sketching afresh the main traits of Santorio’s life, character and works. These, now enriched by substantial findings, will help us to reconstruct in turn the problems his research was moved by and the directions along which it developed.

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2   Santorio’s Life and Works Sources for Santorio’s life and personality are scarce and the most reliable ones are scattered throughout his works. The hitherto available biographical outlines depend on a patchy reading of Santorio’s works and provide information that is either unreliable or—when it is—depends almost entirely on the biography published in 1750 by the physician Arcadio Capello, who had access to a series of original documents by Santorio’s heirs living in Venice.14 To the former group belong a series of documents written either as praises of Santorio’s work and inventions or as part of large histories of the University of Padua,15 while the latter is represented by a variety of nineteenth- as well as twentieth-century contributions.16 Useful sources to reconstruct Santorio’s intellectual profile can be found in Galileo’s epistolary exchanges with his Venetian colleagues, in the official documents of the University of Padua, in the biographies of Sarpi written by Fulgenzio Micanzio (1570–1654) and Francesco Griselini (1717–1787), as well as in the Iscrizioni Veneziane by Emanuele Antonio Cigogna (1789–1868).17 Important letters and documents, including Santorio’s last will found in 1883,18 were published by Modestino del Gaizo (1854–1921)19 while a few others were discovered around 1960 by Maria Stella Ettari and Marco Procopio, in what has been so far the best monograph on Santorio.20 A substantial number of documents and letters have finally resurfaced as a result of Fabrizio Bigotti’s extensive research into European and American public and private archives, some of which will be used here. In the end, however, the most reliable details and character traits can be found in Santorio’s works. In what follows, we have summarised the available data with the most recent discoveries and reshaped some of the conclusions previously reached by scholars. 2.1  Early Life, Travels and Setting in Venice (1561–1593) The elder son of Antonio (c. 1520–1592/3) and the noblewoman Elisabetta Cordoni (or Cordonia), Santorio Santori was born in Capodistria—today Koper in Slovenia—on the borders of the Venetian dominion, on 29 March 1561.21 He had two sisters, Diana22 and Franceschina, and one brother, Isidoro (d. 1618).23 The Santori family— also known as Santorio, Santorii or De Sanctoriis, Figs. 1.1 and 1.2—was originally from Spilimbergo in Friuli, where Santorio’s grandfather, Isidoro, was a notary and a teacher at the local schools (1516–1518).24

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Fig. 1.1  Santorio’s Coat of Arms as portrayed on the engraving by Jacopo Piccini (1659)

Fig. 1.2  Santorio’s Coat of Arms in the Atrium of Palazzo Belgramoni-Tacco (seventeenth century). Regional Museum, Koper (Capodistria)

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His son Antonio moved to Capodistria in 1548 when he was appointed ‘bombardier and keeper in chief of munitions’ (bombardiere e sopramassaro delle munizioni) by the Senate of Venice.25 Although the position entailed responsibility mostly in administering munitions, supplying new weapons and instructing young apprentices in the art of artillery, Antonio also managed the proceeds of the local salt pans, which were called ‘old and new Santorio’ (Santorio vecchio e nuovo) as late as the early nineteenth century.26 The Venetian authorities, reacting in part to a complaint from the school of bombardiers in Capodistria, officially reproached Antonio for neglecting his duties in 1583,27 but an agreement was reached and Santorio’s father was subsequently praised for his effort and commitment to his work.28 Antonio’s knowledge of the practical aspects of mechanics and chemistry related to artillery,29 as well as his profitable management of the family’s business, helped to shape the mind-set of his son, both personally and intellectually. The invention of instruments such as the anemometer, conceived as a maritime tool to use to predict thunderstorms in open sea, and Santorio’s reading of the bodily balance as a system of double bookkeeping (additio et ablatio) may well reflect this influence.30 Furthermore, the family’s long-standing tradition as notaries and lawyers was pivotal in shaping Santorio’s approach to finance, which, by the end of his life, led him to accumulate a very large patrimony of 41,730 ducats, even if we only include the legacies Santorio himself provides in his testament.31 His first studies were probably undertaken privately, but due to a long-­ standing acquaintance between the Santori and Morosini families, in 1574–1578 he was received along with his brother Isidoro into the Morosinis’ house in Venice.32 There he studied with Andrea (1558–1618), Nicolò (1560–1602)  and Paolo (1566–1637) Morosini and befriended Nicolò Contarini (1553–1631), the future Doge and one of the prominent members of the Ridotto Morosini. The curriculum in the Morosini family included mathematics, philosophy and classical letters as well as consort music.33 Santorio himself tells us that in his youth he played brass instruments to expand his thoracic capacity, and it is not difficult imagining him involved in the performance of some of the then popular ricercari and canzoni by Andrea Gabrieli (1533–1585).34 Coinciding approximately with the beginning of Morosini’s political career (1578), Santorio enrolled in the Regio transmarina at the University of Padua, where he studied with Orazio Augenio (1527–1603), Bernardino Paterno (d.1587), Girolamo Mercuriale (1530–1606) and Jacopo Zabarella (1533–1589)35

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and where he eventually graduated in philosophy and medicine. The year 1582, often taken as the year of Santorio’s graduation, relies on a false conjecture made by Capello which unfortunately has been taken for granted by all subsequent scholars.36 Lasting seven years, and beginning at approximately 1578, Santorio could only graduate in medicine in 1585.37 Aside from his prominent scientific studies, Santorio cultivated some literary interests. He was a member, and for a short period the president (c. 1586–1587), of the academy known as Academia Palladia or dei Palladii based in Capodistria.38 This was a local gathering of young humanists interested in love poetry, music and classical studies. Santorio distinguished himself amongst the other members as most interested in natural philosophical studies, his name being quoted in relation to a dispute (dubbio quarto) on colours and their psychological effects.39 Another glimpse into the kind of discussion Santorio was involved in during this early period is found in Santorio’s later editing of the Epistole d’Ovidio (1604) by his friend Marc’Antonio Valdera (1567?–1604), a member of the group prematurely deceased.40 The interests manifested in the Academia Palladia in Capodistria did not prevent Santorio from entertaining a more fruitful engagement with the Paduan scientific and cultural élite. In 1587–1588 we find him as a member of the circle of scholars and natural philosophers gathering around the humanist Gian Vincenzo Pinelli (1535–1601) where he met and befriended Paolo Sarpi (1558–1621), who played a key role in Santorio’s personal, political and scientific development.41 By 1587, Santorio was a sufficiently renowned physician to be officially recommended on behalf of the University of Padua (thanks to the intermediation of the bishop Nicolò Galliero, 1528–1595), for a position in Poland at the service of a local prince,42 probably in the quality of a military physician.43 This position lasted five years and involved extensive trips also to Hungary and Croatia (Carlovac), allowing Santorio the freedom to occasionally come back to Venice.44 The resumé of a letter sent to the judges and majors of Capodistria by their representatives in Venice provides evidence that in 1589 Santorio had departed for Poland but could occasionally travel back. Discussing a list of possible candidates recommended for the position of the local doctor in Capodistria, the representatives state that, while it had been difficult to speak to Santorio due to his being very far away from his homeland (essendo egli stato lontanissimo), they were nonetheless able to meet him a couple of times and that he would have accepted the position for 200 ducats.45 From this and

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Santorio’s testimony, we can infer that the period Santorio spent abroad was approximately 1588–1592/1593. Indeed, as early as 1594 we find him back in Venice, as the recipient of Mercuriale’s consult addressing Santorio’s concerns about the cure of a melancholic disease afflicting the Venetian nobleman Arcangelo Agostino.46 In keeping with Capello’s account, scholars have fixed Santorio’s return to Venice at around 1599, but 1594 is much more likely and is further corroborated by the epistolary correspondence between Santorio and the physician Eustachio Rudio (1548–1612). In it Santorio had informed his friend as to the hesitations felt in the Venetian establishment in following up on the promise to appoint Rudio at the chair of practical medicine in Padua, which eventually took place in 1599.47 By the early 1590s, Santorio had already developed his distinctive interests in quantification and experimental medicine. If we accept what he states in the preface of his Medicina statica (1614), and later again in his letter to Galileo (1615), he had been experimenting on himself as well as on different subjects for a period of 25–30 years.48 This points to 1584 as the earliest date for the beginning of his trials, prior to any possible meeting with Galileo. Santorio’s studies on optics also took shape around that period and he had the opportunity to refine his knowledge of applied mathematics as part of Pinelli’s circle.49 Pivotal to his early scientific development were the influences of his teacher Giacomo Zabarella, as well as those of Contarini and Sarpi. While Zabarella’s works introduced Santorio to the purest form of ‘Venetian Aristotelianism’, which stressed logical rigour, method and natural philosophical explanations over more metaphysical and theological commitments typical of the late scholastics, Contarini emphasised the importance of empiricism and scepticism against the use of authorities in philosophical disputes, as exemplified in his De perfectione rerum libri sex (1576). This attitude was later sealed by the personality of Sarpi, to whom Santorio remained deeply attached throughout his life.50 In the early 1600s Sarpi managed to enrol Santorio as the physician of the Convent of the Servites in Venice, and given the proximity of Santorio’s house to the convent he was the first to assist Sarpi when he was attacked there by assassins paid by the Roman Curia on 5 October 1607.51 The two shared a variety of interests, not only in medicine and anatomy, but also in distillation, quantification and optics. A case in point are Sarpi’s early notes on the composition of matter, collected in the Pensieri Naturali as early as 1578, which form the background against which to read Santorio’s approach to the same question in his first work,

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(1603). Here Santorio pinpoints matter’s most important features—as Sarpi before him—as ‘position’, ‘shape’ and ‘number’ (situs, figura, numerus). The influence was in any case mutual, for it seems that Sarpi later borrowed from Santorio in the making of his Pensieri Medico Morali.52 As someone whom Santorio had grown up with, Andrea Morosini exerted a more intimate influence on him. Animated by a profound sense of devotion to their studies, both men preferred to remain socially inconspicuous. Three years his senior, Morosini was to Santorio a model of moral and political integrity. This was partly due to Morosini’s religious principles—in keeping with which Santorio had been educated—and political attitudes, admittedly more conservative than those of Sarpi or Contarini. Significantly, both men remained unmarried. Yet Santorio’s inclinations towards celibacy were, unlike those of Morosini, of a more ‘practical’ kind. The scorn of romantic relationships, eschewed by Santorio as a form of insanity (species humanae stultitiae, delirii species),53 was the main motivation behind the decision to remain unmarried, which never prevented him from engaging in ‘less committed’ relationships. In fact, to get a clue as to the kind of celibacy Santorio practised, one only needs to read section six of Medicina statica, ‘On coitus’ (De venere), where Santorio reports the results of his self-experiments on the effects of coitus on perspiration. Therein he recommends sexual intercourse (significantly with no mention as to whether it could be practised inside or outside marriage) as a healthy practice leading to a long life. By and large, his approach to the matter was extremely open. In some works, he goes so far as to engage with aspects of pederasty—widespread in the Venetian nobility of the time—which he handles without any apparent moral prejudice.54 Santorio’s critics were, of course, scandalised by such an attitude and some later commentators apologised to their readers for how sex was treated so openly in the text.55 Morosini, Contarini and Sarpi were to play an instrumental role in shaping Santorio’s career and the political links he forged with the intelligentsia of Venice, first introducing him to the Ridotto Morosini and later leading to his appointment to the first chair of theoretical medicine in Padua (1611). It is difficult to locate the activity of the Ridotto within a precise timeline. Its nightly gatherings, taking place at Morosini’s house in San Luca over the Grand Canal (today Palazzo Cavalli), lasted approximately from 1578 to 1598. Andrea and Nicolò Morosini gathered around themselves the highest echelons of the Venetian nobility, including the future doges

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Leonardo Donà (1536–1612) and Nicolò Contarini, Paolo Sarpi and his biographer Fulgenzio Micanzio (1570–1654), the future Bishop of Belluno Alvise (Luigi) Lollino (1552–1625), the mathematicians Francesco Barozzi (1537–1604) and Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), the physicians Alessandro Massaria (1510–1598) and Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente (1533–1619) and, for a brief period in 1592, the philosopher Giordano Bruno (1548–1600).56 The themes discussed were diverse, spanning from science to religion and politics. Micanzio and Lollino recall these gatherings as dedicated to ethics and natural philosophy, while being ‘unpretentious and purely directed towards the attainment of truth’.57 And yet the activity of the members of the Ridotto must be located also within a culture of secrecy characteristic of the Venetian society of the time, particularly with regards to political matters. Politically, in fact, the majority of the members of the Ridotto belonged to the most progressive party of Venice (the so-called giovani, meaning ‘patricians of recent nobility’) and were linked by strong opposition to Papal and Spanish policies, later to be reflected in their action during the Venetian interdict.58 2.2  Between Venice and Padua (1593–1611) The ten years between Santorio’s return to Venice and the publication of his first work (1603) are wrapped in obscurity. From an intellectual standpoint, the publication of the Methodi vitandorum errorum omnium qui in arte medica contingunt libri XV (Venice 1603) crowns the completion of Santorio’s early studies and medical practice. The work, which Albrecht von Haller (1707–1777) defined as ‘of great importance if little quoted’ (magni momenti opus etsi raro citatur),59 is divided into fifteen books, which is reminiscent of the articulation of Galen’s De methodo medendi. Yet the work is not a commentary. Differential diagnosis and post-Vesalian anatomy set the general background against which Santorio defines the principles of a new method to avoid the errors committed by empirical doctors. This method is grounded in logic and in methodologically framed observation which, in order to be certain, must be universal (i.e. general propositions must be convertible in all cases), accidentality and individuality having no share in it.60 To reach such certainty Santorio criticises both Galen’s anatomy and those who are blind to his authority, he debunks occult qualities and redefines the rapport between universals and particulars. One of the points in targeting empirical doctors is to show that induction per se does not provide any certainty: if anything, it is prone to

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logical fallacies and leads to the death of the patients. Individuals, on the other hand, ought not to be seen as qualitative distinct atoms but as temporal and spatial instantiations of universal properties (distinguntur per hinc et nunc) which are the same in all and are hence measurable.61 Such properties are quantitative, being figure, number and position, and out of them all the perceptual qualities emerge, in a clocklike mechanism.62 These premises allow the doctor to gather essential information about the arrangement of universal properties in individual subjects and so to draw a precise diagnosis sustained and mediated by the use of instruments such as the pulsilogium, a pendulum-regulated device that allows one to monitor variations in pulse frequency over time (see Figure 2.6).63 The book gained immediate success and established Santorio as a medical authority well beyond Italy.64 Throughout the seventeenth century, it still constituted a source for Joachim Jungius (1587–1657), Caspar Bartholin the Elder (1585–1629) and Gottlieb Wilhelm (von) Leibniz (1646–1716).65 Despite this initial success, however, Santorio kept practicing in Venice as a private physician. The years 1605–1607 saw the development and final settlement of the Venetian interdict, in which Venice defended successfully its liberty against the meddling of the Pope and his nuncii. Although Santorio kept a low profile throughout the unfolding of the political events, in 1610 his name was mentioned by Fulgenzio Manfredi (1560–1610)—a theologian who, initially close to Sarpi, later became an informant of the Roman Curia—as someone who read prohibited books and was acquainted with heretics. From both personal and official accounts we are informed that Santorio indeed was close to Sir Henry Wotton (1568–1639), the English ambassador in Venice, who the Roman Curia monitored closely as an active instigator of Protestant doctrines and smuggler of prohibited books in the Venetian nobility, via the mediation of Paolo Sarpi and his friends.66 Manfredi reported Santorio as of close conversation with Sarpi and reveals that both Sarpi and Contarini were plotting to provide him with a chair in medicine at Padua.67 And, on 6 October 1611, Santorio was indeed appointed to the chair of theoretical medicine and also became affiliated to the ‘Collegio dei Medici Fisici’ in Venice.68 Although important, his political connections were considerably strengthened by the esteem of his colleagues. Amongst them was the Milanese doctor Lodovico Settala (1550–1633) who, when requested by the Senate of Venice to hold the same chair, declined, recommending Santorio as the most worthy candidate.69 Santorio and Settala maintained a very close relationship

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throughout their lives, further strengthened by the arrival in Padua of Settala’s son Senatore (c. 1590–1636) to study medicine with Santorio. In a letter to his father, written in 1613, Senatore provides a first-hand account of Santorio’s performance as a reader. He describes him as a teacher of great value, clear in his exposition, although not provided with as strong a voice in enunciation as his colleagues, by whom in any case he was little loved, due to his many medical innovations and inventions.70 Santorio’s first work as a professor of theoretical medicine was the Commentaria in Artem medicinalem Galeni libri tres (Venice 1612, completed in 1611). Although it has so far attracted attention because of the passages in which Santorio describes the thermometer, this lengthy work (altogether more than 600 large folios) is relevant in its own right as it adds substantial new elements to Santorio’s physiological and physical theories, experiments and observations as well as new details on his life and his encounters. 2.3  The Ars de Statica Medicina and the Obizzi Controversy (1614–1615) Two years later, Santorio came to prominence as an international authority with the publication of his masterwork, the Ars de statica medicina (Venice 1614). This little book, dedicated to Nicolò Contarini, consisted of a series of aphorisms divided into seven sections. The first section introduces the general criteria to measure the insensible perspiration of the body (de ponderatione insensibilis perspirationis) and is followed by the other six, arranged according to the order of the six non-­naturals (sex res non naturales), being those factors like air, exercise, sleeping and waking, food and drink, excretion, sex and the passions of the soul, which the human subject was believed to be in control of. At an initial stage, Santorio had thought to write a commentary to the statics, possibly to explain how he gained his results, but he soon realised that it was superfluous.71 Given the familiarity of physicians with Hippocrates’ aphorisms as well as the logical proximity of these latter to mathematical axioms, Santorio deemed the work clear enough to be published in octavo. Besides, commentaries to the work started circulating independently of Santorio’s knowledge or will.72 As he declared in a letter to Galileo dated 1615, anyone interested in the new method would be able to appreciate its rigour by engaging in the daily experimentations that the book describes and thus appreciate aphorisms as the best literary form to collect and record them. In other words, while the

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necessary explanation of the method is supposed to come from experimentation, its general outline remains accessible—because of its clarity—to anyone interested in it. Beyond their adherence to intrinsic experimental needs, aphorisms are meant to be memorable, all the while inviting others to expand upon the knowledge enclosed in the short sentences—a strategy undoubtedly meant also to enlarge the repute of Santorio as a medical authority. Although Santorio does not supply enough details as to the conditions of his experiments, we know that in experimenting on himself he was assisted by fellow physician Girolamo Tebaldi da Oderzo (1575–1641), who was as keen as Santorio on the application of the new method.73 Santorio performed his experiments on other subjects as well, by using a special weighing chair, later engraved as part of his Commentaries on Avicenna’s Canon (1625) and included in the subsequent editions of the Medicina statica (Figs. 1.3 and 1.4) According to its author, Medicina statica serves three different purposes: the first is diagnostic, allowing one to foresee the onset of diseases through variations in body weight; the second is dietetic, focusing on rationalisation of regimen; while the last is the prolongation of life.74 All three targets are grounded in Santorio’s experimental proof that the bodily equilibrium between ingested food and the sensible excretions is regulated by the dispersion of an insensible matter (perspiratio insensibilis) whose quantitative variations determine a state of health or disease in each individual.75 The hypothesis on which the experiments are based is that, in normal conditions, the body tends to maintain the same weight.76 As a consequence, the dispersion of a regular quantity of matter points to a healthy constitution, whilst sudden changes—all other parameters being invariant—reveal the onset of a latent disease.77 Latent and insensible are important terms to Santorio as his statics aims at extending the perception of the doctor, making ‘apparent’ what is latent and ‘sensible’ what is insensible.78 Thus, the quantitative measurement of the perspiratio insensibilis is intended less as a matter of investigation per se than as an indication of the present and future conditions of the body, with more minute calculations meant to sketch a reliable trend in the patient’s health.79 By calculating the peak of perspiration the doctor could measure the quantity of drugs to be administered at any given stage of the disease progression, while ascertaining the magnitude of it (magnitudo morbi).80 In an age when the only possible non-invasive medical interventions were diet, bloodletting and purging Santorio’s statics sparked a revolution: it showed that the most fundamental processes by means of which the organism preserves itself are

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Fig. 1.3  Santorio in his weighing chair. From Santorio 1625, col. 781

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Fig. 1.4  Ideal portrait of Santorio as sitting on his chair. Letterhead from Stephan Mack, Scriptores Medico-Statici, Ms 11100, p.  159, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna

quantitative and must accordingly be analysed experimentally, rather than theoretically.81 In this sense, the fundamental change in modern medicine brought about by Medicina statica was to convert the classical concept of equilibrium, as ideal as subjective, into a statical problem of balance between fluids and solids of the body, the effects of which could be tested and thus controlled. The work, however, was also meant to serve patients, insofar as the latter could use the statical measurements to obtain a median calculation of how much they needed to eat and drink per day, thus leading to the prolongation of life.

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The prevailing focus on metabolism has led many scholars to interpret Medicina statica as a work concerned with problems and belonging to the framework of traditional medicine. Its emphasis on humours and diet can be certainly construed as in line with this interpretation, but a closer look shows that the conceptual structure underpinning Santorio’s work has indeed changed. For while it is true that in ancient and mediaeval physics all natural transformations were conceived as either cooking processes or digestions (πέψις, concoctio, digestio, assimilatio), it is equally clear that medical statics presupposes a different meaning of digestion. This consists now of two acts, the ‘distillation’ (elixatio), which brings about the separation of humours into their elemental components, and the complementary act of ‘dispersion’ (evacuatio) of residues in form of perspirable matter.82 It is therefore entirely relevant to Santorio’s conception that he does not list the actions of ‘emptying’ and ‘filling’ the body (inantio et repletio) within the six non-naturals: these are not parameters to be measured but the very actions by means of which the body keeps its balance, a balance that is conceived quantitatively as regulated by mechanical actions. In any case, but from a modern standpoint, there cannot be any doubt that Santorio, like many other men of the period, overestimated the applications of his discovery. Then as now, weight is only one out of the many parameters that are to be taken into account when sketching a reliable diagnosis. Nor is it true that diseases are first ‘introduced’ into the body by a weight change.83 What’s more, the very idea that all gains and losses in bodily weight should be compensated by an equivalent evacuation or addition lent itself to easy simplification, as happened in the seventeenth century when the use of diaphoretics became a kind of panacea, curing everything from fevers to asthma, up to epidemic diseases.84 This was probably less Santorio’s defect than his followers’: Santorio regarded his Medicina statica as an ‘art’ and an ‘instrument’ which could assist medical practice not replace it with a priori deductions. Furthermore, it is a great loss that Santorio never published the tabulated data of his experiments, which could have provided vital insights into his method. In keeping with Obizzi’s criticisms, Kurt Sprengel had already pinpointed this as a fundamental fault of Santorio’s method.85 To be sure, however, it was the standard modus operandi of his time: Galileo, Beeckman and Kepler constitute an exception only because we possess their manuscripts to supplement their published writings.

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Despite the defects, of which later generations became more critical, the relevance of the Medicina statica in the history of medicine and science is difficult to overestimate, as the essays in this volume demonstrate. Santorio’s work established the principle that in all natural bodies qualitative changes are constantly and necessarily associated with quantitative ones.86 Given the role the human body still played in the understanding of the natural world at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Medicina statica had a major impact on the making of experimental sciences, especially in early modern chemistry, where it helped establish the principle of the conservation of matter. If appreciated by many, the ground-breaking novelty of the work inevitably attracted criticisms, initially in a pamphlet articulated in three dialogues titled Staticomastix, sive staticae medicinae demolitio (Ferrara 1615), written by Ippolito Obizzi (c. 1550–after 1634). Obizzi uses ad hominem arguments to minimise the importance of Medicina statica, but at times he raises interesting objections,87 notably that Santorio’s statics does not take into account the causes and qualities of perspiration, thus making the quantitative analysis irrelevant as a parameter. Obizzi argues that the same quantity of perspiration can be obtained either by natural means (secundum naturam) or by unnatural means (praeter naturam), and that this difference cannot be detected by adopting Santorio’s methods.88 Obizzi also reproaches Santorio for not taking into due account the nature of individuals he measures. These become standardised subjects whose age, gender and conditions Santorio does not declare.89 Obizzi is especially sceptical of Santorio’s meticulous calculations in terms of ounces and scruples, which he finds impossible to measure. On a personal level, Obizzi criticises Santorio’s open stance towards sex, which he finds impious and not suitable to priests, monks and other celibates.90 It took some time for Santorio to reply properly to these attacks. He indirectly did so in 1612—replying to the criticisms an unknown physician had voiced amongst common friends—and again in 1625, while finally coming out publicly against Obizzi in 1634, with his Responsio ad Staticomasticen consisting of seventeen aphorisms added as an eighth section to Medicina statica, thereafter included in almost all editions of the work.91 Santorio’s responsiones are concise but sharp: Obizzi is an astrologer who has no grasp of experimental method and condemns others’ results on the grounds of hypotheses that have no experimental backing.92 All his criticisms are due to the fact that he does not acknowledge the difference Santorio constantly makes between ‘feeling lighter’ (ad sensum) and ‘being lighter’ according to the measurement of the scale (ad stateram).93 In fact Santorio had recognised the difference in the quality and nature of

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perspiration, but had conceived both as measurable. In order to assess such difference he had invented instruments and devised experiments that were unknown to Galen or any of the ancients.94 This latter point helps us to understand another essential principle that Medicina statica introduced into European medicine, namely the distinction between ‘perceived’ (ad sensum) and ‘measured’ (ad stateram) reality. The distinction resurfaced again in the correspondence of John Locke (1632–1704), where it was used by Nicolas Toinard (1628–1706) as an early version of the famous distinction between primary and secondary qualities.95 2.4  President of the Collegio Veneto and Resignation from the Chair of Medicine (1616–1624) The academic years following the Obizzi controversy ran smoothly and Santorio enjoyed the gratitude and affection of his students. In the period 1616–1618 and again from 1622 to 1624, he was appointed as the president of the Collegio Veneto.96 The Collegio was created in 1616 and advertised externally as an institution to grant poor students at Padua the opportunity to obtain a doctoral degree without sustaining the steep prices of the official procedure, but it also acted as an instrument of the Republic to allow Protestant students to bypass the papal imposition that compelled official students at Padua to profess publicly their Roman Catholic faith. Another aim was to abolish the arbitrariness of the Conti Palatini, who were previously given the authority to bestow doctorates privatim without requesting permission from the University of Padua or the Senate.97 Those granted by the Collegio were prestigious and highly sought, as Santorio became internationally famous. Around 1614–1616, possibly marking the event of Santorio’s appointment as the first chairman of the Collegio, he had his portrait made (Fig. 1.5). This portrait has been ­identified as Santorio in 2017 by Fabrizio Bigotti, for reasons of its close resemblance to the known engraving by Jacopo Piccini (Fig. 1.6), the height of the sitter, compatibility of the profile with the engraving of Santorio in his chair (1625) and the surviving skull kept in Padua, as well as important details showed by the burial at the Ateneo Veneto (such as beard and overcoat) (Fig. 1.7), as well as for the size of the little book in octavo, which is precisely the size of the Medicina statica.98 Although the portrait features no marks or inscriptions, the man may be easily described as an academic whose age is also compatible with that of Santorio (who was 55 years old in 1616) while the painter, anonymous but conjecturally identified as Frans Pourbus II (1569–1622), has been

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Fig. 1.5  Anonymous (Frans Pourbus II?) Portrait of Santorio Santori. (Identified by Fabrizio Bigotti in 2017). Oil on panel, 91 x 76. Antwerp, The Phoebus Foundation. © The Phoebus Foundation 2020

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Fig. 1.6  Santorio Santori engraved by Jacopo Piccini in 1659. From Santorio 1660

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Fig. 1.7  Santorio’s burial at the Ateneo Veneto in Venice (originally from the cloister of the Convento dei Serviti). From Paola Rossi, ‘La memoria funebre di Santorio Santorio’, Venezia Arti, 17–18 (2003–2004), 51–56

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previously described as a north-Italian painter, thus making the identification with Santorio’s portraitist very likely. The later painting (whereabouts unknown), engraved by Piccini in 1659, was probably made by Tiberio Tinelli (1586–1639).99 In any case, around this period Santorio’s name became so important that it led to forgeries of Paduan diplomas, such as a diploma now held at the Royal College of Physicians in London, where an unknown physician has altered the name and date of the diploma to make it seem that he had graduated in Padua with Santorio in 1628, when the Venetian physician had already left his position at least four years earlier.100 In his capacity as the president of the Collegio, however, Santorio faced the criticisms of the Papal nuncio Berlingero Gessi (1563–1639), who targeted Santorio for his intransigence in following the Senate’s decrees thus bestowing academic degrees in medicine and law on Protestants, Jews, Greeks and many other non-Catholics.101 It became clear to the nuncio that Santorio was acting as Sarpi’s and Contarini’s agent and that he was not easily intimidated.102 Meanwhile, criticisms came also from the University of Padua: Santorio had in fact misinterpreted the duties associated with his new position in bestowing the doctorate on some students without requesting permission from the University.103 The documents of the Acta Nationis Germanicae kept in Padua yield a picture of Santorio as a man drunk with power and confident in the strength of his political connections, making public displays of rage against those who have been awarded doctorates by the University in his absence.104 But this view should be taken with a grain of salt, not least because Santorio was summoned a second time to the same role in 1622–1624 and the students of the Natio Germanica always manifested their sincerest support and admiration for him. In 1623 he was also accused of negligence in lecturing his students, but he was then fully and promptly exonerated.105 The accusations were in fact levelled for political purposes. The conflict with the Papal nuncio and the progressive loss of political connections brought Santorio increasingly out of favour with Venice’s political establishment, which started seeing him as a leftover of an outdated party and a hindrance to new conservative politics as the Senate started taking a more conciliatory approach towards the Pope and Spain. Thus, following the death of his friends Agostino da Mula (26 October 1621) and above all of Paolo Sarpi (15 January 1623), Santorio was denied the increase of salary he had demanded for the renewal of his appointment (to be raised from 1200 to 1500 florins) and accordingly resigned in 1624.106 This was a deliberate decision reflecting the Senate’s changed political attitude to the Collegio Veneto, and to him in particular.107 The political intent

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behind the decision became clear with the immediate replacement of Santorio with the Pope’s physician Pompeo Caimo (1568–1631).108 By 1625, Santorio was civiliter mortuus, having lost all academic privileges and honours.109 However, the Senate granted Santorio his full salary for that year and a tax reduction—though not an annuity, as wrongly reported in all previous accounts.110 Santorio kept practising privately as a doctor in Venice. Following his resignation, he was offered positions in Bologna, Messina and Pavia, which he refused to continue living in Venice. One year after his resignation, Santorio published the Commentaria in primam Fen primi libri Canonis Avicennae (1625). The work, begun in 1623, is a collection of his lecture notes and displays for the first time a good number of Santorio’s instruments.111 Haller called the work memorabile opus, and indeed it represents the pinnacle of Santorio’s scientific and experimental achievement.112 Writing to his former student Senatore Settala on 27 December 1625, Santorio defines the work as plenty of ‘new thoughts yet grounded on the authority of Hippocrates and Galen’.113 The book not only shows engravings of various types of pulsilogia, thermometers, hygrometers and the weighing chair, but also instruments for tracheostomy and paracentesis, for palliative care as well as for optical experiments. As seen, these latter had been a long-standing interest for Santorio and we gather from his testament that a manuscript with ‘A hundred problems of physiological optics’ (Cento problemi di ottica fisiologica) was to be handed over to his colleague and friend Girolamo Tebaldi da Oderzo.114 The Commentaries on Avicenna’s Canon had a second reprint in 1626 which is very rare, but some copies present textual variations.115 In one of these, kept in Padua, Santorio informs the reader about the structure of the forthcoming book on ‘Medical instruments no longer seen’ (De instrumentis medicis non amplius visis) that he planned to publish: a book showcasing large engravings with the construction of the new instruments and the ways to use them, most likely similar to the anatomical plates of his colleagues Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente (1533–1619) and Giulio Casserio (1552–1616), with the engravings marked by letter on the one side of the plate followed by explanations on the back of it: a very expensive book both to print and to buy. As we shall see below, Santorio was looking for a patron who could help him to cover these expenses; he thought he had finally found one in Francesco Maria II Della Rovere (1549–1631) to whom he dedicated his last work in 1629.

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2.5  The Final Years 1625–1636 With the exception of the Methodi vitandorum errorum...libri XV and the Medicina statica, Santorio’s works were aimed at providing medical students with reliable textbooks. In 1629 he published the last of such textbooks, the Commentaria in primam sectionem Aphorismorum Hippocratis and the little book De remediorum inventione. From 1630 to 1634 Santorio devoted his endeavours to the reprint of previous published works. If actually undertaken, the intended publication of the book De instrumentis medicis was probably frustrated again by the death of Della Rovere in 1631. Furthermore, in 1630 plague broke out in Venice and Santorio was requested by the Senate to give his opinion on the nature of the epidemics. Much speculation has been devoted to why Santorio denied the true nature of the disease. As documented in the essay by Vivian Nutton and Silvana D’Alessio, the nineteenth-century historian Paolo Dolfin ascribed Santorio’s refusal to acknowledge the plague to his political connections with the Senate and to the extraordinary pressure he was under not to compel the authorities to shut down ports and the commercial activities of the city.116 If so, Santorio’s decision would be somewhat mitigated by circumstantial considerations. Doctors were inclined to deny that sporadic epidemics could be identified as plague, not least as such calls were made regularly every year.117 But it seems unlikely that pressure from the Venetian authorities could compel Santorio’s judgement: Santorio was one of the few (and, according to certain testimonies, at some moments the only one) to openly deny that the epidemic disease was indeed a plague.118 If his aim had been to shield his reputation from the possible reaction of the Senate, Santorio would have done better to join the majority party. In any case, throughout the spread of the plague Santorio remained in Venice, helping the authorities to fight its spread and actively assisting the poor of the city by organising the shifts of the corpse carriers.119 In 1634 the advice that he had given and tested personally in fighting the plague was added to the first section of the Medicina statica: Santorio argues that plague is spread by an exhalation (halitus) and that all traditional remedies are vain, with the only effective precautions being either fleeing away or segregating those with the plague.120 Santorio spent his final years with his nephew Antonio (1600–1642), who became a physician in Venice on 16 October 1631,121 and to whom he entrusted his final will, a task Antonio could fulfil only in part, for he died prematurely six years later. Santorio died in Venice on 25 (not 22 as many biographies have it) February 1636  in a house belonging to the Dardani family at the Fondamenta della Sensa over the homonymous canal.122

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According to the official medical report he died from a urine disease (mal d’orina), but other accounts state that he remained many hours with very feeble or no pulse.123 His remains were buried in a tomb in the cloisters of the church Santa Maria dei Servi, the church of the Servite convent wherein Santorio had served for many years as a physician and confidante of Sarpi. Santorio’s bust, originally placed over the tomb, was removed from the church in 1815 following its partial demolition and is now kept at the Ateneo Veneto in Venice (Fig. 1.7). At the beginning of the nineteenth century, following the destruction of the Chiesa dei Servi, his bones were exhumed by the physician Francesco Aglietti (1757–1836) and Santorio’s skull is now kept at Museum of the History of Medicine (MUSME) in Padua.124 The substantial fortune made by Santorio provided his descendants with the opportunity to become permanent citizens of the Republic of Venice (cittadini originari) in 1658,125 and to acquire a large villa over the river Brenta, rebuilt in the nineteenth century as Villa Elvira, along with a palazzo in Venice at the Fondamenta Santorio at San Basegio, which was demolished at the end of the eighteenth century.126 Santorio also left a considerable amount of money to the ‘Collegio dei Medici Fisici’ in Venice to give an annual Sanctorian Lecture, a practice that began with Santorio’s colleague Girolamo Tebaldi, followed by Giacomo Grandi, Arcadio Capello—his most reliable biographer—and Nicolò Pollaroli and lasted for almost 150 years, up to 1774.127

3   ‘Not that Close’: The Problematic Relations Between Santorio and Galileo We have previously hinted to the relations between Santorio and Galileo, the nature of which has remained a puzzle to historians.128 While the two knew each other personally, there was a certain distance between them, both in terms of ideals and characters. In fact, although Santorio and Galileo had similar interests and upbringing, the same friends, and even worked and lived for a while in the same places, neither ever mentions the other directly, not even when they would have had compelling reasons to do so. In 1623 Galileo writes the Assayer (Il Saggiatore), and in a passage where he introduces his corpuscularian ideas, reference is made to the insensible perspiration of the body (insensibile perpiratione) as an example of the effluvium of corpuscles.129 At the time Santorio was the unquestioned authority on this but his name is never mentioned. Santorio reciprocated this tacit dismissal, in 1625, and again in 1629, when he offered his students and readers a consideration of the merits and problems of the

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Copernican theory.130 Unlike others in Padua, Santorio takes the theory seriously and defends it against detractors and superficial objections, none of which prevents him from eventually dismissing Copernicanism on the grounds of observations made with the telescope. One of which is that, if the upholders of the Copernican theory are right in assuming that there is no difference between the terrestrial atmosphere and the skies, then we should expect to witness on the moon an atmosphere similar to the terrestrial one, with corresponding atmospheric events such as rain and winds as well as modification of the soil as due to these environmental factors. But Santorio argues that, looking at the moon ‘with the lens recently invented’ (cum specillo nuper invento), this is not the case.131 Galileo’s spectre lurks around the entire discussion, but neither his name nor his inventions are ever mentioned. Another episode is that known to Galileo’s scholars as the ‘episode of the notomista’. It was recounted by Santorio in 1603 and then Galileo reworked it slightly, some 30 years later (1632).132 To deride those who are addicted to the authority of the ancients, Santorio tells us of a public anatomy where an important Aristotelian scholar of the time had denied that the veins originate from the liver and that the heart is surrounded by a fat substance (pinguedo cordis), thus preferring to blindly follow Aristotle’s authority than his own senses. Galileo ascribed the occasion of the quarrel to the origin of the nerves, but the conclusions are the same as Santorio’s. If the famous episode took place in Santorio’s house—as is likely, due to the fact that he recounts it in the first person—it is interesting that Galileo does not quote him or his source.133 The safest conclusion these series of omissions would suggest is that the two were not close enough to feel comfortable in mentioning each other’s names in published works. Unfortunately, there is more and it involves a question of priority in the invention of two instruments: the pulsilogium and the thermometer. As seen, the Ridotto Morosini brought Galileo, appointed to the chair of mathematics at Padua in 1592, in close contact with Santorio and Sarpi although other occasions might have occurred earlier at the Pinelli’s circle.134 Instruments such as the pulsilogium, known as the earliest applications of the pendulum to medical practice, probably were conceived at these times if not in these meetings. Others, like the thermometer, were realised much later (c. 1610). On the grounds of such a continuity, scholars have often claimed that Santorio simply appropriated Galileo’s inventions. We shall address the merits of such a claim in the next section but it

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is important to highlight that the claim originated with Galileo himself, who had reclaimed both inventions through the account of his student and biographer Vincenzo Viviani (1622–1703) and in a letter now lost to Giovanni Francesco Sagredo (1571–1620).135 Scholars have recently come to doubt many of Galileo’s statements about the priority of his discoveries,136 and new documents show that the pulsilogium was already known to the Paduan colleagues of Galileo as an invention of Santorio before Galileo first described his experiments with the pendulum to the mathematician Guidobaldo del Monte in 1602.137 This would help explain why, while in Padua and Venice, Galileo never raised any question of priority as to the invention of such an instrument. The thermometer was somewhat different and a more serious affair, in that it set the tone for much of the subsequent relations between the two. In this case, Galileo seemed to have claimed the priority of the invention immediately, if privately, to Sagredo. The affair itself was a bit bizarre. Santorio—who must have made his instrument somewhere around 1610138—only claimed to have adapted to medical practice an instrument invented by Heron of Alexandria (c. 10–70 A.D.).139 Galileo, on the other hand, never mentioned nor used the instrument in any of his experiments.140 Santorio instead had used the thermometer for medical practice and showed it publicly to his students and colleagues in Padua since 1611, including his friend Agostino da Mula.141 Da Mula came to visit Santorio on 30 June 1612 and told Sagredo about the thermometer.142 The latter, in turn, reported the news to Galileo. Although Galileo’s reply has not survived it is clear from what Sagredo says in his letter that Galileo claimed the invention. However, it seems that Sagredo himself later became wary of Galileo’s claim. He had invited Galileo to send details and sketches of his thermometers, which Sagredo believed to be more advanced than the ones he had been able to make in the meantime after the indications provided by da Mula. Yet, Galileo never sent any details and Sagredo turned for directions to Santorio who, at this point, refused to give any.143 It is against this backdrop that we ought to frame the only surviving document of the Santorio-Galileo relationship: a letter sent by Santorio dated 9 February 1615 (Figs. 1.8–1.10). As it has never been translated into English, it is worth summing up its content, however briefly. The letter is meant to accompany a copy of Santorio’s Medicina statica, published one year earlier (1614). Apologising for the delay in sending the copy of the work, apparently due to the bookseller who had forgotten to

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Fig. 1.8  Santorio’s autograph Letter to Galileo—9 February 1615; MS Gal 89, c. 239r, National Library of Florence

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Fig. 1.9  Santorio’s autograph Letter to Galileo—9 February 1615; MS Gal 89, c. 239v, National Library of Florence

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Fig. 1.10  Santorio’s autograph Letter to Galileo—9 February 1615; MS Gal 89, c. 240r, National Library of Florence

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send it, Santorio dwells upon the principles and importance of his research. The work is organised in aphorisms and it hinges on a principle of Hippocrates (medicina est additio et ablatio) but the rest is grounded in Santorio’s experimental trials. After expounding on the importance of the results he had obtained, Santorio defends that he has no need to bother Galileo with providing further details, for his ‘admirable ingenuity’ (ammirabile ingegno) and the daily practice he will make according to the prescriptions of the text, will allow Galileo to understand them for himself. This otherwise usual exchange ends with Santorio stating that he had already shared the secrets (secreti) of the Medicina statica with Galileo’s friends, most notably with Sarpi, Sagredo, Barozzi and da Mula. They all are well acquainted with Santorio’s experiments which spanned 25 years and involved more than 10,000 experimental subjects, amongst which was Galileo himself. Looking at the way it was written, as an addition on the left-hand margin of the letter, and especially the abrupt change of tone, Santorio’s last sentence can be construed as a warning to Galileo, a kind of ‘And, by the way, be aware that’.144 The elements that are worthy of special attention in this letter are three. First, the detailed explanation provided by Santorio regarding the principles and implications of the Medicina statica suggests that these were relatively unknown to Galileo and thus that work  did not depend in any substantial way on the latter’s findings. A second element Santorio highlights is that, unlike the recipient of the letter, their mutual friends in Venice were all acquainted with the details (secreti) of Santorio’s research programme. The most important element, however, is the final one. By emphasising the number of years throughout which experimentation was carried out and by detailing the number of subjects involved in it, which included Galileo, Santorio seems to be warning Galileo that he cannot claim priority on any part of the work, which contained direct reference to the invention of instruments such as the thermometer and the hygrometer.145 Galileo’s friends in Venice were all aware that Galileo—to use the words of the merchant Fugger—was ‘like the raven of Aesop, which likes to take pride of others’ inventions’.146 In the aftermath of the discovery of the Medicean planets (1610), da Mula complained that Galileo was boasting about da Mula’s inventions and discoveries, and Sarpi himself played down the prominence of Galileo’s invention and experiments with the telescope, an interest which—as seen—was shared by Santorio.147 Seen through this

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lens, one feels compelled to subscribe to the conclusions reached by Alistair Crombie on the matter: Galileo habitually made claims unsupported by any known evidence and frequently refuted by it. When he heard of a discovery or contribution to science he would claim that he had made it himself, even many years before, as with Santorio’s thermometer (Opere, xi, 350, 506), and Bonaventura Cavalieri’s demonstration of the parabolic trajectory of a projectile (xiv, 386). Sometimes he would appropriate the work without acknowledgment, as perhaps with Francois Viete’s treatise on mechanics (…) and with Mersenne’s formulation of the law relating the frequency of a pendulum to its length (…). He would use every rhetorical device to misrepresent the scientific competence and arguments of opponents, as he did with the Jesuit mathematician and astronomer Orazio Grassi in their dispute over comets, while obstinately rushing himself into some wrong headed and untenable conclusion. He was capable of ignoring almost completely fundamental contemporary theoretical and experimental discoveries, as he did with Kepler’s astronomy and optics.148

While his friends knew that Galileo’s borrowings were always elaborated on a personal base and eventually came out in writings in a much better shape, this was clearly not the case with the thermometer—whose use Galileo never fully appreciated—neither with the pulsilogium.149 As we shall see, there are other motivations than the simply contextual ones to argue for Santorio’s full authorship of these and other instruments. Whatever the true nature of the  Santorio-Galileo relationship was, resentment never prevented Santorio, or for that matter Sarpi and others in his Venetian circle, from professing the sincerest admiration for Galileo’s achievements. Altogether, Santorio and Galileo had in common an inquiring mind and a strong sense of independence. Whereas they both were keen to liberate the academic curriculum from the tight spots of scholastic philosophy, they did so in different ways. Galileo was the revolutionary type, brilliant and intransigent, ideological and opportunistic, a courtier at times and a man of spirit. Santorio was instead a patrician, reserved and not inclined to direct polemics: each criticism he levels either at Galen or at Aristotle is always pondered with great care and against a precise target. The overthrow of medicine as a whole was of no appeal to him although— as the Obizzi controversy reveals—it was clear to those who understood the essence of Santorio’s methods that these had the capacity to revolutionise it. As characters, therefore, Galileo and Santorio were squarely

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opposed. Galileo practised astrology keenly, while Santorio held astrologers as nothing but quacks, seeking to disprove their assumptions once and for all in theory and experiments.150 The difference in economic means contributed to emphasise such differences. Galileo was paid little and at times had to rely on the generosity of patrons and friends to fund his research. Santorio, who forged links of incredible strength with the Venetian nobility, could also rely on his personal earnings as a physician in Venice, which made him an extraordinarily wealthy man. Despite this, they both fell victims of a political ostracism which compelled Bishop Alessandro Bichi in 1636 to state: [T]he Venetians are terrible and don't care about anyone, having treated Mercuriale, Galilei, and Santorio even worse in the past, all of whom they left in desperation […].151

4   New Instruments for a New Medicine With this proviso in mind we can finally address the context and problems posed by Santorio’s instruments. Of the approximately thirty devices that Santorio invented, we can distinguish three general types, namely: 1. Instruments for quantification in medicine and natural philosophy (pulsilogia, thermometers, weighing chair, hygrometers, wind and water gauges); 2. Instruments intended to help clinical practice (portable bath, sus pended and equipped bed, ice bag, dripping pot, humidifier, pneumatic cupping, quenching ball); 3. Instruments to be used in surgery (trochar, needle for paracentesis, device to stop bleeding from the nostrils, device to pull out objects accidentally falling in the ear). For reason of economy of time and space we will be dealing here with the first group only, which can be understood as part of Santorio’s programme of quantification in medicine. He conceived this programme as the measurement of the intensity of a phenomenon in terms of degree. The starting point of Santorio’s analysis is the recognition that a healthy organism maintains the same parameters unaltered throughout time (homeostasis), unless the process is hindered by the onset of some diseases. This prerequisite (or praecognitum, in the Aristotelian language of the time)152 is used to define the disease as a distance from the region of

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normality (morbus est recessus).153 In keeping with this insight, Santorio’s instruments are meant to provide a measure of such a distance (varios dimetimur recessus) and he considers them as devices that extend the perception of the physician beyond his usual limits by allowing him to spatially visualise the difference between normal and pathological conditions as well as necessary aids in order to avoid errors in diagnosis. They allowed Santorio to quantify the activity of the body in relation to its weight change, temperature, pulse and environmental conditions such as the temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure of the air. Though the applications are ground-breaking, the principle inspiring Santorio is ultimately a reworking of the Galenic rationale, which applied ‘a range’ (latitudo) to health and sickness on the basis of their duration over time (latitudo sanitatis, neutralitatis, morbi). Santorio is willing to acknowledge his debt to Galen and he considers his instruments as outcomes of such an idea, with Medicina statica itself seen as an ‘instrument’ able to confirm, a posteriori, the validity of Galen’s insight: Galen […] teaches us how we can measure the quantity and strength of hot and cold in intemperate mixtures. He states that the quantity or the strength of the intemperate mixture will be as much as its distance from the natural state (quantus est recessus a statu naturali) […]. I make use of four instruments by means of which I ascertain the quantity of this distance (de quantitate recessus). The first one is an instrument that I invented and is called a pulsilogium, through which we grasp how much in each day each individual departs (recedat) from their best condition. The same result is provided by the second instrument, by means of which, by putting in movement a leaden ball attached to a suspended thread and, from its movement on the thread, and from the greater or smaller lengthening, anyone will be able to observe the natural motion of the pulse and its distance from the natural condition (recessum a naturali). By means of the pulsilogium I measure with great diligence the motion and rest of the artery and I can also compare this measure with the pulse of the previous days. With the third instrument I measure, by means of statical experiments, the various distances (varios recessus) in respect to the natural state. It is not useful to give here further information on the secrets of statics, as in a short time I will publish four hundred aphorisms on statical experiments [i.e. medicina statica]; the fourth instrument, which is wonderfully advantageous, is a sort of glass ampulla, with which we can measure (metiri) not only the temperament of the air, but also of any part of the body, and how is for every day the distance from the natural state (recessus a statu naturali).154

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This praise should not be taken light-heartedly or as a circumstantial one: elsewhere Santorio spares no criticisms of Galen and his anatomy.155 He sees his major medical achievement in bringing to completion the ancients’ project while putting it on new mathematical bases.156 Both tradition and innovation are thus equally present as complementary elements in Santorio’s programme of quantification. In the light of this, attempts to present Santorio as the exponent of either the ancient physiology or modern experimentation fail, as the texts themselves stand against such simplifications. Pushed against his Galenic background—as when he addresses Obizzi’s criticism—Santorio rejects Galen and states clearly that his instruments and experiment are born out of a new methodology, unknown to the ancients.157 On the other hand, however, pressed into the service of a full-scale attempt to establish a new medicine, Santorio declines the invitation and declares that his discoveries are to be applied to medicine aliquando et aliqua ex parte (‘sometime and in some respect’).158 This spared him from committing himself to bombastic claims, not infrequent in his era, amongst which there are those of Descartes—who sought to replace the body with a machine, unaware as he was of the limits of quantification— and equally  those of Galileo, who presented himself to Sagredo as the ‘inventor’ of the thermometer, an instrument whose applications he never really understood. One has only to compare the use of the thermometer in the two authors, to appreciate that Galileo had no idea of how to use it. Upon realising that the instrument could allow to discriminate between real and perceived temperature, Santorio started adopting it widely, for instance to show to what extent the humidity of the air enhances the subjective appreciation of cold159 or to determine the temperature of compounds, for example salt and snow, thus allowing him to show that the presence of salt doubles the effects of snow on the thermometer.160 But, of course, the most important applications came as part of the everyday medical practice, for Santorio soon realised that the new instrument led to an overthrow of the Galenic rationale: Furthermore, both Avicenna and Galen [De temperamentis Bk II] claim in this passage that our sense of touch is the judge of all of heat: if the species of heat were different, the touch would not be the right judge of them. Indeed, with reference to the passage just quoted [De temperamentis

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Bk II] where he assigns to the touch the judgment about the equality of heat in children and young men, Galen urges us to touch many and different objects, that is to say water, at first not too hot and temperate, then the very limbs yet according to this rule, which consists in comparing the weak to the weak, the stocky to the stocky, the fat to the fat and not the exercised people to those at rest or those fasting to those who are full. This way of measuring the degree of heat is certainly misleading. As for our part, we resort to the glass instruments […] which surely cannot mislead us. By means of these instruments we have tested whether heat is the same in children and young men. The experiment consists in placing the hand of a child and then of a young man on the glass bulb of the instrument for an equal interval of time; from this we understood that the water descent was the same in both ages which means an equality of heat.161

Faced with a similar problem, though eight years later (1633), Galileo finds a very different way to deal with it. The problem, proposed by Count Giovanni Bardi (1534–1612) and named after him ‘Bardi’s Problem’, proposes to explore why a person feels cold when he goes into a body of water like a river during the summer, and even colder when he comes out, but, going back into the water, finally feels comfortable.162 In his reply Galileo found no better way to investigate the temperature of air and water than ascertain it by naked hands.163 In the light of what had already been done by Santorio, it is therefore wrong to conclude that ‘The problem, and even more so its solution, represent a paradigmatic logical model for the period before instruments had been invented to measure temperature’,164 for not only did such instruments exist, but they had been put to trial on similar matters before and quite successfully. Neither it is true that no attempts had been made to set standards for the new instrument165 for Santorio himself had suggested in 1630 using the fire of a candle and snow to set the maximum and minimum range of the instrument.166 This suggests that Galileo played, if any, a very minor role in the process of temperature measurement. Despite this shortcoming, in the long run Galileo’s reputation obscured Santorio’s contributions to medicine and science. As seen this was partly due to the history of science relying on the history of physics, but much responsibility also lies with the ‘unsolicited and superfluous’ apology that later Italian scholars such as Antonio Favaro and his followers reserved for Galileo, making him the benchmark and the fountainhead of every discovery made around that period.167

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5   Outlines for a Conclusion Throughout this short introduction we have tried to show how Santorio’s effort to quantify metabolism by measuring the ‘insensible perspiration of the body’ (perspiratio insensibilis) turns out to be part of a wider and fully fletched programme of quantification, which grapples with the homeostatic balance of the body in its complexity: from weight change to pulse frequency, from body temperature to the humidity of the air, to the ultimate structure of matter. Out of this programme developed consequences of primary import for the history of medicine and science as a whole. Thanks to Santorio, in fact, • Equilibrium is defined as a standard problem of ‘statics’ consisting in the capacity of the body to re-balance daily losses and gains. • The focus of medicine is shifted from the study of multiple Galenic faculties to the evaluation of a single, fundamental and quantifiable process (metabolism). • Instruments of precision are invented and then applied in everyday practice to correct and replace the subjective appreciation of natural phenomena. To these merits, a fourth one can possibly be added: through the mediation of admirers and followers, Santorio’s work will open up the field to modern ‘multivariate analysis’. Indeed, while the need to provide tabulated data set according to parameters such as weight and quality of the food ingested, pulse frequency, ambient and bodily temperature, humidity of the air and barometric pressure only became explicit after James Keill (1718) and Joseph Rogers (1734) published the results of their works (Figs. 1.11 and 1.12),168 the initial impetus towards this very development came directly from Santorio, who had realised the dependence of metabolism upon those very factors, pointing out the need to study them as many experimental variables. Amongst these latter—to the extent it was known and experimentally accessible to him—there was also the influence of barometric pressure on bodily processes.169

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Fig. 1.11  Tabulated data from James Keill’s Medicina statica Britannica (1718)

In the light of this, we can finally return to Daremberg’s critical remarks and contend that we fully appreciate the early modern desire of Baglivi, Lister, Boyle, Leibniz, Linnaeus, and many others ‘to erect a marble statue to Santorio’. The recognition that many of the ideas, instruments, experiments and practices that are considered central to the development of early modern science were shaped in substantial ways by Santorio and set an agenda for about two centuries, while improved versions of his instruments are still used in everyday clinics, makes us feel confident that more scholars will recognise in this figure the great experimentalist and thinker that motivated our efforts and admiration.

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Fig. 1.12  Tabulated data from Joseph Rogers’ Medicina statica Hybernica (1734)

Notes 1. Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, De motu animalium, pars secunda, editio altera (Leiden: P. van der Aa et al., 1685), 260–263; Robert Boyle, Medicina hydrostatica, or, Hydrostaticks applyed to the materia medica (London: S.  Smith, 1690), preface, pages unnumbered [1r-v]. For Baglivi, see Santorio Santori, De medicina statica libri octo, accedunt Georgii Baglivi […] Canones de medicina solidorum, ad rectum staticae usum (Rome: typis Bernabò, 1704), 151–159; Carl Linnaeus, Diaeta naturalis (1733), edited by Arvid Hjalmar Uggla (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1958); id., Lachesis naturalis, in Linnés diætetik, på grundvalen af dels hans eget originalutkast till ­föreläsningar: Lachesis naturalis quæ tradit diætam naturalem, och dels lärjungeanteckningar efter dessa hans föreläsningar: edited by Axel Otto Lindfors (Uppsala: Uppsala University, 1907).

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2. Herman Boerhaave, Methodus discendi medicinam (Amsterdam: J. F. Bernard, 1726), 406: ‘Nullus liber in re medica ad eam perfectionem scriptus est’; Archibald Pitcairne, Apollo Staticus, or the art of curing fevers by the staticks invented by Dr Pitcairne (Edinburgh: James Wardlaw, 1695), 19–24; id., Dissertatio de curatione febrium quae per evacuationem instituitur ([Edinburgh]: G.  Mosman, 1695); John Floyer, A Treatise of the Asthma (London: R. Wilkin, 1698), 233–240, and ‘Comments by Sir John Floyer, on the ‘Medicina Statica Britannica’ of James Keill in the third volume of his Essays and on the ‘De Statica Medicina’ of Sanctorius’ (Queens College Library, Oxford, Ms. Oxford 567); Johann Bernoulli, Disputatio medico-physica de nutritione (Groningen: C. Zandl, 1699), §16 [pages not numbered]; James Keill, Tentamina medico-physica ad quasdam quaestiones quae oeconomiam animalem spectant, accomodata: Quibus accessit Medicina statica Britannica (London: G.  Strahan and W. and J.  Innys, 1718), foreword to John Friend; Jean-Antoine Nollet, Recherches sur les causes particulières des phénomènes électriques, et sur les effets nuisibles ou avantageux qu’on peut en attendre (Paris: Freres Guerin, 1753), 366–403, esp. 387; Antoine-­ Laurant Lavoisier and Armand Séguin, ‘Premier Mémoire sur La Transpiration des Animaux (1790)’ in Mémoire de L’Académie de sciences année MDCCLXXXX (Paris: Du Point, 1797), 601–612. 3. On the corpuscula or effluvia Sanctorii see Johan Chrysostom Magnenus (Magnen), Democritus reviviscens sive de atomis (Pavia: G.  A. Magri, 1646), 167, 255, 269, 271; Robert Boyle, Royal Society, London, Boyle Papers, XXVI, Ms. ‘Of the Atomicall Philosophy’, 171; id., Experiments and Considerations about the Porosity of Bodies in Two Essays (London: S.  Smith, 1684), 12–13; Martin Lister “Commentarius” in Santorio Santori, De statica medicina aphorismorum sectiones septem cum Commentario Martini Lister (Leiden, C.  Boutesteyn, 1703), 2; AnneCharles Lorry “Praefatio editoris” in Santorio Santori, De medicina statica aphorismi. Commentaria, notasque addidit A.C.  Lorry (Paris: P.G. Cavelier, 1770), vii, 180–181. On the resurrection of the dead see the letter by Leibniz to Herzog Johann Frierdich von Hannover (Mainz, 21 May 1671) in Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Edited by Carl Immanuel Gerhardt, Band 1, (Berlin, Weidemann Buchhandlung, 1875), 54. On action at a distance and effluvia see the letters by R[ené].-­F[rançois] de Sluse to Christian Huygens (Liège, 8 September 1662) and by Christian Huygens to R[ené].-­F[rançois] de Sluse (The Hague[?], 25 September 1662), in Constantjin Huygens, Oeuvres complètes vol. 4 (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1891), 226, 239–240; Conrad Barthold Behrens, Disputatio physica de penetrabili efficacia effluviorum in afficiendis corporibus animalium (Helmstedt: heirs of H. D. Muller, 1681), § VII [page unnumbered].

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4. Lister, De statica medicina, Lectoris S[alutem] [p. 1v unnumbered]: ‘Tacuit quidem Harvaeus noster, suae rei certissimus, altoque silentio, ad viginti annos, immumeros adversarios vehementer. Ita se gessisse Sanctorium oportuit; nam utriusque experimenti eadem certitudo est’; Giorgio Baglivi in Santorio, De medicina statica (1704), 168, Canon X: ‘Statice Sanctorii, et circulatio sanguinis Harvejana sunt duo poli, quibus universa regitur verae Medicinae moles, hisce inventis restituta, et confirmata: reliqua potius illam exornant, quam augent; præcipue quando de oraculo naturae pronunciata non sunt.’ 5. Santorio Santori, Commentaria in Artem Medicinalem Galeni (Venice: G. A. Somasco, 1612), pt. I, col. 17B-C. 6. See Lucia Dacome, “Living with the Chair: Private Excreta, Collective Health and Medical Authority in the Eighteenth Century,” History of Science, 39, 4 (2001): 467–500; ead., “Resurrecting by Numbers in Eighteenth-­Century England,” Past and Present 193 (2006): 73–110; ead., “Balancing Acts: Picturing Perspiration in the Long Eighteenth Century,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 43 (2012): 379–391. 7. Owsei Temkin, Galenism. Rise and Decline of a Medical Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973), 160–161; Andrew Wear, “Contingency and Logic in Renaissance Anatomy and Physiology” (PhD diss., Imperial College London, 1973), 152–175; Mirko D. Grmek, La première révolution biologique: réflexions sur la physiologie et la médecine du XVIIe siècle (Paris: Payot, 1990), 71–89. While in themselves examples of excellent scholarship, Wear’s and Grmek’s appreciation of Santorio’s method depends largely on the critical remarks of Charles Daremberg and on Castiglioni’s biography (see note 16) showing no real confidence with the sources which eventually led scholarship away from the essence of Santorio’s work. The case is different with Nancy Siraisi, Avicenna in Renaissance Italy. The Canon and Medical Teaching in Italian Universities after 1500 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 237–238, 322–324, 348–351 and, more recently, with Ian MacLean, Logic, Signs and Nature in the Renaissance. The Case of Learned Medicine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), passim who both present some sound analyses of Santorio’s work and intellectual background although no new biographical information is provided. 8. Charles Daremberg, Histoire des sciences médicales (Paris, J.-B. Baillière, 1870), 740 and 747: ‘[…] nous ne puissions pas partager les élan d’enthousiasme de Baglivi, de Boerhaave et de beacoup d’autres médecins du XVIIe et du XVIII siècle pour la médicine statique. Je ne crois pas non plus que pour ce seul ouvrage on érigerait aujourd’hui a Sanctorius une statue de marbre, comme on l’a fait per après sa mort. Sanctorius est

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à peu près oublie: on ne le lit même plus. Tout l’édifice de son Ars statica repose sur la vieille physiologie. […] On serait étonné de trouver tant d’instruments ingénieux dans un commentaire qui est d’ailleurs entièrement scholastique, si l’on oubliait que Sanctorius étai avant tout un physicien et un mécanicien, toujours en quête de nouveautés; de sorte que la médicine statique est moins la résultat d’un system médical que l’application d’études dirigée vers les travaux de la mécanique proprement dite.’ 9. Wear, “Contingency”, 175. Wear, dealing with the logical development of Santorio’s method and experiments, tried most seriously to go beyond the conventional picture available to English scholars in the late 1970s, but his focus on Santorio’s method and statics led him not to evaluate the larger picture offered by a new theory of qualities and individuals which the Venetian physician elaborated. 10. Siraisi, Avicenna, 238; Maclean, Logic, 336–337; Dacome, “Balancing Acts”; Simone Mammola, La ragione e l’incertezza. Filosofia e medicina nella prima età moderna (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2012), 266–271. 11. This mistaken judgement is still found in most history of science textbooks, but for a classic statement see Alistair Crombie, Augustine to Galileo. The History of Science A.D. 400–1650 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1953), 328–329. 12. See Daniel Garber, “Galileo, Newton and all that: if it wasn’t a Scientific Revolution, what was it? (a Manifesto),” Circumscribere, 7 (2009): 9–18 and Fabrizio Bigotti, Physiology of the Soul. Mind, Body and Matter in the Galenic Tradition of the Late Renaissance, 1550–1630 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019), 269–287. As noted by Garber, categories such as ‘scientific revolutions’ end up conflating all ‘non-Aristotelian’ philosophers into the category of ‘anti-Aristotelians’ if not into novatores, while all the Aristotelians suddenly become the spokespeople of a closed universe, as fruitless as redundant. 13. Dacome, “Balancing Acts”, 380: ‘Santorio’s work ended up being associated with the picture of a large Roman steelyard hanging from the ceiling, with a man sitting on a “weighing chair” in front of a laid table that displayed the remnants of an unfinished meal.’ 14. Arcadio Capello, De vita cl. viri Sanctorii Sanctorii olim in patavino gymnasio medicinam theoricam primo loco profitensis Sermo habitus … ab Arcadio Capello … accedit Oratio ab eodem Sanctorio habita in Gymnasio Patavino dum ipse primarium Theoricae Medicinae explicandae munus auspicaretur (Venice: J.Tomasino, 1750). 15. Giacomo (de) Grandi, De laudibus Sanctorii oratio (Venice: G. F. Vavasense, 1671); Niccolò Comneno Papadopoli, Historia Gymansii Patavini (Venice: S. Coleti, 1726); Carlo Francesco Cogrossi, Saggi della

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medicina italiana (Padua: G.  Conzatti, 1727); Jacopo Facciolati, Fasti Gymnasii Patavini (Padua: G. Manfré, 1757). 16. Pietro Stancovich, “Santorio” in Biografia degli uomini distinti dell’Istria, Vol. 2, 235–259 (Trieste; Gio. Marenghi Tipografo, 1829); Arturo Castiglioni, La vita e l’opera di Santorio Santorio capodistriano (BolognaTrieste: L.  Cappelli, 1920) translated into English by Emilie Recht  as ‘The life and work of Santorio Santorio (1561–1636)’ Medical Life 38 (1931), 729–85; Ralph H. Major, “Santorio Santorio,” Annals of Medical History, 10 (1938), 369–381 (which is based entirely on Castiglioni); Mirko D.  Grmek, Santorio Santorio i njegovi aparati i instrumenti (Zagreb: Jugoslavenska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, 1952); id., “L’énigme des relations entre Galilée et Santorio” in Atti del Simposio Internazionale di Storia, Metodologia Logica e Filosofia della Scienza “Galileo Galilei nella storia e nella filosofia della scienza,” ed. Gruppo Italiano di Storia della Scienza (Florence: Barbera Editore, 1967), 155–62; id., La première révolution biologique: réflexions sur la physiologie et la médecine. 17. Fulgenzio Micanzio, Vita del Padre Paolo (Leiden: Ph. de Croy, 1646); Francesco Griselini, Memorie anedote spettanti alla vita ed agli studi del sommo filosofo e giurseconsulto F.  Paolo Sarpi servita (Lausanne: M.M. Mousquet, 1760); Emanuele Cicogna, Delle iscrizioni veneziane, 6 vols. (Venice, G. Orlandelli and alii, 1824–1853). 18. See La Concordia. Almanacco istriano per l’anno 1883, anno I (Capodistria: C. Priora, 1882), 91–92. 19. Modestino Del Gaizo, Ricerche storiche intorno a Santorio Santorio e alla Medicina statica (Naples: A.  Tocco, 1889); idem, Alcune conoscenze di Santorio Santorio intorno ai fenomeni della visione ed Il testemanto di lui (Naples, Tipografia della R[eale]. Università, 1891), 23–26; idem, “Le conoscenze in fisica di Santorio Santorio e l’efficacia delle scoperte del Galilei” in Atti della Riunione di Venezia (1909) della Società Italiana di Storia Critica delle Scienze Mediche e Naturali (Venice: A.  Pellizzato, 1909), 92–102. 20. Lietta Stella Ettari and Marco Procopio, Santorio Santorio. La vita e le opere (Rome: Istituto Nazionale della Nutrizione—Città Universitaria, 1968). 21. Capello, De vita Sanctorii, VII.  The Registrum baptismatorum for the year 1561 is no longer extant and we rely on Capello for Santorio’s birthday. According to Giuseppe Vatova, La colonna di Santa Giustina eretta dai capodistriani (Capodistria: C. Priora, 1884), 48, Santorio’s house was located in Campo Muzio (between the present Santorijeva ulica and Kette ulica). 22. See Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III, col. 130C-D: ‘soror mea, quae appelabatur Diana, ingeniosissima sane’. The verb ‘appellabatur’ suggests that, in 1612, she had already died.

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23. Isidoro Santori[o] becomes a notary like his grandfather; see Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III, ‘Dedicatory Letter to Andrea Morosini’ [p. 2 unnumbered]: ‘Quae mutua vicissitudine inter nos fratremque meum isidorum sanctorium Iureconsultum a primis aetatulae accrescentis (ut ita dicam) primordiis intercessit familiaris consuetudo […]’. Unlike Santorio, he married in Capodistria in 1598, see Parish Church of Koper, ‘Liber Matrimoniorum ab anno 1588 ad annum 1610’, Libro 1, c. 36v: ‘309. Adi 8 detto [i.e. 8 Januray 1596]. La Sig[no]ra Laura Fig[lio]la del S[ignor] Thomaso Rimito, et Il[lutrissimo] S[ignor] Isidoro Santorio Dott.[ore] da me dec[an]o sono stati sposati nella Chiesa della Madon[n]a delli Servi […] il S[ignor] Santo Lugnano, et il S[ignor] Giulio Apollonio.’ 24. Capello, De vita Sanctorii, VI(b), claimed that the Santori[o] family was originally from Cividal del Friuli (Udine). However the original document with the appointment of Antonio Santori[o] to the position of bambordier (1548, see n. 26) makes it clear he was from Spilimbergo (Pordenone). On Santorio’s family in Spilimbergo see Enrica Capitanio and Nicole Dao, I Catapan della Pieve di Dignano tra Medioevo e Età Moderna (Aquileia: Glesie Furlane, 2003), 67. 25. On Antonio’s appointment to bombardier dated 30 June 1548 see La Concordia (1883), 90. For his duties see Francesco Mauro, ‘Relatio Viri Nobilis Francisci Mauro Potestatis et Capitanei Iustinopolis 22 Augusti 1559’, part of ‘Relationes Maritimarum a 1550 usque 1564 sept[embri]s’ (former Codice Brera 223), c. 88, quoted in Tomaso Luciani, “Relazioni dei Podestà e Capitani di Capodistria,” in Atti e memorie della società istriana di storia patria, 6, fasc. 1–2, (Parenzo: G.  Coana, 1890), 67: ‘Sopra ditta Piazza si attrova un loco idoneo nel quale è posta la monitione, nella quale sono bellissimi pezzi d’artegliaria, con altre sorte di arme le quali sono custodite, et governate da M.o Antonio Santorio Bombardiere provisionato di Vostra Serenità.’ 26. Gedeone Pusterla, I nobili di Capodistria e dell’Istria con cenni storicibiografico di Gedeone Pusterla, 2 ed. (Capodistria: C. Priora, 1888), 16. 27. Alvise Morosini, ‘Relatione del Nob.[il] Homo Ser Alvise Morosini ritornato di Potestà et Capitanio di Capo d’Istria. Presentata nell’ Eccellentissimo Collegio à 17 marzo 1583′, part of ‘Relazioni, Registro 1582’ (former Codice Brera 198), cc. 55v-63r quoted in Luciani, “Relazioni,” 387–388, 390–391. See also, ‘Espositione di Bombardieri di Capo d’Istria, presentata nell’Eccellentissimo Collegio à 17 Marzo 1583 per il Nob.[il] Ho.[mo] Ser Alvise Morosini ritornato di Podestà et Capitanio di Capodistria’, part of ‘Relazioni, Registro 1582’ (former Codice Brera 198), cc. 63v-64r quoted in Luciani, “Relazioni,” 397–398. Complaints against Antonio Santorio’s unorthodox management of the salt pans profits had been noted as early as 1574, see ‘Libro Q Dei Consigli’ quoted in Vatova, Colonna, 88–89.

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28. Fairly good reports on Antonio’s management are found throughout the period 1584–1593, see Luciani, “Relazioni,” 400–437. From the ‘Relatione del Nobil Homo Ser Vicenzo Morosini ritornato Podestà et Capitanio di Capodistria. Presentata nell’Eccellentissimo Collegio a’ 7 Luglio 1593′, part of ‘Archivio Generale Veneto, Collegio, Busta segnata Relazioni dei Rettori—Capodistria-Pola’ we are informed that in July 1593 a new bombardier was appointed by the Senate of Venice because the previous one (Antonio Santorio) had passed away; see Luciani, “Relazioni,” 437. 29. See for instance ‘Relatione del Nob.[il] Homo Ser Giacomo Lion ritornato di Podestà et Capitanio di Capo d’ Istria. Presentata adi 28 di Giugno 1584′, part of ‘Relazioni, Registro 1582’ (former Codice Brera 198), cc. 92r-93r quoted in Luciani, “Relazioni,” 400–401. The responsibilities falling onto a Venetian bombardier are described and illustrated by Eugenio Gentili, Il perfetto bombardiero et real istruttione di artiglieri (Venice: A. De’ Vechi, 1626). 30. Physicians’ interest in the practical aspects of meteorology was neither infrequent nor marginal in the early modern period and especially in Venice was associated to the needs of the Venetian fleet. On Santorio’s method and its similarities with double book-keeping see Johan Daniel Achelis, Die Ernahrungs Physiologie des 17 Jahrhunderts (Heidelberg: Universitätsbuchhandlung Heidelberg, 1938) 3–9 as quoted by Temkin who rightly urges caution given that similar experiments to Santorio’s were made in the late Hellenistic period, see Owsei Temkin, “Nutrition from Classic Antiquity to the Baroque” in Human Nutrition Historic and Scientific, edited by Iago Galston (New York: International University Press, 1960), 88–89. 31. Ettari and Procopio, Santorio Santorio, 32. While difficult to equate to modern values, the sum Santorio had accumulated would roughly correspond today to £4,381,650; a single Venetian ducat being calculated as equal to £105. 32. Capello, De vita Sanctorii, VI. 33. Santorio, Commentaria (1612), II, 391D; III, Dedicatory Letter to Andrea Morosini [p. 2, unnumbered]; Capello, De vita Sanctorii, VI-VII. 34. Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III. col. 131. 35. On Paterno, Santorio Santori, Commentaria in primam Fen primi libri Canonis Avicennae (Venice: G. Sarzina, 1625), col. 710A-B; on Zabarella, Santorio, Commentaria (1612), I, col. 158A; on Augenio, Santorio, ‘Oratio […] habita in Archilyceo Patavino’ (1612) in Capello, De vita Sanctorii, XIX.  On Mercuriale as a teacher of Santorio in Padua, see Mercuriale’s replies to Santorio in Girolamo Mercuriale, Consultationes et responsa medicinalia (Venice: Giunti, 1624) III, Consultatio CVIII (Pisa,

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25 May 1594): 175E. The consult is referred to, but not quoted, by Del Gaizo, Ricerche, 43 n.18. 36. Mirko D. Grmek, “Santorio Santorio” in Dictionary of Scientific Biography edited by Charles C. Gillispie (Detroit: Ch. Scribner’s Sons, 2008), vol. 12, 101; Santorio Santorio, La medicina statica edited and trans. by Giuseppe Ongaro (Florence: Giunti, 2001), 6. 37. The registers of the Acta graduum Universitatis Patavinae bear no sign of Santorio’s degree and the registries of the Regio transmarina of the University of Padua were dispersed in the eighteenth century. Capello, De vita Sanctorii, VIII bases the graduation date on the prolusion Santorio held the students in Padua 1612, following his appointment to the chair of theoretical medicine, which, Capello contends, shows that Santorio was 21 years old when he graduated in Padua but the document does not substantiate this claim and Santorio only makes reference to the duration of his studies in Padua, which customarily lasted seven years, see Santorio, ‘Oratio […] habita in Archilyceo Patavino’ in Capello, De vita Sanctorii, XXII.5. Evidence that Santorio must have graduated later than 1582 comes from other sources, particularly an account by Nicolao Comneno Papadopoli in 1726. His testimony is often misleading but he quotes a specific source showing that in 1583 Santorio was still a medical student enrolled in the Regio Transmarina; see Papadopoli, Historia, Bk III, 362: ‘Quod certo, Patavii studuit, nam eius nomen catalogis Transmarinorum, ad quos Istri pertinebant, ter legitur ab anno MDLXXXIII. Doctoris insulas consecutus Venetiis medicinam fecit, si quis alius, foelicissime’ (italics added). The date 1585 is also closer to Santorio’s receiving a recommendation letter from the University authorities in 1587 discussed below (see n. 45). 38. On the history and activities of the Academia Palladia see Baccio Ziliotto, “Accademie e Accademici di Capodistria 1478–1807,” Archeografo triestino, 7 (1944): 130–148, and for Santorio’s participation, see particularly 144. On the same, Cavallini, “Musica e filosofia nell’Accademia Palladia di Capodistria:considerazioni sul dialogo Dieci de’ cento dubbi amorosi (1621),” Studi Musicali, 16, 2 (1987): 231. 39. Girolamo Vida, De’ cento dubbi amorosi (Padua: G. Crivellari, 1621), 58. 40. Marc’Antonio Valdera, Le Epistole d’Ovidio (Venice: F. Bariletto, 1604). In the dedicatory letter to Giacomo Contarini, he signs himself for the first time as Santorio Santorij fisico. 41. Griselini, Memorie, 42; Paolo Sarpi, Opere, edited by Gaetano and Luisa Cozzi (Milan-Naples: R. Ricciardi, 1969), 21–23. On Sarpi and Santorio see also Micanzio, Vita, 235: ‘Santorio, che gli era antico amico di strettissima conversatione’.

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42. Capello, De vita Sanctorii, IXa: ‘In epistula Nicolai Galeri [sic] vicarii Patavini ad Principem quondam Polonum scripta nomine universitatis 13 Kal[endis] Novembris anno 1587 haec inter caetera de Sanctorio leguntur: “habemus virum valde excellentem, patria Justinopolitanum, nomine et cognomine Sanctorium etc. Hic scientia, fide et diligentia nobis omnibus probatissimus etc. ad hoc iter munusque suscipiendum facile adduci poterit”.’ Grmek’s claim that Santorio was called to Poland by Prince Zrinsky, “Santorio,” 101(b), is so far unjustified. 43. Evidence of this comes mostly from Santorio Santori, Methodi vitandorum errorum omnium qui in arte medica contingunt libri XV (Venice: F. Bariletto: 1603), VIII.12, ff. 163rD-163vB. 44. On Hungary see Santorio, Methodi, IV.5, f. 86vA-B; IV.9. f. 92rD; VI.6, f. 125rA; VI.10, 135vC, 136rD; VIII.10, ff. 159vC—160rA; VIII.12, f. 163vB; XV.7, f. 222vA-B; id., Commentaria (1612), II, col. 621D; on Poland, see ibid., III, col. 131C; id., Commentaria (1625), coll. 465A, 725D.  On Croatia, see Santorio, Methodi, VIII.12, f. 163rD-163vA (referring to Carlovac) and Commentaria (1625), col. 246[D-E]. 45. Pokrajinski Arhiv Koper, Fondo Gravisi, SI PAK KP 299 11 44, folder III, letter by Leandro Zarotti and Giovanni Vittorio to the Mayors of Capodistria (Venice, 30 July 1589). The original letter (referred to as ‘Cancelleria del Sindacato di Capodistria nel libro S de’ Consigli’, pag. 24, An[no] 1589) is not currently accessible, as documents of the socalled Archive of Capodistria are currently the object of an international dispute between Italy and Slovenia. The transcription of the original document is found in the correspondence of Agostino Carlo Rubbi with Girolamo Gravisi kept at the Pokrajinski Archive of Koper. 46. Mercuriale, Consultationes, III, ff. 99v-100v. 47. Capello states that Santorio came back in Venice sometime around his forties (1600–1601), see De vita Sanctorii, IX(d): ‘exeunte saeculo XVI, anno aetatis eius 40, circiter.’ The correspondence with Rudio is no longer extant but is quoted by Rudio in Eustachio Rudio, De naturali atque morbosa cordis dispositione (Venice: G.  Percacino, 1600), ‘Dedicatory Letter by Rudio to Nicolò Contarini’, [pp. 2–3 not numbered]: ‘Verum eo tempore non defuerunt quidam solertissimi doctores, qui in dubium revocarent hoc illustrissimorum virorum consilium, de hoc mihi demandando munere, cum dicerent, periculum esse, ne si illud esset munus ad me delatum, auditoribus desererer, quippe qui iam edidissem mea scripta, quae cum in manibus discipulorum versarentur, non iuvaturos illos ex viva voce haurire eam doctrinam, quam in libris descriptam haberent: quod mihi etiam significatum per litteras fuit a praeclaro viro Sanctorio Sanctorio, qui ob mirabile et perspicacissimum illius ingenium, ac scientiarum cognitionem, quae ad perfectum Philosophum atque Medicum per-

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tinent, (ut brevi illius scripta in lucem edenda probabunt) unice a te et merito diligitur’ (italics added). 48. In Santorio Santori, Ars Sanctorii Sanctorii de statica medicina (Venice: N.  Polo, 1614), ‘Ad lectorem’: 2 [not numbered] we read 30  years (triginta annorum experientia) whilst in the letter to Galileo (Venice, 9 February 1615), kept at the National Library of Florence, Ms. Gal. 90: c. 240, the period of experimentation is referred to as of 25 years (per spatio di 25 anni in più di diecimilla soggetti). 49. A glimpse into the possible topics discussed at Pinelli’s circle is to be found in Sarpi’s Pensieri naturali (pensieri 46–85) in his Pensieri Naturali, Metafisici e Matematici, edited by Luisa Cozzi and Libero Sossio (Milan: Ricciardo Ricciardi, 1996), 58–104 with the comments ad locum by the editors. 50. On Zabarella’s influence see Ettari and Procopio, Santorio Santorio, 41–44; for the importance of his logic in the development of science, Wilhelm Risse, “Zabarellas Methodenlehre”, in La crisi del metodo aristotelico nel pensiero di Paolo Sarpi, in Aristotelismo veneto e scienza moderna, edited by Luigi Olivieri (Padua: Antenore, 1983), 155–172. Nicolò Contarini, De perfectione rerum libri sex (Venice: G.-B. Somasco, 1576), Praefatio: 1–3 [not numbered]. On the De perfectione rerum see Gaetano Cozzi, Il Doge Nicolò Contarini. Ricerche sul patriziato veneziano agli inizi del Seicento (Venice-Rome: Istituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1958), 56–57 and William J.  Bowsma, Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter Reformation (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968), 235. On Sarpi’s natural philosophical method see Giovanni Santinello, “La crisi del metodo aristotelico nel pensiero di Paolo Sarpi,” in Aristotelismo veneto e scienza moderna, edited by Luigi Olivieri (Padua: Antenore, 1983), 925–947 and Sarpi, Pensieri, xxxix, lxxvi, xcii, 141-142n, 605n which generally is still the landmark study for Sarpi’s natural philosophy. On Sarpi’s influence on Santorio, see Fabrizio Bigotti and David Taylor, “The Pulsilogium of Santorio: New Light on Technology and Measurement in Early Modern Medicine,” Society and Politics, 11, no. 2 (2017): 8–10. 51. See the testimony by Alessandro Malipiero on 5 October 1607, in ASV, Consiglio dei Dieci, Processi Criminali, Processi Criminali Delegati, Dogado, filza 1, f. 4r: ‘si montò in barca, et lo accompagnai à casa ciò è, al suo monasterio insieme col medico del monasterio che è il Santorio, et il barbier che lo ha medicato, il qual medico sopraggiunse la all’improvviso.’ As appears from his testament, State Archive of Venice (ASV), ASV, Archivio Notarile, Testamenti, Giovanni Francesco Crivelli, B. 289, N. 537, Santorio resided in the nearby Rio della Sensa (for more see n. 123).

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52. According to Luisa Cozzi, it is particularly the structure of Sarpi’s work that follows closely Santorio’s Commentaria in Artem medicinalem Galeni (1612), see Sarpi, Pensieri, LXXVI. 53. Santorio, Methodi, IV.5, f. 86B: ‘qui capiuntur amore, qui re vera‚ quedam species humanae stultitiae orta ob consuetudinem obiecti amati’; see also Santorio, Commentaria (1612), II, 517A: ‘vel dicendum amore captos (ut ego puto) esse aegros et extra latitudinem sanitatis: amor enim est delirii species, fitque ab imaginatione depravata’ (italics added). For a criticism of Santorio’s opinion see the letter by Ippolito Obizzi to Santorio Santori (Belluno, 1 July 1613) in Ippolito Obizzi, De multiplici in medicina abusu (Vicenza: R.  Meietto, 1618), 29(b)-31(a). Santorio and Obizzi’s opinions on love are both discussed in a letter by Giovanni Stefani to Ippolito Obizzi (1 September 1619) later collected in Giovanni Stefani, Opera universa (Venice: Giunti, 1653), 411–412. 54. Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III, coll. 101D-102A. 55. John Quincy, Medicina statica, being the Aphorisms of Sanctorius translated into English with Large Explanations (London: W. Newton, 1718), v: ‘The sixth Section of Venery, I had some thoughts of leaving out; but for fear some would look upon the collection maimed thereby, and not be contented without all that Sanctorius himself thought fit to give to the Publick, I have inserted it in its place, and I hope in such terms as are as chast and inoffensive, as our language will bear.’ 56. Antonio Favaro, “Un ridotto scientifico a Venezia al tempo di Galileo Galilei,” Nuovo archivio veneto, 5 (1893), 199–209; id., “Giovan Francesco Sagredo e la vita scientifica in Venezia al principio del secolo XVII,” Archivio veneto, 3/IV (1902), 316–321, 371; Cozzi, Il Doge Contarini, 57; id., Paolo Sarpi tra Venezia e L’Europa (Turin: Einaudi, 1979), 23–24, 137; Bowsma, Venice, 236–237; Giuseppe Trebbi, “Andrea Morosini” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 77 (Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 2012), 103–106. 57. Letter by Andrea Morosini to Luigi Lollino (Venice, 13 December 1616) in Andrea Morosini, Opusculorum cum ejusdem Epistolis, pars prima (Venice: A.  Pinelli, 1625), 213: ‘tu pervigil, acer dies noctesque cum linguarum cognitioni, tum scientiis impense operam navabas, mutuis alloquiis, frequentibus congressionibus alebantur animi; in tuis, inque nostris aedibus de rerum natura, de moribus, de divinis rebus disputationes habebantur: aderant multi, quod perdiscendi studium attrahebat, ex nostra nobilitate aliquot […]’; see also Micanzio, Vita, 67–69. 58. On the politics of the Giovani see Cozzi, Il Doge Contarini, 5–14; Bowsma, Venice, 232–292. 59. Albrecht von Haller, Bibliotheca medicinae practicae, vol. 2 (Basle: J. Schweighauser, Bern: E. Haller, 1777), Bk VII, no. ccccxxxi, 351.

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60. Santorio, Methodi, XII.4, ff. 186r D—186v A; XI.1, f. 171r A-B. 61. Ibid., XI.5, ff. 175v D—176r A; XII.6, f. 188v D. 62. Ibid. VIII.7, f. 157v C-D. 63. Ibid., V.7, ff. 109r D—109v B. 64. In his letter written on 6 March 1624 to renounce the chair of theoretical medicine in Padua, Santorio recalls his appointment as due to the attention his first work attracted at the University of Paris, see State Archive of Venice (ASV), Riformatori allo Studio di Padova 66, [f. 1r unnumbered page of Santorio’s letter]: ‘Mentre per molto tempo era vacata la lettura della Theorica ordinaria, che é il p[rim]o loco delle arti nello studio di Pad[ov]a et più necessaria di ciascun’altra lettione, fui io Santorio Santorij humiliss[i]mo servo di V.V., Ecc[ellen]ze sin l’an[n]o 1611 nominato, non già perche la procurasse, l’ambisse ne facesse officio alcuno, che anzi ne fui molto renitente, come sanno S.[ua] Ser.[eni]tà et l’Ecc[ellentissi]mo S[igno]r Proc[urato]r Nani, li quali allora erano Ri[formato]ri; ma perché essendosi ricercato per ogni studio di Christianità soggetto atto a tanto ministerio, s’hebbe dall’Ecc[ellentissi]mo Nani sopradetto, che era pur in questo tempo ritornato dall’ambasceria estraordinaria di Francia, che nell’Università di Parigi prima di tutto il Mondo era fatto estraordinario conto della mia qualsi sia scienza espressa fin all’hora ne miei libri, li quali con altri, che dopo hò mandati in luce sono per gratia d’Iddio ristampati in molte parti d’Europa.’ A later copy of this letter is kept at the Museum Correr in Venice, MS Cicogna 2859: ff. 311r-312r, but lacks essential details as to Santorio’s political and personal preoccupations, as does the copy provided in Ettari and Procopio, Santorio Santorio (1968), 147–148. 65. Jungius borrowed from Santorio’s Methodi vitandorum not only in medicine but in physics, optics and logic: see Jungius Mss in the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, Ms. NJJ: Pe. 53 │ lat (‘Doxoscopia Sporadica’) f. 200r, where he quotes Bk VIII.13 about the effect of heat and putrefaction; Ms. Pe 72 a │ lat, f. 196r, where he discusses Sanctorius’ theory of transparency (pellucidum) following Bk V.10; and Ms. NJJ: Pe. 78 a │ lat (‘Medica II’), f. 20r, where Santorio is quoted along with Zabarella as an authority on the interpretation of Aristotle’s logic, and f. 65r, where a quote from Santorio is used as a guide against the errors of empirical doctors. On Bartholin see Caspard Bartholin, Controversiae anatomicae et affines, rariores et nobiliores (Goslar: J. Hallervord, 1631), 508–109. On Santorio as a model for Leibniz’s reasoning on probability in law and medicine, with some reservations, see G. W. Leibniz, The Art of Controversies, edited and translated by Marcelo Dascal (Dordrecht: Springer, 2008), 37. 66. On Santorio and Wotton see State Archive of Venice (ASV), Collegio, Secreta, Esposizioni Roma, 3 Marzo 1607, quoted in Horatio F. Brown,

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Calendar of the State Papers and Manuscripts, Existing in the Archive and Collections of Venice and in other libraries of the Northern Italy, vol. 10 (1603–1607), London, 1900, p.  477: ‘The Ambassador said that as regards the case of the English officer arrested at his request and reported to be very ill, he had sent Doctor Santorio to visit him, and he reported him very well. He repeated his charges against him and said that prison would not injure him, for he was quite used to it. He had been in prison in Germany for a long period and escaped by a miracle. He would, however, out of compassion beg for his release at the end of the week, but hoped that he would be banished from Venice after coming to the Ambassador’s residence to hear the charges against him.’ On the same see also Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III, 197B: ‘Aderat Henricus Wottonius legatus regis Magnae Britaniae, et in omni doctrinarum genere usquequaque praefulgens: et alii percelebres Barones in cuius gratiam ego fusa oratione de anatomiae arcanis sermocinabat […]’. To be noted that Santorio’s account refers to the year 1610 (197A: anno elapso). 67. Pietro Savio, “Per l’espitolario di Paolo Sarpi,” Aevum, 10, 1 (1936): 30–35. 68. State Archive of Venice (ASV), Senato, Terra, Fascicolo I, Busta 200: 1611, à 6 di Ott[ob]re in Pregadi. On Santorio’s aggregation to the ‘Collegio dei Medici Fisici’ see Alfonso Costa, “Studenti foroiuliensi orientali, triestini ed. istriani all’Università di Padova,” Archeografo triestino, 20 (1895), 367, for which compare Biblioteca Civica, Padua, MS B. P. 14: Francesco Dorighello, “Notizie storiche dei collegii d’artisti e medici in Padova”. 69. Bartolomeo Della Corte, Notizie storiche intorno ai medici scrittori milanesi e ai principali ritrovamenti fatti in medicina dagl’italiani (Milan: G. R. Malatesta, 1718), 139–140. A small part of the epistolary exchange between Senatore Settala and Santorio was discovered by Carlo Castellani in the State Archive of Milan, see Carlo Castellani, “Alcune lettere di Santorio Santorio a Senatore Settala,” Castalia, 1 (1958), 27–32. 70. Letter by Senatore to Lodovico Settala (Padua, 11 January 1613), Biblioteca Civica, Padua, Ms. 66,941. 71. On Santorio putting together a commentary on his Statics see the letter by Lorenzo Pignoria to Paolo Gualdo (Padua, 26 December 1614) in [Anonymous], Lettere d’uomini illustri che fiorirono nel principio del secolo XVII (Venice: Baglioni, 1744), 179: ‘Qui abbiamo un libro del Sig[nor]. Santorio composto in maniera d’aforismi, che tratta la materia della perspirazione, e riduce il tutto a peso di libbre, e di once: materia nova, nè più trattata. Va mettendo insieme un suo commentario sopra questa sua fatica, e se ne spera applauso grande.’

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72. The first example was provided by the physician Francesco Arcadio, Paraphrasi di Francesco Arcadio […] sopra la Statica medicina Santoriana (Loano: F. Castello, 1618). 73. Ippolito Obizzi, Staticomastix sive Staticae medicine demolitio (Ferrara: V. Baldini, 1615), 24. 74. Santorio, Commentaria (1625): coll. 556A-558B. 75. Santorio, Ars (1614), I.2–3, c. 1v; I.9, c. 3r; I.16, c. 4v; I.39, cc. 9r-v; I.42, c. 10r. 76. Ibid., I.1, c. 1r; I.9, c. 3r; I.15, c. 4r. 77. Ibid., I.9, c. 3r; I.42, c. 10r. 78. Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III, col. 87B-D; Santorio, Commentaria (1625), col. 556A: ‘Nostrum vero est investigare non recessus omnibus notos: sed illos, quibus praecognitis, sciamus praesagire, et morbos magni momenti divertere. Ideo Nos diutissme laboravimus, ut haec intelligeremus: imo in statica nostra tradidimus viam dignoscendi, an quod evacuatur respondeat ingestis […].’ 79. See Jerome J.  Bylebyl, “Nutrition, quantification and circulation,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 51, 3 (1977), 377: ‘However, in contrast to Botallo, it was transpiration per se that was of primary interest to Santorio. He was convinced that it is the most critical determinant of health and disease, and that it is subject to direct dietetic regulation as an alternative to such traditional remedies as bloodletting and purging. Meticulous attention to bodily weight enables one to keep track of this hitherto elusive factor of invisible loss, as well as to ascertain what things promote or inhibit its proper occurrence.’ 80. Santorio, Ars (1614), I.2, c. 1v. On the magnitudo morbis Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III, coll. 170D-171-A. 81. Santorio was already aware of this, for he declares, Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III, col. 84E: ‘Tertio docuimus, quomodo unusquisque possit quotidie dignoscere in quovis corpore excrementa, quae insensibiliter exhalant, esse maioris quantitates, et ponderis, quam sint omnes excrementorum evacuations sensibiles simul unite. Sed lector esset mente captus si his adeo novis fide[m] adhiberet, nisi experiretur: experiendi modu[m] Deo favente, vel brevi in lucem promemus.’ 82. Santorio, Commentaria (1612), pt. II, coll. 525D-E, 604B, 608D, 610E; pt. III, col. 112D-E. 83. Santorio, Ars (1614), I.42, c. 10r. 84. Kurt Sprengel, Versuch einer Pragmatischen Geschichte der Arzneikunde, vol. 4 (Halle: G.  G. Gebauer, 1801), 478–179 drawing from Obizzi, Staticomastix, 28 (Oppositio V); Francesco Puccinotti, Storia della Medicina, vol. 3 (Prato: Giachetti, 1866), 75–76; see also Del Gaizo, Ricerche, 23–24.

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85. Sprengel, Versuch, 477–478. 86. Santorio, Commentaria (1612), II, col. 632C. 87. For details of Obizzi’s controversy with Santorio see Fabiola Zurlini’s contribution to this volume. 88. Obizzi, Staticomastix, 9. 89. Ibid., 26, 34; 65 (Oppositio XVII, Oppositio 64 [sic]). 90. Ibid., 68–69 (Oppositio 67 [sic]). 91. Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III, col. 95C-D; id., Commentaria (1625), coll. 79D-83D; id., Medicina statica (1634): cc. 69r-71v. 92. Santorio, Ars (1634), VIII.14, c. 71r. 93. Ibid., VIII.9, c. 70r; see also Santorio, Ars (1614), I.28–30, cc. 7r-v. 94. Santorio, Ars (1634), VIII.12, c. 70v. 95. Letter by Nicolas Toinard to Locke (Paris 25 March 1687) in The Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke. Correspondence, Vol. 3, Letters 849–1241 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 156: ‘Le contenu en l’article 11. m’est suspect, et cequi est dans le 12. est absolument faux ad stateram; car j’ay autrefois ouï dire à monsieur Roberval, grand mathematician et fort exact, que l’eau de mer ne pezoit pas plus d’une quarante deuxiême au dessus de celle de la Seine. Ansi cete pretenduë legereté n’est tout au plus qu’ad sensum. J’ay apris cete bele distinction d’ad stateram et ad sensum dans un petit livre De staticâ medicinâ, composé dans le siecle dernier par Santorio Santorini [sic] medecin de Padüe.’ 96. State Archive of Venice (ASV), Riformatori allo Studio di Padova 64, deliberations dated respectively 9 May 1616 and 22 March 1622. 97. On the Collegio Veneto see Gaetano Cozzi in Sarpi, Opere, 566–574 and Giuseppe Ongaro in Santorio, La medicina statica, 13. 98. Relying on the medical report following the exhumation of Santorio’s bones in 1809, we are reassured that Santorio was in fact a tall man, see Cicogna, Delle iscrizioni veneziane, vol. IV (G.  Picotti, 1834), 671a-b. The similarity has been tested also by means of modern facial recognition technology (Betaface API) which showed a closeness of traits greater than 81.6%. 99. Carlo Ridolfi, Le meraviglie dell’arte (Venice: G.-B.  Sgava, 1648), II, 294: ‘ritrasse [i.e. Tinelli] etiandio Santorio Santori […]’. 100. Royal College of Physicians, London, MS 702. 101. State Archive of Venice, Collegio, Esposizioni Roma, 18; see also Gaetano Cozzi in Sarpi, Opere, 569–571. 102. As reported in a letter by Berlingero Gessi to the Cardinal Scipione Borghese (Venice, 27 August 1616), the Nuncio had warned Santorio of the risk of being excommunicated latae sentitiae (i.e. immediately), yet apparently this had no effect on him: see Vatican Secret Archive, Segreteria di Stato, Nunziatura di Venezia, Lettere di Monsignor Nunzio in Venezia

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al Cardinal Borghese, 42D, c. 93r. We would like to thank Dr. Fabiola Zurlini who kindly transcribed this letter from the Vatican Archive. 103. Letter by Benedetto Caccia to the Riformatori (Padua, 3 January 1617) in State Archive of Venice (ASV), Riformatori allo Studio di Padova, 65; see also Marciana National Library (BNM), Venice, Cod. It. VII 2342 (9695), f. 30v and Centro per lo Storia dell’Università di Padova (CSUP), Padua, Ms. 477bis, c. 644. 104. Santorio’s German students at times found his behaviour a bit abusive: see Centro per la Storia dell’Università di Padova, Acta Nationis Germanicae artistarum (1616–1636) edited by Lucia Rossetti (Padua: Antenore, 1967), 79, 148–151 and particularly 64 (anno 1619), which draws a vivid picture of the reasons behind the complaints: ‘Promotus ipse (scil. Christophorus Albertius) fuerat antea ab illustrissimo Cremonino in philosophiae et medicinae doctorem una cum excellentissimo domino Iona Antonio Kilianstein et domino Arnoldo ab Einden, licentiam sive privilegium largiente illustrissimo doctore Roderico Fonseca, quoniam Sanctorius ordinarius praeses die, quam ipse praestituerat, non comparuerat, et natio nostra universa actui huic adfuerat doctoresque novos cum tubis tympanisque domum deduxerat. Sanctorius, postquam lucris Venetis opimus Patavium rursus appulit, privilegium doctorale subscribere renuit, simul in hac verba non sine indignis gestibus prorumpens: Il tuo doctorato non val tanto, ego praeses sum non Cremoninus. […] Indigne ferebant tyrannidem istam seniores ideoque, ne plane id multum auderet in privato conventu mutuo se cohortati decreverunt primis Sanctoris aliquot lectionibus se abstinere et amicis etiam, ut idem facerent, persuadere. Declinarunt itaque magna pars Germanorum auditores Sanctorii, alii brevius, alii diutius’ (italics added). See also Ongaro in Santorio, La medicina statica, 13. 105. Capello, De vita Sanctorii, XII. 106. The deliberation (parte) was taken on 20 January 1623, see State Archive of Venice (ASV), Riformatori allo Studio di Padova, I, f. 372v. Santorio was refused a new appointment (or ricondotta) by 94 votes (green or de nò) against 35 (white or de si). Adding the vote of those 57 who asked to postpone the vote (red or non sincere), there were 151 votes against Santorio: see Gaetano Cozzi in Sarpi, Opere, 572. Upon realising that the Senate had not agreed to increase his salary (while granting this privilege to his deputy Nicolò Trevisano), Santorio wrote to the Riformatori on 6 March 1624 to quit his position, see n. 105. 107. As Santorio puts it, the promotion of his deputy was a matter of balance of power inside the Collegio Veneto, see his letter to the Riformatori (6 March 1624), in State Archive of Venice, Riformatori allo Studio di Padova 66, c. 1v: ‘Hò letto continuam[en]te quasi 13 an[n]i con con-

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corso posso dire di tutto il studio, ne mi sarà ascritto ad ardir che già mai habbi havuto altro lettor mio precessore più scholari di me, venendo alla mia Schola oltre li Italiani, Thedeschi, Francesi, Polachi, et altre Nationi da parte remotissime per udirmi, restando sempre pochi auditori al mio concorrente benche Padoano che viene haver tanto poter nel Colleggio dove si dottorano li scholari’ (italics added). 108. See Gaetano Cozzi in Sarpi, Opere, 572. Pompeo Caimo was appointed without even one vote against. Decisive for Santorio’s dismissal was the opposition of the patrician Pietro Contarini (1578–1632) as noted by Gino Benzoni, “Pietro Contarini,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 28 (Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1983), 269: ‘Uomo di parte il Contarini, decisamente schierato col patriziato più conservatore— e lo s’avverte quando s’adopera perché Pompeo Caimo soppianti Santorio Santorio, il medico amico dei Sarpi, nell’ateneo patavino […]. È il nunzio stesso ad avvisare il 3 maggio 1624, che “quanto più” il Caimo “riuscirà grato” al papa e alla Curia “tanto più alcuni di questi tristi potenti di lingua continuano di calunniarlo in publico et in privato”.’ 109. Letter by Caspar Hoffmann to Wilhelm Fabricius Hildanus (Altdorf, 17 May 1625) in Fabricius von Hilden, Observationum et curationum chyrurgicarum centuriae omnes (Lion: J. A. Huguetan, 1641), Centuria IV, 208. 110. The final settlement of Santorio’s salary was decided on 9 June 1624, see State Archive of Venice (ASV), Riformatori allo Studio di Padova 66. The tax reduction was granted to Santorio years later (1628), see Marciana National Library, Venice, Ms. It. VII 2342 (cod. 9695) 64v: ‘[1628] 12 Sett[embre] lng[resso] di Bened[etto] Salvatico Lettore di Pad[ova]/C. 112 Parte che Santorio doppo che lascio la lettura di Pad[ova] sia tansato da Tansadori minori.’ 111. Letter by Johannes Rhode to Caspar Hoffmann (Padua, 3 December 1623) in Georg Richter, Epistolae Selectiores (Nuremberg: M.  Endter, 1662), 803–804. 112. Haller, Bibliotheca, 553. 113. Letter by Santorio Santori to Senatore Settala (Venice, 27 December 1625), State Archive of Milan, Autografi 218, c. 1r: ‘Mando à V.[ostra] S.[ignoria] li 2 libri sopra la p[rim]a di Avicen[n]a secondo mi ha scritto, et prego V.[ostra] S.[ignoria] che li lega con diligenza p[er]che legerà pensieri novi fondati però nelle auttorità d’Hipp[ocrat]e et Gal[en]o nella th[or]ia, et nella esperienza’ (italics added). 114. For Santorio’s testament (Venice, 24 December 1635), State Archive of Venice, Archivio Notarile, Testamenti, Giovanni Francesco Crivelli, B 289 N 537, c. 1v.

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115. On which see Bigotti and Taylor, “Pulsilogium”, 62, 91–93 and Fabrizio Bigotti, “The Weight of the Air: Santorio’s Thermometers and the Early History of Medical Quantification Reconsidered,” Journal of Early Modern Studies 7, no. 1 (Spring 2018): 79–80. 116. Paolo Dolfin, Della peste. Opinioni dei medici di Venezia nel 1603 (Padua: Penada, 1843), 8–12; Ettari and Procopio, Santorio Santorio, 80–82. 117. In another consultation about plague, signed by Santorio along with Benedetto Silvatico and other prominent physicians at Padua (dating at approximately 1620), Santorio had conformed to the majority view and denied the presence of the plague in the city, see “An Caro boum sponte mortuorum, in cuius venditores proxime est animadversum inferre possit Pestem?,” British Library, London, MS Sloane 2253, ff 91v-94v. 118. Fondazione Querini-Stampalia, Venice, Ms. Cl. IV 638 (998), Cecilio Fuoli, ‘Vero racconto di tutto quello che è occorso l’anno 1630 […]’, 102 ‘[…] da questi solo diferendo l’Ecc[ellentissi]mo Sig[no]r Antonio Santorio che tanti anni aveva letto medicina in prima Cattedra nello Studio di Padova, per altro accreditato letteratissimo, e si averò il Proverbio Veneto far più un remo che s[t]ia che quattro che voghino’ (Italics added). On the same point see also Marciana National Library, Venice (BNM), Ms. It. VII 2342 (9695), c. 35r. 119. Marciana National Library (BNM), Venice, Ms. It. XI 58 (cod. 6295), Nicolò Pollaroli (?), ‘De Laudibus Sanctorii Sanctorii Oratio Habita in Coll.[egio] Medicorum Venetor[um] IV Kal[endis] Decemb[ris] 1752’, c. 125r. If we trust this account, then Santorio’s observation that the numbers of plagued people correspond to one-third of the total population comes directly from his own experience in Venice because that is the number of the corpse carriers, see Santorio, Ars (1634), I.130, c. 18v. 120. Santorio, Ars (1634), I.127, c. 18r; I.138, c. 19v. 121. Marciana National Library (BNM), Venice, Ms. It. VII 2379 (9686), c. 24v. 122. Cicogna, Delle iscrizioni veneziane, vol. II (G. Picotti, 1827), 436–437: ‘Adi 25 Febbraro 1635 M. V. (more veneto, that is 1636) L’ecc[ellentissi]mo Sig. Santorio Santorij med[ico] fisicho, de anni 76 da mal d’orina già anni uno nelle case del Dardani S[anto] Alv[ise].’ From a pen annotation by Emanuele Antonio Cicogna found in the Museo Correr, Venice MS Gradenigo-Dolfin 66, f. 155. It appears that the Dardani houses located at Fondamenta Della Sensa no. 3235 were most likely destroyed in 1843. 123. Letter by Alessandro Bichi to Nicholas De Peirasc (Rieti, 26 May 1636) in Philippe Tamizey de Larroque, Les Correspondantes de Peiresc, vol. VIII (Paris: A. Piquard, Marseille: M. Lebon, 1885), 75. 124. Cicogna, Delle iscrizioni veneziane, vol. I (G. Orlandelli, 1824), 51b; vol. IV (G.  Picotti, 1834), 671a–b. For the translation of the skull to the

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University of Padua see Francesco Cortese and GianPaolo Vlacovich, “Di alcuni cranii di scienziati distinti che si conservano nel Museo Anatomico dell’Università di Padova e che appartennero alla sua scuola” in Memorie del Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 21 (1879): 547–557. For a modern analysis of Santorio’s skull see Alberto Zanatta, Giuliano Scattolin, Gaetano Thiene and Fabio Zampieri, “Phrenology between anthropology and neurology in a nineteenth-century collection of skulls” in History of Psychiatry, 27, 4 (2016), 482–492. 125. State Archive of Venice (ASV), Avogaria di Comun, 385/9. 126. Palazzo Santorio (today Villa Elvira) was acquired by Isabetta Santorio on behalf of Santorio’s nephews, see State Archive of Venice, Condizioni di Redicima, 1661 (Tombelle), Cond. 618b, 220. We thank Dr. Luca Cacciavillani, the present owner of the Villa, for his courtesy and collaboration in providing Dr. Bigotti with original documents related to the Santorio family. For Palazzo Santorio at San Basegio see Museo Correr, Venice, Ms. Gradenigo-Dolfin 200, 1, f. 5r and Giuseppe Tassini, Curiosità veneziane ovvero origine delle denominazioni stradali di Venezia (Venice: Grimaudo, 1872), 652–653. 127. The complete list of the Sanctoriani Lectores is available at Marciana National Library (BNM), Venice, Ms. It. VII 2342 (cod. 9695). 128. The state of art on such relations is still at the point where Grmek left it in 1967, see Grmek, ‘L’énigme’. 129. Galileo Galilei, Il Saggiatore (Rome: G. Mascardi, 1623), 198–200. 130. For the Copernican theory see Santorio, Commentaria (1625), coll. 118ff. On Santorio’s own astronomical observations see Ibid., col. 113B-C. 131. Ibid., col. 141B which argument is taken over and refined in Santorio Santori, Commentaria in primam sectionem Aphorismorum Hippocratis (Venice: M. A. Brogiolo, 1629), 328–329. 132. Santorio, Methodi, III.15, f. 74v B-C; Galileo Galilei, Dialogo di Galileo Galilei […] sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo tolemaico e copernicano (Florence: G.-B. Landini, 1632), Dialogo secondo, 100–101. 133. Ian MacLean, “Textauslegung und Hermeneutik in den Juristichen und medizinshen Fachern Des spatern Renaissance: Auctoritas, Ratio, Experientia” in Theorie Der Interpretation Vom Humanismus Bis Zur Romantik—Rechtswissenschaft, Philosophie, Theologie. Beitrage Zu Einem Interdisziplinaren Symposion in Tuebingen, 29. September Bis 1. Oktober 1999 edited by Jan Schröder (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 2001), 31–32. 134. On Pinelli’s life and circle see Paolo Gualdo, Vita Ioannis Vincentii Pinelli (Augsburg: Ad insigne pinus, 1607) and Angela Nuovo, “Manuscript Writings on Politics and Current Affairs in the Collection of Gian Vincenzo Pinelli (1535–1601),” Italian Studies, 66, 2 (2011): 193–205.

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135. Letter by Giovanni Francesco Sagredo to Galileo Galilei (Venice, 9 May 1615) in Galileo Galilei, Opere, edited by Antonio  Favaro (Florence: Giunti Barbèra 1890–1909), vol. XII, 157; Vincenzo Viviani Racconto istorico della vita di Galileo Galilei indirizzato da Vincenzo Viviani al Principe Leopoldo di Toscana in Galileo, Opere, Edizione Nazionale, vol. XIX (1919), 112–121. For an up-to-date discussion of Santorio’s pulsilogium, its use, invention and theory behind it see Bigotti and Taylor, “Pulsilogium”. 136. Stillman Drake, Galileo at Work. His Scientific Biography (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 20–21; Wolfgang Lefèvre, “Galileo Engineer: Art and Modern Science,” in Galileo in Context edited by Jürgen Renn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 21–22 n.20; Iochen Büttner, “The Pendulum as a Challenging Object in Early Modern Mechanics,” in Mechanics and Natural Philosophy before the Scientific Revolution edited by Walter Roy Laird and Sophie Roux (Dordrecht: Springer, 2008), 227–228, esp. 228 nn. 15–16; Matteo Valleriani, Galileo Engineer (Dordrecht-London: Springer, 2010), 12–13 n26. 137. Bigotti and Taylor, “Pulsilogium”, 58–60. 138. There is no trace of its invention in Santorio’s writings earlier on similar issues of temperature, for instance, in Santorio, Methodi, III 4: f. 64r B-C. 139. Santorio, Commentaria (1625), col. 7A. 140. Even those who partially support Galileo’s invention of the thermometer are compelled to concede that the instrument was not solely his invention. See for instance Valleriani, Galileo, 156–157: ‘Galileo is one of several, who, more or less simultaneously at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and in different geographic locations, “invented” the thermoscope: the first instrument that could be used to obtain information about the degrees of heat and cold without appealing to the human senses. The thermoscope circulated for about ten years before being transformed into the thermometer. […]. But the thermoscope was not really invented: more accurately, it was the result of a conceptual reshaping process which took place at the beginning of the seventeenth century […]. The thermoscope is an ancient device, which was conceptually reshaped in order to meet needs and desiderata that emerged between the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, and remain established today.’ 141. On Santorio demonstrating his instruments to students see Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III, 105A-B; id., Commentaria (1625): Ad lectorem [c. 1 unnumbered]. It is worth noting that, although published in 1612, the work was actually written in 1611.

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142. Letter by Francesco Sagredo to Galileo Galilei (Venice, 30 June 1612) in Galileo, Opere, vol. VIII, 218. 143. Letter by Francesco Sagredo to Galileo Galilei (Venice, 9 May 1615) in Galileo, Opere, vol. XII, 157: ‘All’istrumento per misurar li temperamenti io sono andato giornalmente aggiongiendo et mutando, in modo che quando havessi a bocca et di presenza a trattare con lei, potrei, principiando ab ovo, facilmente racontarle tutta l’historia delle mie inventioni, o, per meglio dire, miglioramenti. Ma perche, come ella mi scrisse et io certamente credo, V.S. Ecc.ma è stata il primo auttore et inventore, percio credo che gli istrumenti fatti da lei et dal suo esquisitissimo artefice avanzino di gran lunga i miei onde la prego con prima occasione scrivermi qual sorte di opere fin hora ella habbia fatto fare, che io le scriverò quel di più o di meno che fin hora s’è operato di qua et toccando in ogni nostra lettera alcuna cosa in questo proposito, io le scrivero alcune mie imperfette speculationi, le quali da perfetissimo suo giuditio et intiligenza saranno senza studio, et ancora con gusto, perfettionate. Quello che si fa inventore di questi stromenti [i.e. Santorio] è poco atto, per non dir in tutto innetto, per instruirmi conforme al bisogno et desiderio mio, si come io vanamente mi sono affaticato a dargli ad intendere la cagione de gl’effetti che si vedono in alcuni de’ miei istrumenti (dirà cosi) compositi et moltiplicati. […]’ (italics added). 144. A clue as to what Santorio actually means by secreti and why he is being very careful about not revealing too much to Galileo comes from the telescope affair, as reported by Giovanni Bartoli, in a letter to Belisario Vinta (29 August 1609) in Galileo, Opere, vol. X, 255. Around that period, the telescope was brought to Venice by a French man who was keen to sell it to the Senate, but at prohibitive cost. Although the offer was eventually declined, Sarpi had a chance to look at the instrument and to speak about it with Galileo, who, aided by some other recollections and by having seen a similar instrument before, was able to provide a new copy of the same instrument. 145. Santorio, Ars (1614), II.4, cc. 20v-21r. 146. Letter by Georg Fugger to Johannes Kepler (Venice, 16 April 1610), in Galileo, Opere, vol. X, 316: ‘Novit et solet homo ille [i.e. Galileus] aliorum pennis hinc inde collectis, uti corvus apud Aesopum, se decorare.’ 147. Cozzi, Paolo Sarpi, 225; Gatano Cozzi, “Agostino da Mula,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 32 (Rome: Istituto per l’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1986), 376–381. 148. Alistair Crombie, Science, Art and Nature in Medieval and Modern Thought (London and Rio Grande: Hambledon Press, 1996), 485–486.

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149. For the context of Galileo’s and Santorio’s discoveries see Büttner, “Pendulum,” 227–228; Valleriani, Galileo, 155ff.; Bigotti, “Weight,” 99–100; id., Physiology, 238–239, 246, 277–278. 150. On Santorio and astrology see Santorio, Commentaria (1612), II, coll. 598C-599A, col. 749B-C; III, col. 21B-C; id., Commentaria (1625), Quaestio IX, coll. 72C-83D; Del Gaizo, Ricerche, 30–35; Wear, “Contingency,” 250–256. 151. Letter by Allesandro Bichi to Nicholas de Peirasc (Rieti, 20 September 1636) in de Larroque, Correspondantes, vol. VIII, 91–92: ‘[L]es Vénitiens sont terribles, et ne se soucient de personne, ayant encore au trefois traitté plus mal le Mercuriale, le Galilei, et le Santorio qui se partirent tous desgoutés d’eux […].’ 152. For the definition of praecognitum see Maclean, Logic, 118. 153. For the first occurrence of disease as a distance see Santorio, Methodi, IV.5, f. 85rD: ‘Cum optimus medicus ultimas affectuum differentias ­consequi non possit, nisi recessum ab adventitia statu sciat metiri; et quilibet adventitius status a longa consuetudine sex rerum non naturalium suum initium trahat; par est, antequam consuetudinis definitionem excutiamus, ut luce exemplorum pertinentium ad omnes facultates corporis ostendamus quanta perennis rerum externarum consuetudo potentia, et virtute polleat, et quae sint illae animantium facultates, quae adeo mutentur ob longam aliquam consuetudinem, ut status adventitios et novas aquirant […].’ 154. Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III, coll. 374B–375B. 155. As for instance in Santorio, Methodi, III.5, ff. 64rD–64vB: ‘Exordiamur itaque a nonnullis erratis ad situm pertinentibus: errare igitur videntur nonnulli dicentes orificium ventriculi, quod in pyloron mittit esse in fundo, vel in decliviori regione situm et collocatum, causaque huius tam communis erroris fuit sapientissimus Galenus, quoniam eius auctoritas talis est, ut non solum in totius Europae tractus, verum in id quod Meridiana, et Septentrione finitur diffusa cultu observantiaque merito existimetur; hic vir igitur, cum ei non licuerit secare humana corpora, videns in brutis quibusdam animantibus pyloron esse in fundo ventriculi, credidit in libro de tuenda sanitate, et in 4. de usu partium capite 7. pyloron in hominibus quoque, a fundo ventriculi exordiri; quae opinio est falsa, et fuit multorum errorum origo: falsa est, quia relucatur experientiae, quoniam in humanis cadaveribus oculis cognoscitur, pyloron ab imo ventriculo non prodire, deinde reluctatur Vesalio, Columbo, et caeteris omnibus praclarissimis anatomicis, qui quotidie humana corpora secant; quare esse vecordis, et nebulonis illa reiiceret.’ See also III.15, 74vC-D:

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‘[…] videas igitur, in quot absurda incidant, qui iurant in placita magistri […] Quare fuit possibile, ut Galenus, vel quia fuit homo, vel quia non secuit humana cadavera, in anatomia a veritate in paucis saltem deflecteret; quare cum Galenus neque meus fuerit affinis, et consaguineus, vel maiorum meorum avunculus, quod sciam, neque in sanctorum catalogo sit collocatus, qui afflatus divinitate fuerit locutus, non video, cur omnes non possint honorifice, si sensibus adversatur, eum relinquere.’ 156. Letter by Santorio Santori to Senatore Settala (Venice, 27 December 1625) in State Archive of Milan, Autografi 218, f. 1r. 157. Santorio, Ars (1634), VIII.12, c. 70v. 158. Santorio, Commentaria (1625), col. 21C. 159. Santorio, Ars (1614), II.4, c. 21r. 160. Santorio, Commentaria (1625), col. 144A-B: ‘Similiter, si instrumentum vitreum, quo dimetimur temperamenta calida et frigida, circundetur hac nive sali commixta, in parte superna aer inclusus duplo magis condensatur, quam si sola nive circundaretur; quod indicat refrigerationem maiorem fieri ratione vehiculi, quam ratione nivis […].’ 161. Ibid., col. 357B-D. 162. Galileo, Opere, vol. VIII, 599. For a discussion of the deficiency of Galileo’s approach with regards to Bardi’s problem see Raffaello Caverni, Storia del metodo sperimentale in Italia, 6 vols (Florence: Stab. G. Civelli, 1891–1900) vol. 1, 274–278 and Valleriani, Galileo, 155–156. 163. Santorio Santori, Commentaria in artem medicinalem Galeni (Venice: M. A. Brogiolo, 1630), II, 762D on which Bigotti, “Weight,” 74. 164. Valleriani, Galileo, 155. 165. Arianna Borrelli, “The Weatherglass and its Observers in the Early Seventeenth Century,” in Philosophy of Technology. Francis Bacon and His Contemporaries, edited by Claus Zittel et  al. (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2008), 111. 166. Bigotti, “Weight,” 74, 96. 167. See Giorgio Tabarroni in Raffaello Caverni, Storia del metodo sperimentale in Italia (London: Johnson reprint, 1972) vol. 1, vii: ‘[…] the critical perspective and the dispassionate (even if, naturally not infallible) examination of the sources that characterize this work [i.e. Caverni’s] are clearly in contrast with the emphasis and tone of the writings of the Italian Galileans who, from Viviani to Favaro, have felt they had to serve, unsolicited and superfluous, as the extreme apologists or defenders of Galileo.’ 168. See Keill, Tentamina and Joseph Rogers, “Medicina Statica Hybernica or Statical Experiments to Examine and Discover the Insensible Perspiration of Human Body in the South of Ireland,” in his An Essay on Epidemic

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Diseases […] to which is Added by Way of Appendix a Course of Statical Experiments, and Observations made by a Curious Person during a Twelve Months (Dublin: S. Powell, 1734), 190–312. 169. Santorio, Ars (1614), I.7, c. 2v; I.25–27, cc. 6r-v; I.67–68, c. 16r; II.4, cc. 20v-21r. On Santorio’s appreciation of atmospheric pressure and its evaluation see Bigotti, “Weight,” 83–92.

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CHAPTER 2

‘Gears of an Inner Clock’: Santorio’s Theory of Matter and Its Applications Fabrizio Bigotti

The various forms of corpuscularianism that blossomed in Italy between the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries had their common root in two distinct yet intertwined traditions: the former and most relevant was the Aristotelian tradition of the minima naturalia, against which reacted the latter, represented by the various doctrines of Galen and Heron of Alexandria (and, to a lesser degree, Lucretius), with their seeds, corpuscles and dispersed voids.1 Their interaction culminated in a new reading of Aristotelian natural philosophy which Christoph Lüthy has properly called ‘Aristotelian corpuscularianism’,2 whose most prominent representatives in Italy were physician-philosophers such as Girolamo Fracastoro (1478–1553), Julius Caesar Scaliger (1484–1558) and Santorio Santori (1561–1636). While the past fifty years have witnessed important contributions devoted to the two former figures,3 a study on Santorio’s corpuscularianism is long

F. Bigotti (*) Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2022 J. Barry, F. Bigotti (eds.), Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614–1790, Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79587-0_2

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overdue.4 The importance of such a study lies in that Santorio’s theory anticipates aspects and trends that are pivotal to the understanding of early modern mechanical philosophy in its attempt to mathematize nature by developing new theoretical and technological tools. My aim in this chapter is to fill this gap by analysing the problems that Santorio’s theory of matter presents in the light of its historical and theoretical context, its debts to Galenic medicine and its relation to the invention of new instruments.

1   Purpose, Context and Development of Santorio’s Natural Philosophy 1.1  Preliminary Considerations Santorio’s endeavour to shape new theoretical and experimental procedures goes hand in hand with his wider effort to provide the Galenic diagnostic apparatus with the precision and certainty it lacked.5 As a result, Santorio’s most original insights are found in various comments to the quaestiones which structure traditional medical teaching. One problem this type of writing presents is that, when entries are particularly short or elliptic, it fails to provide the information needed to evaluate to what extent Santorio is actually breaking away from the past. Santorio was aware of the need to present an overall picture of his contribution to natural philosophy and he meant to do so in a work called De instrumentis medicis non amplius visis (‘On medical instruments no longer seen’) which at times he also titles, significantly, De novis instrumentis medicis (‘On new medical instruments’). Although in the end the book was not published and seems not to have survived, we are informed about it by several references that he makes to it. 6 A draft explanation of the title and its content was provided in 1625.7 The work included a series of high-­ quality engravings of the new instruments and, in all likelihood, the format was akin to that adopted by Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente (1533–1619), Giulio Casserio (1552–1616) and Adriaan van den Spiegel (1578–1625) for their anatomical plates. It thus consisted of engravings of instruments on the recto of the plate, followed by captions on the verso, with introductory chapters devoted to explanation of their functioning, use and applications. One of these chapters—probably the introductory one— is said to have contained a discussion on the nature of the void,8 which is a precious bit of information insofar as it provides a unifying framework

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for evaluating the invention of instruments such as thermometers, hygrometers and the pneumatic cupping used in paracentesis (Figs. 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5). All these instruments, in fact, are said to work ‘by virtue of rarefaction and the vacuum’ (per rarefactionem, per vim vacui).9 On the basis of this, we can therefore argue that Santorio devoted a constant, if largely private endeavour to working out the details of his natural philosophy. These are scattered in different parts throughout his published output, but reflect nevertheless a larger philosophical undertaking. 1.2  Historical Development An analysis of Santorio’s theory of matter poses also questions as to its historical development. We can chart with approximate precision at least two stages, that are similar in substance but different in purpose. The earliest outline of the theory is found in his Methodi vitandorum errorum omnium qui in arte medica contingunt libri XV (Bk VIII, 4–11) and sets out the core of Santorio’s ideas on the subject. This first stage reflects Santorio’s early interests in experimentation (approx. 1580–1603) but also the influence of Jacopo Zabarella (1533–1589) and the stimulus provided by Paolo Sarpi (1552–1623). While Zabarella’s logical training laid down the foundations of Santorio’s conception of science and method, Sarpi’s research in medicine, optics, alchemy, distillation and mechanics provided Santorio with an inducement to further his research in the same fields. This explains the similarities between the two, especially Santorio borrowing from Sarpi in reducing qualities to ‘position’, ‘figure’ and ‘number’ (situs, figura and numerus). While both Santorio and Sarpi borrow their understanding from anatomy, Sarpi’s annotations are found in the collection of Pensieri Naturali (‘Natural Thoughts’) dated 1578.10 Galileo’s influence is difficult to trace at this stage; his interest in the theory of matter is subordinate to his mechanical and astronomical studies and develops much later than that of Santorio. As we shall highlight, in fact, it was probably Santorio who had an impact on Galileo’s corpuscularianism. The second stage of development (1603–1612) is represented by two sections of different length in the Commentaria in Artem medicinalem Galeni (pt. III, coll. 16–37, 394, 398–399) which take on earlier material but also expand upon it, most notably in explaining contagion as a clockwork mechanism and in addressing criticisms received meanwhile. After

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1612, except for the manuscript notes I discovered in 2016 on a copy of the Commentaria in primam Fen primi libri Canonis Avicennae (1625) kept at the British Library, Santorio seems no longer interested in developing his theory of matter and qualities, which remains unchanged in the reprints of his works dating 1630–1634.

2   The Architecture of the Theory 2.1  Rudio’s Criticisms and the Link to Occult Qualities To appreciate the elements of originality in Santorio’s theory, we ought to direct our attention to the criticisms that Eustachio Rudio (1548–1612), his older colleague in Padua, made of it. They highlight the intellectual milieu of sixteenth-century Venetian medicine and lay bare the heterodoxies which were attributed to Santorio by contemporaries. Rudio’s arguments are set out in the work De morbis occultis et venenatis (Venice 1610),11 a systematic attempt to grapple with the several strands of the debate on the causes of occult diseases in European medicine following the publication of Jean Fernel’s De abditis rerum causis (Paris 1543). In the Renaissance ‘occult diseases’ (morbi occulti) pinpointed a particular class of diseases whose origin was related to similarly ‘occult qualities’ (qualitates occultae). These were so termed because, unlike manifest ones (manifestae), they seemed not to originate from the mixture of the four qualities (i.e. hot, cold, dry and moist). Amongst the several causes related to their emergence, the most common was the ‘action of the whole substance’ (actio a tota substantia), that is an action that could not be accounted for on the basis of the substance’s material components. In Italy, the ‘action of the whole substance’ was upheld by physicians like Giovanni Argenterio (1513–1572) and Gerolamo Cardano (1501–1576) who considered the ‘French disease’ (morbus Gallicus) as an ‘occult disease’, for its treatment by means of Galenic remedies was ineffective. Aligning to this trend, Rudio upholds the arguments in favour of occult qualities, which he backs up with various quotations from Galen. This gives him the opportunity to contrast Galen’s with Santorio’s stance, which latter he deems compromised by atomism and guilty of an intentional misunderstanding of Aristotle.

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Although targeting him indirectly (as quondam doctissimus vir) Rudio levels three different kinds of accusation at Santorio’s theory: . it reduces occult qualities to rarity and density; 1 2. it converts generation into the aggregation/separation of mini mal bodies; 3. it reduces the properties of  temperaments to the quantity of their ingredients. The criticisms provide us with a direction to follow with regard to Santorio’s theory and the way he addresses the issue of occult qualities. Santorio deals with occult qualities because he regards the claim that a specific set of diseases is ‘occult’ and ‘not reducible’ to the traditional qualities as a threat both to the medical rationale and to rationality itself. In his opinion, such a claim undermines medicine and its aspiration to provide a method of treatment universally valid and applicable. Santorio sought to reply to the scepticism and empiricism resulting from this threat in two ways: on the one hand, by restoring the centrality of logic in medical diagnosis; on the other, by underpinning his arguments with new conceptual and technological instruments, by means of which he endeavoured to reduce all kind of complex, occult and insensible properties into simple, manifest and sensible ones. 2.2  In Defence of Method Santorio’s first step consists in rejecting the very notion of actio a tota substantia. The fundamental thesis underpinning this rejection is a double equation Santorio establishes, first between ‘whole substance’ and ‘individual’ and then between ‘individual’ and ‘accidental’. The former equation regards the ontological constitution of an object and the rationale underpinning it is that whenever the properties of a substance cannot be accounted in terms of the properties of its material constituents, then the substance behaves as an individual. The latter equation rests instead on an epistemic consideration, whereby anything non-universal is taken as either irrelevant in terms of method or simply unknowable. 12 For the sake of clarity, it makes sense to approach Santorio’s strategy from the last point, that is the epistemic approach. In Bkk 11 e 12 of his Methodus, Santorio rejects empiricism and points out that the logical underpinnings of method require the physician to discard any accidental

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manifestation of diseases so as to grasp its permanent features and essence (essentia).13 In medicine, the most important tool able to grant such certainty is a procedure called ‘indication’ (indicatio). Santorio highlights that the very possibility of drawing precise indications relies on properly using differential diagnosis, namely the process by means of which a doctor differentiates between two or more symptoms that could be associated with a person’s disease. As such, Santorio’s Methodus specifically directs physicians towards the acquisition of two complementary procedures: the necessity to guide medical practice by means of universal and necessary propositions and the need of crossing out those factors that, in diagnosis, can be characterized as either accidental or individual.14 Endeavouring to render the process increasingly rigorous, Santorio claims that scientific knowledge must be grounded exclusively on universal propositions, and he rejects as outright ‘false’ whatever is accidental and individual.15 According to Santorio, individuals—meaning by this anything existing as a unique instance, including a material substance or a human being— neither are nor can be the subject of a rigorous method of treatment. The gathering of individual instances is what characterizes an inductive procedure, and induction is not science. To be scientific, a method of treatment must rely on ‘specific properties’ (affectus specifici), that is to say, properties that are common to a certain class of individuals but cannot ever be restricted to one case only. The logically trained physician has to be able to recognize such properties in advance when curing a patient, for he is never actually curing an individual but the set of ‘specific properties’ that are present in it.16 The individual disease, in fact, is just an instantiation ‘here and now’ (per hinc et nunc) of the specific properties that define that disease in general and that are common to other individuals as well. The difference between one individual case and the other cases only consists in the way properties are intermingled (commiscentur).17 In other words, Santorio claims that method is infallible and only its application may eventually be at fault. This approach paves the way to the invention and application of new medical devices, such as the pulsilogium (Bk 5), which measures the variation of the pulse frequency in different patients and conditions, thus allowing the standardization of individual cases within quantitatively defined parameters (quantitas sive certa affectuum mesura adinveni).18 At the same time, this methodology reveals one of the intrinsic goals of Santorio’s medical programme, which aims at providing diagnosis with so

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universally valid an indication, yet so mathematically precise, to allow any doctors to discover the exact treatment for each patient and to foresee and prevent the onset of any disease.19 As these are the logical framework and specific aims of Santorio’s method, it is clear that ‘occult qualities’ and substances ‘acting as a whole’ or as ‘individuals’ have no share in it and are simply not conceivable. It is relevant to notice how Santorio reframes the argument of the inconceivability of an individual in the two different stages of development of his theory. In 1603, individual substances are declared unknown and theoretically unknowable: the argument hinges primarily on the fact that ascertaining their existence lies beyond the possibility of human perception, which relies on the capacity of grasping objects’ common features or ‘forms’ (formae) and thus depends on the instantiation of universal properties into specific subjects.20 In 1612, however, the Venetian physician expands the theoretical part of this claim with an a-priori argument: substances are unknowable because the intellect itself is incapable of grasping their simplicity and can only gaze upon the arrangement of their physical accidents.21 Those who are familiar with Galileo’s writings will recognize that this is one of the central arguments used by the Pisan astronomer in his ‘Letters on Sunspots’ (Istoria e dimostrazioni intorno alle macchie solari, 1613) to discard the possibility of knowing individual substances, exactly as Santorio does.22 Having laid down the logical implications of Santorio’s method, we can now come back to the first part of his rejection of occult qualities. Specifically, this can be framed as a question concerned with what a substance is per se and—most importantly—whether there are any powers in it independent from the arrangement of its material constituents, a central issue of scholastic philosophy also known as quaestio de actione reali.23 Santorio rejects the very terms of the question as absurd, for admitting the possibility that substances may act directly and independently from their material components is tantamount to admitting that they can produce all sorts of effects.24 Natural powers must instead be amenable to rational explanations and thus in terms of the arrangement of their material constituents.25 Nonetheless, the way in which these constituents interact to give rise to the powers and qualities of the substance is rife with unsolvable difficulties when approached from within Aristotelian natural philosophy. As Santorio acknowledges, the traditional four qualities do not offer a suitable explanation as to how phenomena such as magnetic attraction,

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generation of colours, mixtures, drugs and transparency of crystals come about. By listing a series of experiments, Santorio shows that these phenomena do not result from the temperament (temperatura) of the material substance, but from the quantity of its ingredients and the configuration of its material parts (partes, particulae minimae).26 2.3  Experiments on the Generation of Qualities Some of the examples which Santorio deals with are significant. Magnetic attraction comes on the top of the list for it clearly occurs independently from the temperament of the mixture. Should it be otherwise, Santorio remarks, magnetic attraction would be common to other substances which possess a similar temperament, being stronger in proportion to the temperament’s degree. Yet this is not the case: spices are regarded as hotter than metals yet have no magnetic power.27 A similar consideration applies to colours, which result from the mere juxtaposition of their parts (ex sola iuxtapositione sine interventu quattuor qualitatum). Santorio quotes a series of optical experiments showing that new colours originate suddenly with the simple superimposition of glasses of different colours, as in the case of violet or green resulting from the superimposition of red and azure and blue and yellow glasses. 28 The same point is argued for again with a series of chemical experiments. By pouring in the same bowl two kinds of very clear liquids, that is gall water and vitriol, the mixture so obtained immediately turns dark black.29 Like colours, crystals owe their property to the juxtaposition of their parts. In diamonds, for instance, translucency depends on the arrangement of minimal components (particulae minimae) and it is lost once the crystal is smashed into pieces.30 A final set of experiments is concerned with showing the importance of quantity in the mixture of material components. In this regard, Santorio shows that theriac and opium both act according to a certain degree of intensity which depends on the exact quantity of their ingredients.31 Likewise, drugs act differently on different individuals depending on the particular arrangement or quantity of their ingredients. Thus, whilst a given quantity of leopard’s bane (doronicum) is sufficient to kill a dog, it has no effect on humans. Similarly, the heat produced by putrefying matter is able to kill humans, but acts as nourishment in worms.32 By and large, these experiments can be summarized in three main arguments:

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• Certain qualities have no direct cause-effect relationship with their underlying temperament and are generated independently from the four qualities. • The sudden generation of these qualities is incompatible with the traditional ‘substantial alteration’ which requires a substance to pass slowly through an intermediate state. The immediacy of the effects must therefore be ascribed to ‘juxtaposition’; • In any given temperament and mixture, quantity and disposition of ingredients hold the primacy in accounting for the resulting quality. 2.4  ‘Situs’, ‘Figura’, ‘Numerus’ The experiments Santorio analyses point to the existence of a deeper level of matter that is irreducible to the four elemental qualities and which is revealed to be fundamentally geometrical-quantitative. Santorio identifies this level in the rarity and density of matter. As noted by Rudio, Santorio substantiates this claim with a quotation from Aristotle’s physics (Physica, VIII.7. 260b, 7–14) in which the Greek philosopher claims that all forms of change affecting the heavens are reducible to rarity and density.33 Yet the interpretation Santorio offers to this passage is twisted to suit his purposes: whereas Aristotle intends his remarks to explain how the inalterable matter of the heavens (aether) can be affected by the circular motion of the spheres, Santorio uses it to reduce all qualitative changes to structural changes in the rarity and density of the material substratum. He then goes on to investigate the very nature of rarity and density and shows that they represent a subclass of the genre situs (place, position). Rarity and density, therefore, consist in the ‘position’ (situs), ‘shape’ (figura) and ‘number’ (numerus) of matter.34 The changes determined on matter by ‘position’, ‘shape’ and ‘number’ are likened to a clock-like mechanism, wherein the spring replaces the role played by the first movable sphere (primum mobile) in the Aristotelian cosmos. Santorio uses such an analogy to strengthen his claims that the properties of natural substances originate from the quantity rather than from the quality of material constituents: As a final point, we can bring the most evident of all the examples, that is the clockwork moving power (potentia motrix horologii); none in his right senses would argue that the clockwork moving power originates from the temperament (temperatura), but that it comes from the ‘number’ (numerus), ‘posi-

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tion’ (situs) and ‘shape’ (figura) of its gears, circles and springs while, conversely, the impossibility of moving comes from their being defective; […] if a human artifex is able to impart many moving virtues by changing the ‘shape’, ‘position’ and ‘number’ of the gears, how much more the benevolent Mother Nature, forging the mechanisms and, so to speak, the living springs with greater artifice, will be able to put the moving virtues inside these substances! […]. Nothing then prevents us from saying that, in analogy to a clockwork, the power that puts in motion [the entire mechanism] is not a simple substance but a power that arises from the ‘number’, ‘position’ and ‘shape’ of the bodily substance and that in these substances there is a moving part (primum mobile) which moves as the spring does […]. If internal figures, numbers, and positions of many particles change in such a way that is impossible to determine their cause, then they will be defined occult […].35

This last sentence highlights an important aspect of Santorio theory: all qualities arise from  the geometrical disposition of the constituents of a material substance. These constituents are particles that trigger changes in the structural arrangement of matter (rarity/density). The difference between manifest and occult qualities is thus reduced to a difference in their arrangement: occult qualities are not different from manifest qualities only the relative complexity of their combination is, giving rise, in these latter, to unexpected or occult phenomena.36 The primacy of rarity and density in the generation of qualities is demonstrated by Santorio both a priori and a posteriori. While the series of experiments summarized above establishes the argument a posteriori, the a priori argument consists of a sort of ‘mental experiment’. In order to grasp what heat really is—Santorio contends—we ought to reverse the causal order of what we see: it is not heat that rarefies matter, it is rarefaction that causes heat. Whereas the tone is hypothetical (potest), and room seems to be left for the reverse phenomenon to occur, the true sense of the passage is captured by the final sentence: That rarity may be the cause of heat can be grasped from this experiment: let us destroy rarity and heat and let us suppose that a certain very quick motion (motus aliquod velocissimus) takes place; what would the cause of heat and rarity then be, according to Aristotle? What doubt can be that because of the motion matter is first rarefied and then heated? In fact, matter rarefies first and then heat is produced. It happens also that matter is rarefied by the generated heat and then condensed by cold and, in this way, rarity originates

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in turn from heat. Depending on what we consider, sometimes rarity, other times heat hold the primacy . An example that heat can also be primary [in respect to rarity] is torpid urine, which is transformed into clear and transparent by the fire rarefying its fatty parts and causing its minimal particles (particulae minimae) to change position. In truth, however, and considering the first origin of heat, one will witness that rarity is generated always before heat, because matter is first rarefied by motion and then grows hot.37

The final sentence lays bare the general premises of Santorio’s theory of qualities: heat is caused by structural changes in the relative density of matter. Having established this point, the analysis moves on searching for the cause of rarefaction. Here Santorio introduces two important actors into his theory: the existence of a ‘very rapid movement’ (motus aliquod velocissimus), which we may also call a vortex, and that of corpuscles (particulae minimae). The coming into play of corpuscles allows us to clarify that ‘position’, ‘shape’ and ‘number’ must be seen as properties of a discrete matter. Discrete matter, however, is itself the result of a process of generation out of a prime matter, whose properties  Santorio sets out to define. The most fundamental property of  prime matter is that is spatially located: for Santorio place is the most universal of all matter properties (situs est genus generalissimus). This prime matter is therefore provided with extension and magnitude that are not yet quantitatively defined. In other words, matter is a three-dimensional body (trina dimensio quae est ipsammet materia prima) capable of being altered by structural changes such as rarity and density.38 Such changes are brought about by an external agent, which extracts ‘position’, ‘figure’ and ‘number’ as the three fundamental qualities instrumental to all changes. Such an agent is the form (forma) while all the other properties are generated out of these by multiplying the possible arrangements of particles. 2.5  Further Developments: The Role of Particles and the Vortex To analyse this theory in depth, it is necessary to consider some further clarifications that Santorio offers in later works. While his experiments and arguments largely remain the same, the third part of the Commentaria in

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Artem medicinalem Galeni (Venice, 1612) provides a clearer and more systematic picture of Santorio’s theory. Indeed, what in 1603 appeared just a hint to the existence of a vortex turns into the precondition for natural changes at large: […] all transmutations happen by postulating the predisposition of matter which is principally caused by the rarity introduced by a very quick movement. This movement originates from a motor which is activity (actus) and is substance, something that the ancients did not know.39

The passage comes at the end of a long discussion in which Santorio clarifies his approach as opposed to the atomism of Democritus and others.40 In pointing out the differences, Santorio borrows the Aristotelian classification of causes into material, efficient and formal. The material cause is identified with the three-dimensional substrate of prime matter on which the vortex operates as the efficient cause, by causing the substrate to separate into areas of different density. This mechanical process, however, is supervised by the form (forma) which operates as an active principle (actus) provided with a kind of elementary wisdom or ‘blunt ingenuity’ (retusum ingenium).41 Thus, the relative rarity and density of matter result from structural changes that are driven by the substantial form.42 Having set these points  clearly, Santorio highlights  the differences  between his theory and ancient atomism and finally addresses Rudio’s accusation of atomism: We have also proved that the material principle of all material accidents is the spatial extension of prime matter, which is like the nature and essence of matter. However, since it is not enough to propose a material principle of all affections without offering a productive principle , in the eighth chapter of our Method to avoid all errors we argued against Democritus and Thessalus, who denied that underneath atoms forms are concealed. We also showed that these forms are the productive causes that extract all qualities from the material principle. This material principle is the three-dimensional extension of the prime matter which produces all eight contrary positions [i.e. inside and outside, forwards and backwards, left and right, upwards and downwards] out of which places, rarity and density, and infinite other originate and that, mixed together, produce the occult qualities. Furthermore, we do not

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follow Democritus’ opinion, as Rudio attributes to us in perusing the eighth book of our Method with little care. Indeed, Democritus believed that atoms were incorporeal and inalterable and denied the existence of temperaments and admitted only the composition of minimal bodies. As to our part, instead, we also accept compositions and temperaments; actually, it is for this very reason that we have rejected the opinion of Asclepiades, who contended that bodies were made out of indivisible and inalterable corpuscles. We further rejected Anaxagoras and Empedocles, who said that first principles were ­untransmutable. Along with Aristotle’s On generation (Bk 1) we claim that temperaments arise from the mixture (ex mixtione) of the four elements.43

2.6  The Role of Substantial Form As it emerges, Santorio pinpoints the main difference between atomism and corpuscularianism in the role of the form (forma), which leads him to admit ‘also’ alteration and temperaments in addition to a simple juxtaposition of parts. He clarifies that qualities are extracted out of prime matter by the intervention of the form that defines (= definit: provides borders) the undefined matter.44 The form operates by confining the continuous prime matter into numerable units (numerus), all the while providing them with shape (or, better still, with an ‘outline’, figura) and position (situs). The very act of in-forming is hence simultaneously ‘an act of dividing the un-divided’ (i.e. prime matter) into portions (particulae) or units (corpuscula) generated by following the directions imparted by a rational principle (forma).45 In this sense, the very concept of ‘particula’ results from a procedure of division and composition akin to the anatomical one (resolutio et compositio). Over the anatomy table, the knife in the hand of the anatomist acts as the form: it divides self-contained unities (e.g. limbs, organs and apparatuses) into parts which, depending on the level of analysis pursued, can be reduced further to specimens of smaller and smaller dimensions, from partes to particulae down to particulae minimae. The borrowing from the standard procedure of anatomical dissection justifies the substantial overlapping between Santorio’s terminology situs, figura, numerus and the traditional classification of ill-composed parts (malae compositiones), whose diagram Santorio himself provides in his Methodus (Fig.  2.1).46 However, Santorio’s version of this classification—without magnitudo and with conformatio turned into forma—is shorter than Galen’s but seems to have been fairly common in Padua at that time.47

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Fig. 2.1  Santorio’s scheme of the Galenic classification of ill-composed parts (malae compositiones). To be noted the overlapping of Santorio’s terminology (situs, figura, numerus) with Galen’s rationale. From Santorio 1630: coll. 15–16

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However, postulating the existence of particles opens up a theoretical divide between two kinds of explanations, which corpuscularians such as Santorio must keep together: the former, located at the macro-level of perceived qualities, is ‘structural’ for it requires matter to assume stable configurations necessary to the emergence of the essential features of diseases to which medical indications refer; the latter, located at the micro-­ level of corpuscles, is ‘dynamic’, consisting in the turbulent motion of particles brought about by the vortex. Without the rule provided by an intelligible principle like the substantial form, the two levels would have lacked coordination thereby undermining the possibility Santorio reclaims for the Galenic rationale to reveal the essential and universal properties of diseases.48 Should substantial forms be removed, in fact, the possibility to draw precise indications about the nature of diseases would be lost with them. The entire diagnostic rationale on which Santorio grounds his distinction between what is universal and accidental with regard to diseases and symptoms would have been reduced to a single cause only, the tissues’ ‘constriction and laxity’ (strictus et laxus). Santorio ridicules this approach as ‘truly idiotic’, 49 for it oversimplifies the causes of symptoms and leads physicians to rely on ‘general’ and thus ‘unspecific’ notions. He further remarks that those who rely on strictus and laxus can only talk about diseases in general as caused by mechanical actions and thus are inevitably led to postulate a panacea, whose validity could always be defended against any actual observations of the patient’s symptoms. As we shall see in the next section, however, Santorio does not deny the relevance of ‘constriction and laxity’ in diagnostics but seeks to complement them with a higher level causal explanation that is drawn from the Galenic rationale. Another reason for rejecting the fully atomistic and mechanistic approach of Democritus is that Santorio’s conception of quantification in medicine relies on the measure of objective qualities or states, namely on the ‘intensity’ of a phenomenon. According to the scholastic theory of ‘intensity’ (intensio et remissio formarum) each degree corresponds to a specific form in the quality being quantified. For instance, the difference between degree 4 and 8 of a phenomenon like light or heat is not due to the sum of infinitesimal accumulative elements—as in the modern understanding of intensity—but corresponds to an instantaneous uniform property that is destroyed and generated at each time. In this sense, each degree corresponds to a precise state of matter and thus to a quality that, in order to exist, requires a substantial form to bring it about. Presupposing such a background for Santorio’s theory makes sense of a series of experiments

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about the intensity of substances with which he was concerned between 1612 and 1625. In one of these, for instance, he notes that by mixing salt and snow—at the time classified as respectively a hot and cold substance— the thermometer reveals that the compound so obtained is colder than just snow.50 According to the traditional explanation,  the composition between ingredients of opposite intensities should have resulted in the remission of one of them (i.e. cold), while Santorio emphasises that we witness the emergence of a new quality (quid aliud) which hence points to a change in the structure of the phenomenon, independent from the qualitative properties of the components.

3   Limits, Strengths and Applications Having discussed the general architecture of Santorio’s theory, it remains to outline its limits, strengths and applications. The limits are those pertaining to all early corpuscularianism, in its attempt to mediate between two opposite conceptions of matter, that is a particulate matter growing out of an infinitely divisible and homogenous substratum. As seen, Santorio suggests that the geometrical features of particulate matter (i.e. position,  shape, and  number) resolve again into the undefined three-­ dimensionality of the prime matter. His conception points to a substratum that is undefined in terms of actual  magnitude but corporeal and thus three-dimensional. The authority he quotes to underpin this point is that of Philoponus (fifth century AD). Philoponus had attempted to put right Aristotle’s conception of prime matter, which he openly criticizes,51 and had pointed out that when elements are converted into each other the result so obtained is always determinable as a precise mathematical proportion. As an example, when water turns into air (i.e. water steam) the proportion so generated is that of 10 units of air out of 1 of water. This means that prime matter itself must be a quantifiable substratum for otherwise material transformations would occur out of any proportion.52 At the same time,  since  all elements could  indefinitely  transform  one into another, prime matter should be continuous and thus potentially infinite. A solution to this riddle was to conceive of prime matter as three-­ dimensional and therefore a  corporeal  and divisible substratum, yet  undefined as to its  actual magnitude.  In this way,  discrete unities of matter (i.e. particles) could be generated out of a continuous substratum by the intervention of an intelligible principle that ‘defined’ within limits the ‘undefined’ prime matter.

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Fig. 2.2  Santorio’s experiment likening the transformation of firewater into volatile spirit to the generation of the tunics of the embryo. From Santorio 1625: col. 684D

The problem as to how discrete matter was generated out of a continuous substratum was known as the ‘question of undetermined dimensions’ (quaestio de dimensionibus indeterminatis) and it was particularly alive in Padua at the time when Santorio was studying with Jacopo Zabarella. Santorio seems to have  applied it to approach traditional problems in a new way. One of these is the formation of the embryo in the womb. Santorio took care to engrave his theory of it in 1625 (Fig. 2.2), and it is clear from how he frames it that he has in mind Philoponus’ conception of matter, with the difference in the final proportion being simply the result of the different substance being used: With this experiment, anyone grasps how semen is expanded by heat and converted into spirit. If the firewater contained in the vessel indicated by the letter A, which has a deflated bladder attached to it, is warmed up simply with the light of a lamp, then anyone will see the bladder immediately inflating and becoming very tumid. From this, each one will suddenly realise that out of one hemina [ten fluid ounces] of firewater not just ten, but way more heminas may be generated. Likewise in the womb spirits rise up out of the vital heat of the semen and three small bladders are shaped.53

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3.1  A New Concept of Digestion The other issue benefiting from Philoponus’ new conception of prime matter  was digestion. This phenomenon lay at the core of classical and mediaeval natural philosophy, wherein all natural transformations were supposed to take place in analogy to the cooking process (πέψις, digestio, concoctio). Relying on a new theory of matter, Santorio defined it as consisting of two complementary processes: the former is the ‘distillation’ (elixatio) of humours through the separation of their components, the latter is the ‘transfer’ (evacuatio) of separated components from the centre to the periphery of the body, where they are eventually dispersed in the form of perspirable matter. 54 The cause of this double process is accounted for by Santorio as an effect of the rarefaction caused by heat in each fibre of the body. This rarefaction changes the structure of matter by converting a fat substance into a vaporous one, ultimately expelled through the pores of the skin. 55 As we shall see, even a partial blockage of this dynamic process results in an immediate increase in body weight, caused by retention of perspired matter.56 The similarities between Santorio’s concept of digestion and alchemical distillation are noteworthy. In distillation (elixatio), a constant quantitative proportion links the rough material to be distilled and the products of distillation, which result in distilled (destillatus) and residual matter (caput mortuum). 3.2  Application to ‘Medicina Statica’ An example of how this new conception could be applied to concrete experimentation is offered by Santorio’s masterwork, Medicina statica. An analysis of this work will also clarify how the various levels of Santorio’s theory coordinate with each other. In Medicina statica Santorio sets out to monitor how the body keeps its balance despite the continuous flow of an insensible matter (perspiratio insensibilis) out of it. In keeping with Galen, he recognizes that bodily matter, such as spirits and humours, is in a state of constant insensible flow (tota substantia insensibiliter fluit).57 Bodily matter flows because it is ‘subtle’ (subtilis corporea substantia) and therefore unstable. Once spirits and humours have exhausted their function they are expelled as excrement, either in a visible (i.e. urine, faeces and perspiration) or in an invisible way (insensible perspiration). To measure the quantity of matter that is

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insensibly lost every day, Santorio invents a special scale (sella Sanctorii) with which he monitors how bodily weight is affected by the process. The general premise is that, in normal conditions, there exists a constant rapport between sensible and insensible excrements by means of which the body keeps its balance. Diseases result from the alteration of this balance caused by changes in the ‘laxity’ or ‘narrowness’ of the pores of the skin which obstructs the normal flow of perspirable matter causing its retention within the body with a consequent increase in weight.58 Thus measurement in the weighing chair gives a reliable ‘indication’ of the patient’s internal condition, thereby guiding the physician to treat the ‘specific conditions’ manifested in it. Here we have a clear example as to how the different levels of Santorio’s theory coordinate: the dynamic level of fluid matter is related to the structural level of changes of laxity and narrowness of the pores, and mediated by the diagnostic tool of medical indication which allows Santorio to reveal the patient’s specific condition (affectus specificus). The actual nature of perspiration is not addressed in the Medicina statica for it was provided earlier, as part of the Commentaria in Artem medicinalem Galeni (1612). Here —however much in passing—Santorio concedes that perspired matter is fluid and subtle but when pressed by the action of cold disintegrates into a corpuscular matter. The general context deals with the origin of pain but the reference to the particulate structure of insensible perspiration is sufficiently clear: First doubt: it seems not to be true that pain always follows necessarily from an excess of heat, as Galen says […] for in the fifth section of the Commentary to Hippocrates (Aphor. 20) he states that cold cause ulcerations to be painful. In line with Galen (same aphorism wherein he states that cold causes ulcerations to be biting painful), we reply by saying that this happens because refrigerates the innate heat; once innate heat is refrigerated the insensible dissipation is prevented and when this latter is retained it causes dolour or biting pain. As a consequence, excessive heat is the cause of pain per se, while cold is the cause of it per accidens, as far as it obstructs, and prohibits the dissipation. In keeping with Galen De simplicibus medicamentorum (IV.2) and with above-­ mentioned Commentary to Hippocrates, another way to say this is that biting pain originates from cold because particles are tightened, and when they are tightened they split, the continuity breaks and, as a result, a biting pain arises.59

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This important quote can be extremely hard-going if no adequate background is provided to it. The general context consists of a discussion of Galen’s dispersive remedies (discutientia seu digerentia) that are capable of resolving fat humours into vapours of insensible perspiration. Santorio redirects his reader to the forthcoming book Medicina statica,60 wherein a similar discussion is actually provided as to the effects of hot and cold on insensible perspiration (I.68). Heat is taken as a rarefying agent which attracts matter from within the body compelling it to be evacuated in the form of insensible perspiration but if the remedy is excessively hot then a biting pain (dolor mordicativus) will arise as a result of its application. However, as Santorio clarifies in this passage, under the action of cold fluid matter condenses and breaks into large particles which obstruct the pores of the skin thereby causing retention of new matter within the body and a biting pain. In Medicina statica I.68 and elsewhere, it is this very matter that, retained within the body, produces an abnormal increase in weight.61 It is also striking that the authoritative reference provided by Santorio (Galen, De simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis ac facultatibus, IV.2) is to one of the few openly corpuscularian passages in the entire Galenic corpus. According to Galen, in fact, cold presses matter like a hand squeezing a sponge and compels it to contract all the while creating many empty spaces around (γίνεσθαι κενὰς οὐχ ολίγας).62 As a consequence, the continuity of the flesh is broken and pain arises. Unlike Galen, Santorio ascribes the cause of biting pain not to flesh but to the obstructed pores. It is appreciable from this that Santorio is likening insensible perspiration to an effluvium of matter which, under particular conditions, turns from subtle and continuous to particulate. The empty spaces created by particulate matter determine changes in the relative density of matter which help explain other physiological processes like hunger, which, for Santorio, arises as a result of the body attempting to fill the void created by rarefaction.63 Void is usually conceived by Santorio as a non-being, but he admits of interstitial voids resulting from the action of heat that rarefies matter. As it has been observed, heat itself is identifiable with rarefaction, but Santorio rarely feels the need to arrive at so detailed an analysis when discussing strictly medical matters. So the reader should not be surprised when quotations show that heat causes rarefaction, and thus pain or hunger.

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3.3  Mixtures However successful this conception might be to Santorio’s statical experiments, its adoption does not come without uncertainties. The ambivalence comes about especially when discussing the nature of mixtures as part of his commentary to  Avicenna’s theory of compound substances, wherein Santorio openly acknowledges his hesitations.64 The question he faces is whether the forms of elements remain unchanged in the final composition (an formae elementorum maneant in mixto). He addresses the problem by distinguishing mixture and temperament. The former implies a total change of something into something else which is qualitative, therefore requiring particles to break down to prime matter to re-emerge out of it in a different form.65 Temperament instead requires the rearrangement of particulate matter so that new qualities can emerge out of the combination of different temperaments, by simple juxtaposition.66 By and large, Santorio admits mixtures but downplays their relevance in medicine: they are less frequent and less important than temperaments in that bodily functions and illnesses derive from an unbalanced temperament not from mixtures.67 This is the result of the fact that temperaments are more amenable to be explained in accordance with Santorio’s theory of matter than mixtures are. 3.4  Application to Natural Philosophy and Diagnosis Although textual occurrences are patchy, Santorio’s corpuscularianism was constantly presupposed in many of his experiments, leading to the erosion of the scholastic system from which it grew. An example is the rebuttal of the scholastic claim that odours are ‘intentional species’ (species intentionales), namely an information that is contained within the perceptible object and then transferred to the sensory apparatus. Santorio refutes this stance by showing that odours are due to a constant flux of matter caused by the resolution of the odorous object into a volatile substance (odorabilia semper resolvunt). The correlation between the intensity of the odorous substance and the object from which it emanates is proved by weighing foodstuff like fruits at different stages and then showing that weight decreases accordingly to the decrease in the intensity of the perceived odour. Given the similarity, Santorio immediately associates this experiment to the flux of insensible perspiration in the human body, which correlates to a decrease in weight.68

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Similarly, weight provides a reliable indication when applied to physical puzzles that seem hopeless if managed with the traditional instruments of scholastic philosophy, such as the reason why water warms up more quickly after it has been frozen (cur aqua calefacta citius congeletur). Santorio explains the phenomenon by connecting it to the modified structure of matter: rarefied by heat, water becomes less compact (tenuis) and so the passage to the opposite state is made easy, as proved by the rapidity of the change itself and by the fact that, after being boiled, water weighs less.69 In medicine, on the other hand, the adoption of a corpuscularian framework leads to a kind of ‘geometrical thinking’. For instance, Santorio attributes the cause of lisping to the unnatural conformation of the bones of the upper jaw, rather than to the quality of humours.70 Seeking to explain why the plague spreads more amongst certain people than others, Santorio points to the rarity and density of the lungs (pulmo rarus/densus) as the cause of this—a condition that is assessed by measuring the pulse of the patient while he takes a long breath.71 The formation of calculi is explained as due to the width or narrowness of the emulgent vessels,72 while asthma is seen by Santorio as an ailment resulting from two structural properties, that is the tightness of the chest and the density of the bile.73 By the same token, he explains away the period of peccant humours and recurrent fevers, which he interprets as a function of the distance of the affected part from the heart: the shorter the distance the faster the period will be.74 In this latter instance, the novelty of Santorio’s explanation was so blunt to compel the angry reaction of his contemporaries, most notably that of Daniel Sennert (1572–1637) who remarked: In truth, against this opinion many things can be said, but one in particular cannot absolutely be omitted: if the position and distance from the heart constitute the sufficient cause of the periods, what need remains to involve humours?75

The question came too late for Santorio to address it, but we may reply to it on his behalf: ‘there remains very little need to involve humours’. 3.5  Applications to Technology As is clear from what has been said thus far, Santorio’s studies on the structure of matter are an integral part of his overall project of quantification. Santorio understands natural phenomena mostly in terms of intensity. In

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medicine, intensity translates into a difference between the ‘greatness of a disease’ (magnitudo morbi) and the capacity of the body to resist it (potentia resistendi) by keeping or restoring its inner balance. Consistent with his method, the ‘measuring’ entailed by the quantification of intensity is conceived by Santorio as a ‘reduction’ of what is qualitatively complex and unique to the schematic reiteration of few and simple elements. By reducing the number and type of properties to be considered for each phenomenon, this approach makes clear to the intellect and appreciable to the senses what would otherwise not be so. As an integral part of this reduction, Santorio’s instruments are assigned the task of extending the human perception beyond its limits by rendering noticeable what is ‘minimal’, ‘insensible’ and ‘invisible’ thereby preventing errors in diagnosis.76 On Santorio’s weighing chair, the insensible perspiration becomes sensible by weight; the imperceptible degrees of temperature and humidity of the air become perceptible with thermometers and hygrometers; the smallest variations in the frequency of the pulse are magnified by means of the pulsilogium; the obscure process of the generation of colours becomes apparent by designing advanced optical experiences and new instruments to perform them. Consistent with his theory of matter and qualities, yet to different extents, these devices depend on substances’ natural capacity to react to rarity and density. Pneumatic cupping (Fig. 2.3), for instance, relies on the capacity of creating an artificial void, by means of a suction syringe, so as to enhance the capacity of the instrument to dilate (rarefacit) the region around the umbilicus prior to effecting paracentesis.77 Thermometers and hygrometers attempt at quantifying such phenomena. They both work on the assumption that air and certain natural fibres (i.e. pear wood or cord of tortoise) react to environmental changes by altering their texture in terms of rarity and density.78 These alterations are displayed in various ways: in thermometers the level of water decreases or increases as a result of the air’s contraction and expansion inside the glass tube while in hygrometers the same is provided by the cord of tortoise. These variations are then recorded either with a compass and a graded bar or by means of a rotating gear (Figs. 2.4 and 2.5). As a partial exception to this rule, pulsilogia make use of a mechanic kind of contraction: hand-controlled by means of a tapered peg, the wire is shortened or lengthened to allow the faster or slower periods of the pendulum to match the variations in pulse frequency (Fig. 2.6).79

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Fig. 2.3  Pneumatic cupping. A syringe is attached to a medical cup in order to enhance the effects of void. The instrument was used in paracentesis to dilate the region around the umbilicus and prepare it for the introduction of the syringe. From Santorio 1625, col. 512D-E Fig. 2.4  Mouth thermometer. The instrument’s functioning is based on the contractibility of air. Reacting to the body temperature, air expands or contracts accordingly compelling the water inside the glass tube to rise or decrease at different levels. From Santorio 1625, col. 219 (‘instrumentum primum’)

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Fig. 2.5  Hygrometer, clockwork-type. The instrument’s functioning depends on the contractibility of silk or tortoise cords which, impregnated to various degrees by the humidity of environmental air, stretch and contract accordingly. From Santorio 1625, col. 215C-D

Fig. 2.6  Pulsilogium type A2 (Bigotti-Taylor 2017). This pendulum-regulated device tracks the variations in pulse frequency by means of a tapered peg (right) which shortens or lengthens the pendulum wire. The position of the wooden ball on the bar displays the variations in terms of segments lengths

Other instruments, such as the steelyard chair, measure the change in weight effected as the result of an increase in density of a substance at the same volume, so that in this case too lighter and heavier substances are in turn linked to rarity and density. Weight is equally important when measuring humidity and dryness of the air by means of precision scales, an

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insight Santorio was first to apply to the study of air pressure, building what may be recognized today  as the first thermometers independent from barometric pressure.80

4   Conclusions In considering the different strands of Santorio’s theory of matter and its application to medicine and technology, it emerges clearly that they coordinate around a fully fleshed programme of quantification and measurement. In differential diagnosis, Santorio insists on counting the occurrences of a given symptom so as to assess its variability in any given disease; in logic he seeks to redefine the notion of individuality by reducing it to universal predicates instantiated in time and space (per hinc et nunc); in natural philosophy the task is to convert the occult into the manifest; finally, in the invention of new instruments, Santorio sets out to measure the variability of a phenomenon in its structural changes (i.e. rarity and density) so as to quantify its limits and thus establish a correct diagnostic procedure. As I hope to have shown, while not openly rejecting tradition, Santorio’s approach opened a new chapter in the history of medicine and science. By denying causal agency to qualities and in ascribing it to geometrical features he ultimately rendered the old system redundant. As opposed to Descartes, Santorio’s appreciation of the human perception as fallible and uncertain did not lead to the discrediting of induction or the reduction of physics to mathematics, but was assisted by the invention of instruments that expanded the limits of human perception and corrected the fallacies implicit in an unwarranted generalization of empirical data. Finally, Santorio’s characterization of the fundamental properties of matter within a clear mechanical framework stands in continuity with, and represent an important source of inspiration for, the projects of seventeenth-century mechanical philosophers, who saw Santorio as a fountainhead of new ideas, amongst them Galileo, Sennert, Magnen, Boyle, Leibniz, Mersenne, Keill, Linnaeus, Franklin and Lavoisier. In this regard, a question that has been deliberately left unaddressed so far is what role Santorio’s theory of matter plays in the overall development of seventeenth-century natural philosophy. As seen, Santorio conceived his efforts as a rationalization of the Galenic and Aristotelian rationale. This appeal to continuity has misled many historians. Owsei Temkin described Santorio’s efforts to quantify qualities as a trick of history played at his own expense,81 while  Andrew Wear has

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reconsidered Santorio’s appeal to quantification in the light of his traditionalism and concluded, along with the physician John Quincy (- †1722), that Santorio fundamentally ‘remains in the context of the old world’.82 Both Wear and Temkin lacked knowledge of Santorio’s theory of matter and their approaches are geared around an understanding of the history of science which categorizes as ‘change’ only what is blunt and abrupt, remaining fundamentally blind to novelty when it develops discreetly through complex shades of thought. Santorio’s theory of quality and matter did precisely that and hence provides the modern historian with a riddle to solve. It is indeed when dealing with figures such as Santorio, Harvey and Sennert that the historian is left wondering whether the most effective impact on the development of science is made by those who claim to have revolutionized the field or rather by those who, in elegantly reshaping the conceptual scheme that underpinned earlier formulations, chart new paths for the future generations.

Notes 1. On Italian corpuscularianism see Artemio Enzo Baldini, Giancarlo Zanier, Paolo Farina and Francesco Trevisani, Ricerche sull’atomismo del Seicento (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1977), 7–9, esp. 9, n. 9. For a general introduction to the concept of corpuscularianism in the seventeenth century see Antonio Clericuzio, Elements, Principles and Corpuscles. A Study of Atomism and Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000). Specifically on the concept of minima see the useful but controversial John E. Murdoch “The Medieval and Renaissance Tradition of Minima Naturalia,” in Late Medieval and Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theories, edited by Cristoph Lüthy, John E. Murdoch and William  R.  Newman, 91–132 (Leiden: Brill, 2001).  For a more recent contextualisation  of corpuscularianism see  Fabrizio Bigotti, “Corpuscularianism” in Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences, edited by Dana Jalubeanu and Charles Wolfe, Springer, https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_133-1.  2. See Christoph Lüthy “An Aristotelian Watchdog as Avant–Garde Physicist: Julius Caesar Scaliger,” The Monist 84 (2001): 542–61, 542. On the appropriation and transformation of the Aristotelian concept of ‘form’ into early modern corpuscularianism see also Lüthy, Murdoch and Newman, eds., Late Medieval and Norma Emerton, The Scientific Reinterpretation of Form (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1984), 76–153.

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3. Vivian Nutton, “The Reception of Fracastoro’s Theory of Contagion; the Seed that fell among Thorns?,” Osiris, 2nd series, 6 (1990): 196–234; Andreas Blank, “Julius Caesar Scaliger on Corpuscles and the Vacuum,” Perspectives on Science, 16, no. 2, (2008): 137–59; Kuni Sakamoto, Julius Caesar Scaliger, Renaissance Reformer of Aristotelianism: A Study of His Exotericae Exercitationes (Leiden: Brill, 2016); Concetta Pennuto, Simpatia, Fantasia e Contagio. Il Pensiero Medico e il Pensiero Filosofico di Girolamo Fracastoro, (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2008). 4. An exception to this panorama is Fabrizio Bigotti, “A Previously Unknown Path to Corpuscularism in the Seventeenth Century: Santorio’s Marginalia to the Commentaria in Primam Fen Primi Libri Canonis Avicennae (1625),” Ambix, 64 (2017): 29–42. 5. This aspect has been highlighted by Andrew Wear, “Contingency and Logic in Renaissance Anatomy and Physiology” (PhD diss., Imperial College London, 1973), 155. 6. Like Francis Bacon later on, Santorio sees his discoveries as re-inventions of instruments that once existed but whose memory has since been lost, or, also, as embodiments of medicine’s most ancient but universal needs. This emerges particularly from what he says about their invention in Methodi vitandorum errorum omnium, qui in arte medica contingunt libri XV (Venice: F. Bariletto, 1603), I.31, f. 26v D, where he defines his forthcoming book as ‘de instrumentis noviter a me inventis’; in his prolusion to the students of Padua, held in 1612, Oratio a Sanctorio Sanctorio habita in Archilycheo Patavino (1612) transcribed in Arcadio Capello, De Vita Cl[arissimi] Sanctorii Sanctorii (Venice: Giacomo Tomassino, 1750): XXII, where he calls the book Librum de novis instrumentis; in Commentaria in primam Fen primi libri Canonis Avicennae (Venice: G. Sarzina, 1625), coll. 5D–7C, where he makes a reference to Guido Pancirolli (1523–1599) and his Rerum memorabilium, iam olim deperditarum (1612) and in Santorio’s Commentaria in primam sectionem Aphorismorum Hippocratis (Venice: M.  A. Brogiolo, 1629), ‘Dedicatory letter to Francesco Maria della Rovere’, c. 1r [not numbered], where he opens his remarks by stating ‘Staticam medicinam tot saeculis sepultam, e tenebris in lucem, et hominum prospectum longo usu et periclitatione arcessimus’. As to the content of the book, see Santorio, Commentaria (1625), ‘Ad lectorem’, [1 not numbered] where Santorio justifies his elliptic way of presenting the new instruments as a means to avoid plagiarism from his pupils and in anticipation of the publication of the new book with high-quality engravings. 7. Santorio, Commentaria (1625), coll. 5D–7D.

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8. Santorio, Commentaria (1629), col. 51. 9. Id., Commentaria (1625), col. 7 A–B; see also Johan Bilger, Disputatio medica de hydrope (Hesse: Caspar Chemlin, 1617), § 72 [page unnumbered]; Thomas Bartholin, Anatomicae vindiciae (Copenhagen: Melchior Martzan, 1648), 91; Jan Michael Feher, Hiera picra vel de absinthio analecta (Leipzig: Vitus Jacob Trescher, 1667), 120–122. 10. Paolo Sarpi, Pensieri naturali, metafisici e matematici, edited by Luisa Cozzi and Libero Sossio (Milan: Ricciardo Ricciardi, 1996), nos 114–16. Sarpi’s early adherence to corpuscularianism is also confirmed by the testimony of Tomaso Campanella (1568–1639) who, in a letter dated 19 June 1636 and addressed to Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580–1637), states that Sarpi was a proponent of Democritus ab antiquo, and since at least his Neapolitan period (1588–9);  see  Germana Ernst and Eugenio Canone, “Una Lettera Ritrovata: Campanella a Peiresc, 19 Giugno 1636,” Rivista di Storia della Filosofia, 49, no. 2 (1994): 353–66. 11. Eustachio Rudio, De morbis occultis et venenatis libri quinque (Venice: Tomaso Baglioni, 1610), II.2, 43–44. 12. Santorio, Methodi, VIII.4, 154v C. 13. Ibid., XII.4, ff. 186r D–186v A; XI.1, f. 171r A–B. Most notably, referring to the use of the pulsilogium, V.7, f. 109r D–109v B. 14. Ibid., XIII.10, f. 202r C: ‘Empirici, quia de hoc indicantium aequilibrio nihil omnino sciunt, incidunt quotidie in sexcenta errata; quia tota re vera medicandi peritia in hac indicantium comparatione consistit’; Ivi, f. 202v A: ‘quia tota ratio medicandi in aequilibrio indicantium, et indicatorum consistit: nullum enim medicum auxilium invenietur, quod non laceret, quod noxam animo, et corpori non inferat: phlebotomiam frangit vires, cassia ventrem perturbat, et caetera omnia auxilia aliquos languores aegrotantibus afferunt.’ 15. Ibid., IV.3, 84r A–B. 16. Santorio, Commentaria (1625), col. 25B: ‘Medicus non sanat individua ut sunt individua, sed curat morbos specificos, qui sunt in individua.’ 17. Ibid., XI.5, ff. 175v D–176r A; XII.6, f. 188v D. 18. This is the case with all Santorio’s instruments for quantification in medicine, see Santorio, Commentaria (1625), col. 215A–E: ‘ut verum exhibeatur remedium non solum oportet cognoscere morbi speciem, sed etiam eius quantitatem, quae est certa mensura recessus a statu naturali, quam sola coniectura assequi possumus. Nos vero instrumentis variis adinvenimus quantitates sive certas affectuum mensuras ante nos non animadversas; sicuti pulsilogio certam mensuram frequentiae, et raritatis pulsus reperimus. Insuper instrumento vitreo superius descripto certam caliditatis, et frigiditatis mensuram observamus. Praeterea instrumento hic apposito dimetimur humiditatis, et siccitatis gradum, qui unicuique est saluberrimus,

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sed variatur pro varietate temperaturae, temporis, et regionis […].’ (Italics added). 19. For instance, Santorio, Methodi, XI.2, f. 172r C–D: ‘[…] ostendi potest exemplis, quod omnia remedia, quae particularibus applicantur, si aliquid boni, vel mali efficiant, id virtute specifica fiat: si tertiana Socratis tollitur rhabarbari drachma, id fit tum ratione illius specificae rhabarbari virtutis, tum ratione illius determinati gradus tertianae Socratis, qui est quid specificum, quia praedicatur infinitis individuis; infinita enim individua invenietur tertiana obsessa, quae illa specifica virtute rhabarbari curari poterunt; omnia itaque remedia, quae inveniuntur, et omnia inventa, quae accomodantur in individuis, aliqua virtute specifica operantur […] quare si indicatio pro remediis inveniendis desumitur ab esse specifico, et universali, erit syllogismus, et sola partinebit ad methodum medendi, si enim indicatio a singularibus, et non a specifica natura desumeretur pro morbis pellendis, careret illatione syllogistica, esset incognoscibilis, et omnino vana in remediis perquirendis […].’ 20. Ibid., VIII.5, ff. 155v C–156r A; f. 160v B. 21. Santorio, Commentaria in Artem medicinalem Galeni (Venice: J. A. Somaschum, 1612), III, col. 28D. 22. Galileo Galilei, Istoria e dimostrazioni intorno alle macchie solari e loro accidenti (Rome: Giacomo Mascardi, 1613), Lettera Terza, p.  101. Galileo seems to have borrowed from Santorio’s theory again in The Essayer (Il Saggiatore). The reference is particularly to Galileo Galilei, Il Saggiatore (Rome: Giacomo Mascardi, 1623), 198–200, wherein Galileo’s Italian wording particelle minime and corpicelli minimi (‘smallest particles/bodies’) perfectly matches Santorio’s particulae minimae. Much like Santorio, Galileo’s explanation hinges, at least in part, on the structural properties of matter, such as rarity and density. Most notably, Galileo seems to be making a reference to Santorio when, invoking a kind of ‘action at a distance’ by means of effluvia that explain how the sensation of heat comes about, he mentions the insensible perspiration of the body (quella penentrazione, per la qual si agevola la nostra necessaria insensibil traspirazione) and claims that this minimal entity can be divided again and again, as long as matter is divisible. As we shall see in what follows, however, two important differences remain. The first and the biggest difference lies in Galileo’s outright denial of the existence of non-geometrical properties, which are reduced to an arbitrary interpretation of the physical world on the part of the percipient subject, as opposed to Santorio’s retaining substantial forms. The second is that despite the denial of Aristotelian forms, Galileo’s particles retain the name and the function of the quality they give origin to, and are in fact called ignicoli (‘ignicles’), which contrasts with Santorio’s reducing heat to the sudden rarefaction of matter, and therefore to a pure structural change. On

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Galileo’s theory of matter see Susanna Gómez, “From a Metaphysical to a Scientific Object: Mechanizing Light in Galilean Science,” in The Mechanization of Natural Philosophy edited by Daniel Garber and Sophie Roux, 191–215 (Dordrecht: Springer, 2013), 203–6; Pietro Redondi, Galileo Heretic, trans. Raymond Rosenthal (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987). For Galileo’s discussion of vacua and particles, see Two New Sciences, trans. Stillman Drake (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1974), 19–34. For the passage on atoms in Galileo’s Assayer, see Stillman Drake and Charles  D.  O’Malley, The Controversy over the Comets of 1618 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1960), 310–11. 23. The full Latin title of the philosophical issue contains its very explanation: Quaestio an actio realis immediate fieri potest per species spirituales. 24. Santorio, Methodi, VIII.3, f. 153C. 25. Ibid., VIII.4, f. 154v C; VIII.5, f. 155r C–D; Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III, col. 394 C. 26. Santorio, Methodi, VIII.7, ff. 157r D–157v A. Note that the generation of colours represented an early interest for Santorio who was already committed to studying optical phenomena in 1589 while president of the Academia Palladia in Capodistria: see Girolamo Vida, De’ cento dubbi amorosi (Padua: G. Crivellari, 1621): 58, 76. Furthermore, in his last will Santorio left an unpublished chapter on optics (Cento problemi di ottica fisiologica) to his colleague Girolamo Tebaldi da Oderzo (1575–1641) which probably dealt in extenso with some of the problems addressed in the last part of his 1625 Commentaria. 27. Santorio, Methodi, VIII.10, f. 159r D–159v A. 28. Ibid., V.10, ff. 112v B–113r D; VIII.10, f. 159v A. 29. Ibid., V.10, f. 112r C–D; VIII.10, f. 159v B. 30. Ibid., V.10, f. 113r A; see also Santorio, Commentaria (1612), II, col. 372C–D.  To note that Descartes has a similar point with regard to the transparency of sugar’s crystals, see Descartes to Mersenne (Amsterdam, January 1630), Œuvres complètes, edited by Charles Adam, Paul Tannery (Paris, Vrin, 1964–1974), vol. I, 109, 11–20: “La plupart des petits corps regardés avec des lunettes paraissent transparents, parce qu’ils le sont en effet; mais plusieurs de ces petits corps mis ensemble ne sont plus transparents, parce qu’ils ne sont pas joints ensemble égalment, et le seul arrangement des parties, étant inégal, suffit pour rendre opaque ce qui était seul transparent, come vous voyez que du verre ou du sucre candi, étant pilés, ne sont plus transparents, encore que chaque partie d’iceux ne laisse pas de l’éstre.” 31. Santorio, Methodi, VIII.7, ff. 157r D–157v A. 32. Ibid., VIII.10, f. 159v A. 33. Ibid., VIII.7, f. 157r C.

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34. Ibid., VIII.7, ff. 155r D; 157v A; VIII.10, f. 160v A. It is worth noting that this triplet remains substantially the same in all subsequent references that Santorio makes to his theory of qualities (1612, 1630–31) with the occasional replacement of ‘position’ and ‘figure’ by ‘interstices’ (meatus)— which highlights the existence of dispersed voids within matter—and ‘number’ by ‘quantity’ (copiositas). 35. Ibid., VIII.10, f. 160r A–D: ‘Demum afferri potest exemplum omnium evidentissimum, estque potentia motrix horologii: nemo sanae mentis dicet horologii potentiam a temperatura prodire, sed a numero, situ, figura rotarum, orbiculorum, et spirae chalibeae; impotentia vero ab iis vitiatis; quare, si in artefactis dentur potentiae motrices non pendentes a temperatura, cur plurimi sunt adeo audaces, ut ignorantiae crimen illis inurant, qui a situ, et a caeteris differentiis positionum sine ulla alteratione quatuor qualitatum putant plurimam virtutem prodire posse? Eademque de causa nimis audax fuit Fernelius, dum omnes motrices potentias animatorum retulit in substantiam: habet enim hac verba libro De abditis rerum causis, «stupidi ­hominis est credere animalis motum fieri a quatuor qualitatibus, cum re vera omnis potentia movendi debeat referri ad substantiam»: quopacto vir lepidissime ad substantiam vis referre, si humanus artifex varias dat virtutes motrices metallo mutando figuram, situm, et numerum rotarum: quanto facilius alma parens natura, quae rotas, et (ut ita dicam) spiras viventes diviniori artificio efficere potest, potentias motrices in iis collocabit […] Quid prohibet, quin nos quoque horologii similitudine dicamus, potentiam movendi non esse substantiam simplicissimam? Sed potentiam ortam a numero, situ, et figura corporeae substantiae; et in iis esse primum mobile, quod caetera moveat ad spirae chalibeae similitudinem: Aristoteles per analogiam artefactorum invenit primam materiam: cur nos eius imitationem in tanta consilii angustia non poterimus per eandem analogiam de potentiis abditis philosophari?’ 36. The analogy between the generation of qualities and a clockwork mechanism—whose first occurrence has often been misattributed to Descartes and his followers—was also used by Santorio later, to describe both the mechanism of the plague and the orderly arrangement of the bodily parts and their functioning. On the clockwork analogy applied to the body see Santorio, Commentaria (1612), II, col. 267C; Santorio, Commentaria (1625), col. 91D; for its application to the plague, Santorio, Ars de statica medicina (Venice: N.  Polo, 1614), I.126, 17v–18r (= Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III, col. 26A–E). In all these instances the analogy is always introduced as a means to reduce complex and occult phenomena to simple and manifest ones. This makes sense of Santorio being considered as one of the most important sources of inspiration by the representatives of the so-called iatromechanical school of medicine (e.g. Borelli, Baglivi, Lister, Boerhaave, Kaau and others) who envisaged the body as a

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clockwork mechanism, see Bigotti, “A Previously Unknown Path”, 8–10. For Santorio, however, this analogy is meant to suggest solutions to problems that are otherwise inexplicable, but it does not stand for an invitation to replace the body with the machine. 37. Santorio, Methodi, VIII.8, ff. 158r D–158v A: ‘Quod rarum posset esse causa caloris hoc experientia cognoscitur; destruatur rarum et calidum, supponaturque deinde fieri motum aliquem velocissimum; tunc a quo ex Aristotelis sententia pendet calor et raritas? Cui dubium, quod materia ob motum prius fiet rara quam calida? Prius enim rarefiet materia, et deinde exurgit caliditas; accidit quoque, ut a genita caliditate rarefiet materia, et a frigiditate condensentur, et sic a calido rarum quoque fiat; varia igitur consideratione modo raritas, modo caliditas erit prior; quod caliditas sit quoque prior exemplum est lotium turbidum, quod ab igne rarefaciente crassas partes, et mutante particularum minimarum situm reddi potest splendidum, et perspicuum: sed revera, si consideraverimus prima initia caliditatis, semper raritas prius enasci videbitur, quam caliditas; quia prius a motu rarefit materia, deinde incalescit.’ Italics added. 38. Ibid., VIII.7, f. 157v C–D. 39. Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III, col. 37A–B: ‘[T]ransmutationes omnes fieri supposita dispositione materiae, quae disponitur prius a raritate introducta a motu velocissimo, illumque motum provenire a motore, qui est actus et qui est substantia, quod Antiqui non cognoverunt.’ 40. Ibid., III, coll. 33A–36E. A similar discussion is found in Santorio, Methodi, VIII.8, 158v B–C. 41. Santorio, Methodi, VIII.11, f. 160v C. 42. Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III, col. 399 C–E. 43. Ibid., III, coll. 399 A–C: ‘Praeterea probavimus principium materiale omnium accidentium esse materiae primae dimensionem, quae est tanquam natura, et essentia materiae, sed quia non sat est proponere principium materiale omnium passionum nisi proponatur principium effectivum: ideo nos c. 8 disputavimus contra Democritum, et Thessalum qui negabant sub atomis formas delitescere: ostendimusque illas formas esse effectrices, et omnium qualitatum eductrices e principio materiali, quae est materiae trina dimensio, quae re vera efficit octo contarias positionis, undes situs, unde raritas et densitas, et infinita alia, quae deinde simul permista efficiunt occultas qualitates; Neque nos insequimur Democriti opinionem, quae Rudius parum accurate eam percurrens, 8 methodi nostrae vitandorum nobis attribuit. Democritus enim putabat atomos esse incorporeas, et inalterabiles […] negabatque temperaturas et admittebat solum corporum minimorum compositionem. Nos vero et compositiones et temperaturas admittimus: imo nos hac de causa rejecemus Asclepiadem, qui dicebat corpora constare ex corpuscolis incompactis, et inalterabilibus. Praeterea rejecemus Anaxagoram, et Empedoclem, qui […] dicebant prima principia

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esse intransmutabilia […]. Nos cum Aristotele 1 de generatione sustinemus temperaturas ex mistione elementorum consurgere […].’ Italics added. 44. Santorio, Methodi, VIII.8, f. 158v B: ‘nos cum Aristotele admittimus, sub quantiate rara, et densa, et sub aliis situs differentiis formas delitescere, quae sunt substantiae, quaequae a materia emergunt dispositionum opificio [...].’ Italics added. 45. Santorio, Methodi, f. 157vC–D: ‘[S]ubstantia igitur quatenus corporea, octo iis differentiis positionis faciet tam varium situm: a situ orietur raritas, et densitas; a raritate et densitate calidum, et frigidum, durum, molle: ab iis tertia species qualitatis, quae est passio, et passibilis qualitas, et quarta, quae est figura: a tertia et quarta specie oriuntur potentiae, ut a primo ad postremum corpus, vel trina dimensio, quae est ipsamet materia, quaeque causare potes omnes differentias positionis est prima omnium accidentium radix: neque obiciat trinam dimensionem esse accidens; quia cum Philopono sustinebimus corpus, vel trinam dimensionem esse ipsammet materiam primam, quae statim dum terminatur a forma differentias positionis efficit, unde situs, unde raritates, et densitates fiunt, unde calidum, frigidum, humidum, et siccum, unde durum, et molle, passiones, passibiles qualitates, figurae, et demum potentiae, quae ab accidentium serie, per inde ac ab una cathena omnes tam manifestae, quam occultae oriuntur: manifestae fiunt ex paucis alterationibus praecedentibus: occultae ab innumerabilibus pregressis, quae solus Esculapius posset explicare.’ An almost identical passage is found in Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III, col. 34C–D. 46. Santorio, Methodi, VIII.4, f. 154v C: ‘[…] neque demum dentur qualitates occultae, quae collocentur in praedicamento substantiae, et sint substantiae operantes: quod cum ita rationes demonstrativae nobis persuadeant, dicimus quod qualitates, quae in scholis vocantur occultae, debent collocari in praedicamento qualitatis sub secunda specie, et per consequens quartum morborum genus, ad quod Fernelius morbos formae reduxit, esse chimericum, quia omnes laesae potentiae ad tria genera commode referantur, scilicet ad intemperiem, malam compositionem, et solutam sanitatem.’ On the same point, see also Santorio, Commentaria (1612), II, col. 739A– B, III, col. 34E. 47. See Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente, Methodus Anatomica, Ms Chart. A 629, Gotha Research Library, Germany, ff. 222r, 229v–230r. For a discussion of Acquapendente’s Methodus and its implications see Fabrizio Bigotti, “Logic, Geometry, and Visualisation of the Body in Acquapendente’s Rediscovered Methodus Anatomica (1579)”, Medical History, 65/31 (2021), 227–246. The manuscript has been discovered by Michael Stolberg, see Michael Stolberg, “Learning Anatomy in Late Sixteenth-Century Padua”, History of Science, 56/4 (2018), 391–394. 48. On the association of in facto esse with a stable medical indication and quality see Santorio, Commentaria (1612), II, coll. 186D–187B; III, col. 165D.

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49. Santorio, Commentaria (1629), ‘De remediorum inventione’, 2 (after Galen, De methedo medendi, K X, 206, 6–8). 50. Santorio, Commentaria (1625), col. 144A–B. 51. On the dimensiones indeterminatae see Silvia Donati, “The Notion of dimensiones indeterminatae in the Commentary Tradition of the Physics in the Thirteenth and in the Early Fourteenth Century” in Leijenhorst Cees, Christoph Luthy, and Johannes M.M. H. Thijssen (Eds), The Dynamics of Aristotelian Natural Philosophy from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century (Leiden-Boston-Koln, Brill: 2002), 189–192; for Philoponus’ concept of prime matter see Frans J. A. De Haas, John Philoponus’ New Definition of Prime Matter. Aspects of its Background in New Platonism and Ancient Commentary Tradition (Leiden–New York–Koln: Brill, 1997). 52. Samuel Sambursky, The Physical World of Late Antiquity (New York: Basic Books Inc., 1962), 91–92 and De Haas, John Philoponus, 132–164. 53. Santorio, Commentaria (1625), col. 684C: ‘Qua ratione vero semen a calore attollatur et in spiritus convertatur, ex hoc experimento quisque facile intelligent. Si aqua vitae in vasculo A, cui alligata sit flaccida vesica: calefiat vasculum saltem lumine lucernae statim videbit vesicam dilatari, et valde tumidam reddi: unde ex templo intelligent ex una hemina aquae non decem sed longe plures gigni posse. Pari modo in utero a calore vivifico seminis elevantur spiritus, et tres vesiculae efformantur.’ 54. On the identification of digestion as elixation see Santorio, Commentaria (1612), II, coll. 525D–E, 604B, 608D, 610E; III, col. 112D–E. 55. Ibid., III, col. 344E–345C. 56. Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III, coll. 71E–72A. 57. Ibid., II, col. 353A; see also Santorio, Ars (1614), I. 45, p. 7r. 58. On the causal relationship between the occlusion of pores and interstices (meatus) as due to their constriction and laxity and the increase in weight see Santorio, Methodi, III.9, f. 68v D; Santorio, Commentaria (1612), II, col. 331D; Santorio, Ars (1614), I.44, pp.  10r–v; I.48, pp.  11r–v; II.7, pp.  22v–23r; II.8, p.  22r; VI.23, p.  72v; VII.32, pp. 80v–81r; VII.33, pp. 81r–v. 59. Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III, col. 358C–D: ‘I dubitatio non videtur quod de ratione caloris excedentis necessario sequat morsus, ut in texto citato dicit Galenus, quia 5 sectione aphorismorum 20 dicit, frigidum esse ulceribus mordax; quare si frigidum, ergo non calidum efficit mordacitatem. Respondemus cum Galeno citato aphorismo dum dicit, frigidum esse mordax ulceribus, id evenire quia refrigerat nativum calorem, quo refrigerato, prohiberi difflationem insensibilem, illamque retentam efficere dolorem, vel mordacitatem, quare calor excedens per se mordet; frigidum vero per accidens, quatenus obstruit, et difflatione prohibet; vel dicimus cum Galeno 4 de simplicibus medicamentorum capite 2 et in praedicto commento, quae mordacitas a frigore fiat, quia contrahuntur particulae, et

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contractae dividuntur, et continuum solvit, unde consurgit dolor mordicativus.’ 60. Ibid., III, col. 357C–E. 61. On the causal link between suppressed perspiration and the blockage in the pores of the skin see Santorio, Commentaria (1612) II, col. 587D–E; as linked to an increase of weight, III, coll. 71E–72A. 62. Galen, De simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis ac facultatibus IV.2, K XI, 622–623. 63. Santorio, Commentaria (1612), III, col. 345A–C. 64. Ibid., col. 183C. 65. Ibid., coll. 167E–168B. 66. Ibid., coll. 175D–177A.  Furthermore, temperaments are said to result from the composition of partes similares already in Santorio, Methodi, VIII.7, f. 157v A. 67. Ibid., col. 178B. 68. Santorio, Commentaria (1612), II, coll. 352E–353A. 69. On this Fabrizio Bigotti, “The Weight of the Air. Santorio’s Thermometers and the Early History of Medical Quantification Reconsidered”, Journal of Early Modern Studies, 7/1 (2018), 73–103, especially 86–87. 70. Santorio, Methodi, III.2, III.9. 71. Santorio, Ars de statica medicina (Venice: M. A. Brogiolo, 1634), I. 135, p. 19r: ‘Peste inficiuntur facile rarum habentes pulmonem; e contra, qui densum. Rarum habent, si facto maximum inspiratu unicus pulsus ictus fiat quietior.’ 72. Santorio, Methodi, VI.10, f. 134r B–C; see also Jan van Beverwick, De calculo renum vesicae liber singularis (Leiden: House of Elzevier, 1638), 90–91. 73. Santorio, Methodi, VIII.10, ff. 159v C–160r A. 74. Ibid., V.5, f. 105r A–D. 75. Daniel Sennert, De febribus libri IV (Paris: Apud Societatem, 1633), II.2, 64. 76. For instance, Santorio, Methodi (1603), ff. 109rD–109vB: ‘instrumentum pulsilogium invenimus […] quae sine instrumento est prorsus impossibile dimetiri’; Santorio, Commentaria (1625), coll. 21C–22B: ‘usu istius instrumenti [scil. pulsilogii] non quaerimus pulsus notabiles raritatis, vel tarditatis differentias, quas medici memoria tenere possunt: sed illas minimas, quarum differentiae inter unum, et  alterum diem non sunt scibiles. […] Per tale instrumentum […] cognoscimus differentiam inter pulsum humilem, et invalidum: in qua re saepe medici decipiuntur, dum confundunt pulsum humilem cum invalido: differentia est, qui invalidus in febribus non remittit frequentiam: humilis vero remittit, quae remissio, si exigua sit,

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a medicis sine instrumento non percipitur. Et in praedicendo turpiter hallucinantur.’ Italics added. 77. The real function of this instrument can be deduced from what one of Santorio’s pupils states with regard to Santorio’s paracentesis, in the first historical testimony I was able to find about the new method to administer paracentesis, see Bilger, Disputatio, § 72 [page unnambered]: ‘Modum operandi secretiorem se tenere profitetur Sanctorius Sanctorius, medicinae D[octor] et in Academia Patavina professor, praeceptor olim noster maximopere colendus, quae tamen eo usque in secretis habuit, ut licet saepissime et prece et precio a suis sectatoribus fuerit tentatus, hunc tamen nemini aperire voluit. Hic autem ut aliquo modo importunas eorum effugeret instantias, hoc ipsi responsi dedit: se rarefaciendos poros umbilici beneficio cucurbitulae, et postmodum syringam extrahere aquam. Factum tamen est tractu temporis, cum aliquando ipsum in praxi sectarer, ut forte fortuna incideremus in Judeum quendam hydropicum, qui ope medicorum antea usus, attamen frustra. Sanctorius Hipp[ocratis] consilio admonitus, statim ferrum suadet. Nos cum aliis qui eramus huius secreti noscendi cupidi, ab ipso tum temporis discedendum minime utile putabamus. Hic cum tergiversationes videres nostras sua sponte non solum cucurbitis, syringam excepta una exigua canula, per quam aqua efflueret, ostendebat, sed etiam nobis praesentibus hunc suum modum administrabat.’ Italics added. 78. As to the link between pneumatic cupping and the vacuum, see the entry of pneumatic cupping in Santorio, Commentaria (1625), Index instrumentorum: ‘cucurbitulae quae trahunt per vim vacui’. 79. Fabrizio Bigotti and David Taylor, “The Pulsilogium of Santorio. New Light on Technology and Measurement in Early Modern Medicine”, Society and Politics, 11/2 (2017), 53–113, at 62 and 91–92, the latter referring to the edition of Santorio, Commentaria (1626) kept in Padua. 80. On this see Bigotti, “The Weight of the Air”, passim. 81. Owsei Temkin, Galenism. Rise and Decline of a Medical Philosophy (Ithaca, Cornell University Press: 1973), 160. 82. Wear, “Contingency and Logic”, 66: ‘[John] Quincy saw the crucial point: the new technique of weighing insensible perspiration was not used by Sanctorius as a means of arriving at a new theory of medicine. Sanctorius remained in the context of the old world. The opinion of Quincy is the more worthwhile as he is an advocate of the theory which came next and which replaced Sanctorius’ (at least in principle). Quincy saw that the application of quantitative techniques did not imply a quantitative theory—an error which has been made by some modern historians. As in the case of the anatomists so with the Statica, the emphasis on exact observation of the phenomena does not mean that the explanatory basis of the appearances is affected. The appearance of induction may be there, but is only a phantasm of the future.’

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Open Access  This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

CHAPTER 3

The Uncertainty of Medicine: Readings and Reactions to Santorio Between Tradition and Reformation (1615–1721) Fabiola Zurlini

Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Santorio’s masterwork, Medicina statica (Venice, 1614), saw countless editions and translations all over Europe, many of which were commented by some of the most celebrated physicians of the time, including Martin Lister (1639–1712), Giorgio Baglivi (1668–1707) and Johannes De Gorter (1689–1762).1 As predicted by Santorio, however, the book also met with criticisms.2 One year after the first edition had appeared, Ippolito Obizzi (fl. 1605–1612), a physician and astrologer from Ferrara, came forth with a violent attack on Santorio’s work, titled Staticomastix sive Staticae medicinae demolitio (‘“Statical-scourge” or a Demolition of Medical Statics’) which sought to undermine the very foundation of the new medical approach (Fig. 3.1). Santorio’s first reply came in 1625, without the

F. Zurlini (*) Studio Firmano for the History of Medicine and Science, Fermo, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Barry, F. Bigotti (eds.), Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614–1790, Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79587-0_3

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Fig. 3.1  Ippolito Obizzi, Staticomastix (Ferrara 1615). Biblioteca Civica “Romolo Spezioli”, Fermo. (Copy annotated by the physician Romolo Spezioli)

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name of his critical opponent being mentioned, and was then played out in the short and dry Responsio ad Staticomasticem (‘A Reply to the “Statical-scourge”) which consisted in a few aphorisms added as the eighth section of the second and definitive edition of the Medicina statica (Venice 1634). Obizzi’s ‘scourge’ was divided into three dialogues featuring three actors: the ‘Galenic Art’ (Ars Galenica), the ‘Medical Statics’ (Medicina Statica) and a ‘Master Robert’ (Magister Robertus), a pseudonym likely disguising Obizzi himself. The first dialogue sets the stage of the contention to which the second  adds a point by point criticism of Medicina statica’s central aphorisms with the third dialogue charging Santorio with plagiarism of Nicholas of Cusa’s (1401–1464) Idiota.

1   The Philosophical and Cultural Backdrop of Obizzi’s Polemic Much as Santorio had carefully tried to disguise the novelty of his methods as a continuation of Galen’s, physicians like Obizzi recognised in them an open attempt at replacing and subverting tradition’s very foundations. Obizzi’s  stance must be evaluated against the early seventeenth-century intellectual and social backdrop that saw the progressive marginalisation of Galenic medicine along with the acknowledgement, proper to Santorio and to some of his most talented colleagues in Padua, that the advancement of anatomical and physiological knowledge did not result in any significant progress for diagnosis: therapeutic remedies were outdated and useless, in some cases even lethal, as Leonardo di Capua will later outline.3 Over and above, learned physicians faced the constant threat of quacks and medical practitioners whose remedies promised miraculous cures at very affordable costs.4 Other kinds of threats came from Paracelsian iatrochemistry, which had introduced the use of internal or chemical remedies which, while substantially altering the Galenic pharmacopoeia through the addition of minerals, contradicted squarely the theoretical grounds of a century-old practice, when not being fatal to the patients. These elements amounted to nothing less than a perceived collapse in the ability of the traditional rationale to face the new challenges by renewing its very methods. Santorio’s quest for certainty in medicine, begun in 1603 with the Methodi vitandorum errorum qui in arte medica contingunt Libri XV, promised to take on the challenge on behalf of Galenic medicine in defence of the traditional rationale but ended up introducing ‘novelties’, in the

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form of instruments and theories, that undermined the classical claim of medicine to rely on the physician’s senses and ability to interface with the patient. When the Medicina statica came out in 1614, it immediately appeared as the manifesto of a new way to practice medicine, one which, while formally paying respect to the Galenic rationale, sowed the seeds for its final demise. In Santorio’s approach the functions of the body could now be measured, thus introducing the instrument as an unavoidable mediator between patient and physician and so replacing the personal, immediate, but uncertain relation between patient and physician with the certain, but impersonal and mediated diagnosis involving instruments. Above all the new methods required to constrain the everyday habits of an individual (dietary and otherwise) within precise quantitative parameters. It was the beginning of a medical revolution whose outcome would come into full bloom only centuries later but it turned nineteenth-century medicine into an autocratic decision made by the doctor on the behalf of his patient. In any case, it was a turn that Obizzi and the mass of Galenic physicians were not too keen to embrace. As we shall see, most of Obizzi’s criticisms reflect the viewpoint of a general practitioner who is sceptical of Santorio’s innovations because, while requiring long-running experimental commitments, they seemed to have no immediate benefits for everyday practice.

2   Obizzi’s Motifs and Arguments in the ‘Staticomastix’ The reasons behind Obizzi’s attack were many: personal animosity, professional envy and traditionalism did play a role, but the work also contains some significant criticisms that Santorio’s detractors did not fail to note and to adopt in their critical reappraisals, particularly those of Leonardo Di Capua (1617–1695), Thomas Secker (1693–1768) and Kurt Sprengel (1766–1833). As to personal animosity, Obizzi and Santorio were polar opposites in character and status: if the latter was a medical celebrity acquainted with and protected by the upper echelons of the Venetian aristocracy as early as 1580, the former was a local and a rather obscure physician concerned with judicial astrology, a discipline Santorio openly scorned and endeavoured to discredit both in teachings and in experiments. As for professional envy, Obizzi struggled to be accepted into that ‘Collegio dei Medici

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Fisici di Venezia’ (‘Medical College of Venetian Physicians’) wherein Santorio was admitted ad honorem in 1611, following his appointment to the highest chair of medicine at the University of Padua. Interestingly, Obizzi’s Staticomastix is peppered by piquant biographical sketches adding colours to Santorio’s otherwise fading outlines. At times, Obizzi provides us with useful information as to the way statical experiments were carried out, requiring the assistance of Santorio’s friend Girolamo Tebaldi da Oderzo (1575–1641). But he also ridicules such experiments for being concerned with the quantification of what he calls ‘shitty matters’.5 He labels doctors involved in such trials as ‘shitty doctors’6 and eventually charges Santorio with impiety for failing to notice that religious people cannot recur to sexual intercourse in order to re-­ balance their superabundant humours.7 And yet, it is probably the defence of traditional Galenic medicine which we ought to turn to in order to grasp the motivations behind Obizzi’s polemic.8 Obizzi proposes four main arguments against Santorio. The first and most important is that perspiration being of two kinds, useless and useful, its measurement on the scale cannot provide a certain therapeutic indication as to the patient’s health.9 The body balance, in fact, could be restored artificially, by the perspiring matter which is useful to the body, thus making medical statics unable to grant an objective indication of the patient’s health. Over and above, Obizzi remarks that people who get fat or slender do not necessarily fall sick, which seems to undermine Santorio’s argument that a decreased perspiration in normal conditions points to the onset of a latent disease.10 The second argument Obizzi employs is that the specific quality of the aliments does have an effect on the body depending on the different disposition, age and sex of the individual. As a consequence, the same aliments do not always cause the body to gain or lose a predetermined weight.11 Hence Santorio should have declared the age and type of his experimental subjects.12 The third argument consists in asking for clarification as to the methods adopted by Santorio and their precision, for Obizzi is quite sceptical of the possibility of finding a scale so precise as to measure a half-pound (selibra) of halitus perspired from the mouth.13 The fourth and last argument consists in undermining Santorio’s claim of originality. Obizzi contends that Santorio’s aphorisms are either quotations from Galen’s De sanitate tuenda or direct plagiarism of Cusa’s

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statical trials in the dialogue  Idiota (1450). When diverging from both accounts, Santorio’s methods are simply uncertain and useless.14 The charge of plagiarism is in fact disputable, for it entails that Santorio knew Cusa’s work directly while he does not only deny any borrowing from it in his first reply to Obizzi (1625)15 but is silent on the issue in the Responsio (1634).16 As highlighted by Giuseppe Ongaro, Santorio is likely to have become aware of Cusa’s work through the very reference Obizzi had made to it.17 In any case, the differences between Santorio’s and Cusa’s approach on a philosophical level are too great to be overlooked, undermining any claims of direct borrowing.18 As opposed to Santorio’s programme of quantification in medicine, which—as shown by Fabrizio Bigotti in this book—is granted in re by means of a new theory of qualities and new logical instruments, Cusa’s appreciation of the quantitative methodology and instrumentation was limited to the description of phenomena. Although for Cusa mathematics does provide the most reliable source of knowledge, it cannot be applied directly to reality in that he claims that our understanding of nature and the body can never be truly certain but is always conjectural and approximate.19 These motifs feature prominently in Santorio’s Responsio ad Staticomasticen (1634, Figure 3.2).20 His replies, divided into 18 aphorisms, are bitter but also somewhat elegant. While Santorio addresses Obizzi as fatuus (fool), trico (mischief-maker), vesanus (insane) and vecors (idiot) he then dismisses all his opponent’s arguments briefly and in moderate tones. Santorio’s main argument is stated in aphorism IX, where he establishes a clear difference between the objective measurement provided by the instrument (esse laevem ad stateram) and the subjective feeling of the patient (se sentire laeviorem) which can be mutually inconsistent.21 He then further remarks that Obizzi himself realises the utility of medical statics, for he acknowledges that there occurs a different  weight change in normal and pathological body conditions, but he is not able to quantify it. Indeed, this weight (pondus) must be evaluated not by relying on the figment of someone’s imagination (imaginatione) but mathematically (mensura).22 As such, it makes no sense for Obizzi to dismiss Santorio’s experiments and methods on the grounds that they were unknown to Galen, for Santorio replies that his instruments are nonetheless of great utility in medical practice.23 In this sense, Santorio underlines that Obizzi

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Fig. 3.2  Santorio’s 1634 edition of Ars de statica medicina containing his reply to Obizzi’s Staticomastix (De responsione ad Staticomostacen)

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dismisses Medicina statica without grounding his judgement on any experiments and thus ends up making unwarranted assumptions. Santorio’s short Responsio sets out the line along which his later followers and critics will divide, the former committed to updating and refining his experiments, the latter taking an a priori stance against the very possibility for medicine to be scientific.

3   Leonardo Di Capua: Uncertainty as Intrinsic to Medical Practice Belonging to the latter party, and especially concerned with the possibility of using Santorio’s medical statics as a sort of panacea enabling physicians to deduce mathematically the onset of all morbid conditions, is Leonardo Di Capua’s Parere … sull’Origine e Progresso della Medicina (Naples 1681).24 Articulated in eight ‘arguments’ (ragionamenti) aiming at stressing the epistemic uncertainty of medicine, Capua’s work illustrated the uncertainty of medical practice as revealed by the death of the favourite of the Naples viceroy, caused by the royal physician Antonio Cappella. According to Capua, Cappella had caused the death of his patient by failing to use a medical preparation based on antimony. The case inflamed a debate between traditionalists and innovators on the use of the new chemical or ‘internal’ remedies.25 Di Capua’s main point consists in highlighting the essentially uncertain nature of medicine in that the discipline at its very core is just an attempt at bridging the philosophical gap between the empirical knowledge of the effects (i.e. symptoms) and the deductive knowledge of the causes of diseases, which has no sound rational foundation. According to Di Capua, however, this very limit becomes an advantage point for physicians  because  it turns into a stimulus to improve medical practice as well as to accept and develop new theories, ultimately hinting to a notion of science as a body of knowledge in constant progress. Medical training must therefore incorporate recent discoveries.26 Thus, in the second argument of his Parere, Di Capua outlines a brief history of medicine as progress achieved through the open criticism of tradition. Santorio fits well in this sketch as a modern and yet controversial author.27 On the one hand, Di Capua praises Santorio as one of the key figures in modern medicine for his independence of mind and his capacity of putting experientia before auctoritas. On the other hand, however,  he accuses

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Santorio of oddly mixing together theories he had borrowed from Galileo and Sarpi with others of his own making. Most notably, Di Capua points to the fact that some prudent readers had already noted this aspect of Santorio’s Medicina statica, which must be read as a veiled reference to Obizzi’s Staticomastix. Like Obizzi, Di Capua regards Santorio’s work as an unoriginal synthesis of themes and insights that he borrowed from others in order to convert medicine into a form of mathematics (Santorio calls his medical statics a mathematica medica28), an approach that risked conveying an image of medicine as dogmatic and reassuring while  in fact grounded on false premises. As was the case in Obizzi, medical practice represented the pivotal point of Di Capua’s criticisms. Uncertainty required medical practice to progress towards new forms of experimentation and new achievements while warning physicians to constantly check abstract theories against the concrete cases met at the bedside.29 Contrary to this basic stance, Santorio had solved the conjectural nature of medicine by asking physicians to mediate their empirical knowledge through a series of precision instruments (from the weighing chair to the thermometer, through the pulsilogium, the anemometer and the hygrometer) that had converted medicine into an apodictic form of knowledge. While Santorio’s methods could serve a variety of different purposes, they were nevertheless threatening the very possibility for physicians to experiment with and apply new drugs and cures by ushering them into a false sense of security: a consideration that sets Di Capua’s stance very far from Obizzi’s traditionalism.

4   Santorio in England: Popular and Learned Criticisms The institutionalisation of Santorio’s Medicina statica as an all-embracing method along with its being an indispensable manual of medical practice meant that its import spread rapidly beyond the circles of the medical elite, where open criticism was less sophisticated but probably more genuine. As Lucia Dacome has shown, the popularisation process was helped along by the widespread association of Santorio’s image with that of a weight-watching man.30 It solidified the sense of medical statics being an unwanted and unnecessary intrusion of an abstruse medicine into the everyday life of the dynamic bourgeois English middle-class. Hostility towards Santorio’s weight-watching approach became public in 1711 in a

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letter written by a supposed correspondent named Valetudinarians published as number 25  in the Spectator,31 the periodical edited by Joseph Addison (1672–1719). This portrayed the caustic irony of a man who had spent three years living on the Sanctorian chair, without getting any observable results. On the contrary, the practice had turned into an obsession with the paradoxical result of making him more obese and depressed. The letter thus ended with a request for more certain rules to be followed in order to conduct a healthy diet. This solicited a humorous reply from the Spectator, mocking the practice of living in a chair as unnatural and eventually altering the natural cycle of hunger and thirst proper to each individual.32 While English reactions to Santorio were mostly positive, if not openly celebratory, scepticism regarding the unwarranted adoption of Santorio’s method in medical practice was well synthesised by the English archbishop and physician Thomas Secker (1693–1768). Secker studied medicine in Leiden under Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738) where he graduated with a thesis on insensible perspiration titled Disputatio medica inauguralis de medicina statica (Leiden, 1721).33 Given Boerhaave’s sincere admiration for Santorio,34 it is remarkable that Secker ended up disputing the latter’s authority and challenging the theory of insensible perspiration as a whole. Secker’s Disputatio does have a theological background. As Robert G. Ingram has clarified, Secker’s study of the insensible perspiration codified somewhat a theological position that became mainstream at the turn of the eighteenth century, the resurrection of the dead.35 Around the same period, the question was keeping busy Leibniz who also turned to Santorio’s Medicina statica as a means to grant the rather theoretical possibility for the dead to come back to life by restoring the lost amount of spirits and blood. In keeping with this trend, Secker’s thesis seems to reflect the influence of the circle of the Tory Newtonians—particularly James Keill—who envisaged Newton’s natural philosophy as an account of how God had dispensed his providence in the world.36 Grounded in such theological and moral preoccupations, Secker’s interest in Santorio’s insensible perspiration aimed at laying bare the uncertainties and experimental imprecision that threatened to undermine the reliability of medical statics as a scientific method. The accuracy with which Secker evaluates Santorio’s aphorisms is coupled by an equal philological strictness in scrutinising the commentaries that Martin Lister and John Quincy had devoted to them. In so doing Secker is probably the first author in the Sanctorian tradition to provide a critical evaluation of Santorio’s fortune amongst his eighteenth-century commentators.37 Secker’s critical evaluation of

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Santorio’s commentators reached its peak against the apothecary John Quincy,38 who had translated Santorio’s work into English in 1712. Secker criticises him for his lack of medical training which made him unfit to write a commentary on such a complex medical work as the Medicina statica. Over and above, Secker criticised Quincy for overestimating the power of mechanical explanations in medicine.39 Eventually, he accuses both Lister and Quincy of failing to shed light on Santorio’s most obscure passages,40 all of which are affected by one fundamental weakness: the lack of tabulated data. Indeed, the lack of Santorio’s tabulated data, although common in the early seventeenth century, represented a real weakness of his method for those of his followers who sought to replicate his experiments on independent grounds.41 Most notably, Secker highlights that Santorio did not record the circumstances within which his experiments took place, failing in particular to articulate the results in experiments, hypotheses and corollaries. This in turn made it impossible to distinguish what Santorio had obtained through experiments from what he had gathered from hypotheses and the use of ancient authorities.42 Ultimately, Secker seems to share Obizzi’s evaluation of Santorio’s specious usage of medical sources for neither does Santorio acknowledge his predecessors—especially Galen’s doctrine of perspiration—nor his contemporaries, whose observations he benefited from. Comparatively, Secker underlines the usefulness of providing statical experiments with tabulated data divided in days, position of the moon, temperature and atmospheric pressure and measurements in the way James Keill (1673–1719) had done in his Medicina statica Britannica (1718),43 hence allowing his readers to verify the empirical grounds of the work.44

5   Conclusions This last instance provides us with a clue as to the common thread that motivates the three forms of criticism that have been presented thus far. Be it for the sake of defending traditionalism (Obizzi), empiricism and innovation (Di Capua), or theological preoccupations (Secker) Santorio’s Medicina statica had become a landmark in natural philosophy, providing theologians, physicians and philosophers with an experimental ground to test different sets of ideas. To be reliable, however, this landmark had to be precise; a quality Santorio’s short aphorisms certainly do not shine for. If in Obizzi’s case, this was a sufficient reason to dismiss the entire attempt

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at creating a medicine more geometrico demonstrata as useless; for others, like Di Capua and Secker, it meant that a clear demonstration of the new experimental practices was either impossible or still to be found by other means. For all of them, in any case, the request for precision represented a way to exorcise a practice of daily measurement that, begun with the purpose of helping men to live well and healthy, ended up demanding a complete allegiance to its standards shaping the everyday habit of an individual, thus contributing to feeding the ongoing debate on the role and utility of adopting physical instruments in medicine. Last but not least, it should be noticed how, in the aftermath of the English revolution—and almost certainly in the case of the Valetudinarians in the Spectator—the dispute over Santorio’s Medicina statica could easily assume the tone of a contrast between the authoritarian a priori knowledge obtained by the physician-monarch through the use of coercive instruments, and the empirical and freer approach to the body judged and mediated by the personal experience of the patient. Not too surprisingly, the cultural and social implications of such a debate will keep dominating the intellectual life of eighteenth-century medicine eventually surviving the very demise of Sanctorian practice, to continue, in different forms, still nowadays.

Notes 1. Giuseppe Ongaro, “Introduzione” in Santorio Santorio, La medicina statica, edited by Giuseppe Ongaro (Florence: Giunti 2001), 44–45. For a list of Santorio’s editions in the period 1614–1790 see Elisabetta Stella Ettari and Marco Procopio, Santorio Santorio. La Vita e le Opere (Rome: Istituto Nazionale della Nutrizione, 1968), 70–73. 2. Lucia  Dacome, “Balancing Acts: Picturing Perspiration in the Long Eighteenth Century,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 43 (2012), 379. See also Ongaro, “Introduzione”, 50. 3. See n. 24. 4. Simone  Mammola, La ragione e l’incertezza, Filosofia e medicina nella prima età moderna, (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2012), 267–269. 5. Ippolito Obizzi, Staticomastix sive Staticae medicinae demolitio (Ferrara: V. Baldino), Oppositio XXV, 35. 6. Ibid., Oppositio 59 [sic]. 7. Ibid., Oppositio 67 [sic], 68–69. 8. In the Iatrastronomicon Obizzi addressed an Epistola to Santorio listing all the mistakes contained in Santorio’s Methodi vitandorum errorum … libri XV: an incorrect quote of Ptolemy’s works due to scarce astronomical

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knowledge and incompetence in translating from the original Latin sources, including a misinterpretation of Galen’s text and the incorrect use of the Aristotelian syllogism. See Obizzi, Iatrastronomicon varios tractatos medicos et astronomico (Vicenza: Giacomo Violati, 1618), treatise n. 9, Responsa ad singula capita disputationis eiusdem Bernardini Gaij de vesicantibus ad eundem Bernardinum scripta, especially Epistola to Santorio, 26. 9. Obizzi, Staticomastix, 9: ‘Quomodo noveris, quidquid deperitum, additum esse? Cum nescias, quantum eorum, quae secundum naturam sunt, defluxerit, cum una his, quae prater naturam sunt, mista perspirent?’ 10. Ibid. Oppositio IX, 30. 11. Ibid. Oppositio I, 8. 12. Ibid. 26; Oppositio XVI, 34; Oppositio 64 [sic],  65: ‘multa dicit, nihil probat Sanctorius, o Statica’. 13. Ibid., Oppositio V, 28. 14. Ibid., Oppositio LXIX, 71. 15. See  Santorio Santori, Commentaria in primam Fen primi libri Canonis Avicennae, (Venice: G. Sarzina, 1625), col. 81: ‘... veluti dum protulit nostram staticam a staticis experimentis Cardinalis Cusani fuisse desumptam, a quibus, ut omnes videre possunt, nec verbulum desumptum est: numquam enim Cusanis aegit de ponderatione insensibilis perspirationis humani corporis, de qua sunt omnes nostri aphorismi’. 16. Santorio Santori, Ars Sanctorii Sanctorii olim in Patauino Gymnasio medicina theoricam ordinarium primo loco profitentis de statica medicina et de responsione ad staticomasticem, (Venice: M. A. Brogiollo, 1634). 17. The circulation of Cusa’s works seems to be very limited and still unclear, especially in Italy between the second half of the sixteenth century and the first decades of the seventeenth century. It is highly probable that Santorio had never actually read Cusa’s works; see Ongaro, “Introduzione”, 42. 18. See the recent Samuel G.  Burton,  Joshua Hollman and Eric M.  Parker (eds.), Nicholas of Cusa and the Making of the Early Modern World, (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 2–4. 19. On this see  Tamara Albertini, “Mathematics and Astronomy”, in  Christopher M.  Bellitto, Thomas M. Ibicki and Gerald Christianson (eds.),  Introducing Nicholas of Cusa a Guide to a Renaissance Man, (Mahwah: New Jersey, Paulist Press, 2004), 374–375. 20. Santorio, Medicina statica (1634), cc. 69r–71v. 21. Ibid., Aphorism IX, c. 70r. 22. Ivi, Aph. X, c. 70v: ‘Corporis pondus mensura dignoscimus, non imaginatione...’. 23. Ivi, Aph. XII, c. 70v.

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24. Leonardo di Capua, Parere divisato in otto ragionamenti ne ‘quali … narrandosi l’origine, e il progresso della medicina … l’incertezza della medesima si fa manifesta, (Naples: per A. Bulifon, 1681). 25. Di Capua collected in his work many of the matters discussed during the meetings of the Academy of Investigators which he founded in 1650  in Naples along with Tommaso Cornelio. Di Capua’s book became the most relevant scientific testimony to the controversy between the traditional culture and the Academy, which was mainly fought within printed books. 26. Mammola, La ragione, (2012), 324–330. See also Salvatore Serrapica, Per una teoria dell’incertezza tra filosofia e medicina: studio su Leonardo di Capua (1617–1695), (Naples: Liguori, 2003). 27. Di Capua, Parere, 64–65. 28. Letter by  Santorio Santori  to  Senatore Settala (27 December  1625), National Archive of Milan, Autografi Medici, folder 218, c. 1r. 29. See Mammola, La ragione, 328. 30. See Dacome, “Balancing Acts”, 380. 31. The Spectator, 29th March 1711. See the online copy https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-­h/SV1/Spectator1.html#section24. 32. Marcello Boldrini, “Spectator contro Santorio”, Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali, 8 (1945), fasc. 2., March 1937, 203–206. 33. Thomas Secker, Disputatio medica inauguralis de medica statica, (Leiden: Henricum Mulhovium, 1721). The thesis was never published in English. The work was not included by Beilby Porteus in his A Review of the Life and the Character of the Rev. Thomas Secker, (London, 1797). See John Morgan Guy, “Thomas Secker M.D.: archbishop and man-­midwife” Journal of Medical Biography, 26/2 (2018), 102–110. 34. See Ongaro, “Introduzione”, 45. Another student of Boerhaave Johannes de Gorter published De perspiratione insensibili Sanctoriana-Batava, (Leiden: J. van Der Aa, 1725). De Gorter proclaimed the usefulness of the perspiratio insensibilis in medical practice — De usu insensibilis perspirationis in medicina, chapter 1.— to facilitate the knowledge and treatment of the diseases. On this see Ruben E. Verwaal, “Disputing Santorio: Johannes de Gorter’s Neurological Theory of Insensible Perspiration” in the present volume. 35. Robert G.  Ingram, Religion, Reform and Modernity in the Eighteenth Century: Thomas Secker and the Church of England, (Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer ltd, 2007), 40–42. See also Lucia Dacome “Resurrecting by Numbers in Eighteenth-Century England”, Past & Present, 193, 1 (2006), 73–110. 36. Anita Guerrini, “Newtonianism, Medicine and Religion”, in Religio Medici: Medicine and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England edited by Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham  (Aldershot: Scholar Press, 1996), 294.

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37. John Morgan Guy, “De Medicina Statica. Archbishop Thomas Secker, a Forgotten English Iatromechanist”, Histoire des sciences médicales, 17 (Spec 2) (1982), 134–137. Guy stated correctly that Secker was not the first critic of Santorio but I am inclined to think that he could rightly be named as the first reviewer of criticisms about Santorio. 38. John Quincy, Medicina Statica: Being the Aphorisms of Sanctorius, Translated into English with Large Explanations, (London: William Newton, 1712). See also Dacome, “Balancing Acts”, 383. 39. Secker, Disputatio, 25. 40. Ibid., 25. 41. In France Denis Dodart, in England James Keill, in Scotland Francis Home, George Rye in Ireland. See Dacome, “Balancing Acts”, 384–385. 42. Secker, Disputatio, 14. 43. James Keill, Tentamina medico-physica... quibus accessit Medicina statica Britannica (London: G. Strahan & W. & J. Innys, 1718). 44. Secker, Disputatio, 27.

CHAPTER 4

Daniel Sennert’s Response to Santorio Santori in the Light of Chymical Atomism William R. Newman

1   Atomism and Occult Qualities A few months before his death of the plague in 1637, the mild-mannered author of a famous attempt to unify the best parts of Aristotelianism, Galenic medicine, and chymistry uttered the following intemperate words: What happens to those who try to reduce everything to the manifest qualities, namely as Galen says in book 1, chapter 14 of On the Natural Faculties— that they either produce ridiculous and inept reasons or else deny things that are obviously true—has also happened to Santorio Santori when he tries to reduce hidden and occult qualities back to manifest ones in book 8 of his Methodus vitandorum in medicina errorum.1

This paragraph is found among Daniel Sennert’s last words, the extensive Paralipomena published posthumously by his heirs in 1642, which

W. R. Newman (*) Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Barry, F. Bigotti (eds.), Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614–1790, Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79587-0_4

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contains, among other things, additions to the last of Sennert’s texts on natural philosophy, the Hypomnemata physica of 1636. Sennert is well known today for his self-professed adoption of Democritean atomism in 1619, and for his influential attempts to prove the reality of robust atoms making up seemingly homogeneous mixtures by means of experiment. A significant part of Robert Boyle’s corpuscular philosophy is built on the earlier efforts of Sennert, and, through Boyle’s work as well as his own, Sennert had a major impact on the course of matter theory throughout the seventeenth century.2 It is prima facie striking, then, to encounter Sennert’s brash repudiation of Santorio in the Paralipomena. After all, as Fabrizio Bigotti has recently pointed out, Santorio himself had strong corpuscularian sympathies.3 How is it that these two novatores suddenly appeared to be at loggerheads despite their mutual rewriting of the perfect mixture expressed in Book 1 of Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione in favor of the Abderite and his atoms? The question raises greater issues in the context of the mechanical philosophy as it developed after the respective deaths of Santorio and Sennert in 1636 and 1637. The latter date of course coincides with the publication of Descartes’ Discourse on Method and Meteorology, texts that announced to the world the advent of Cartesian matter theory. What would Sennert have made of the radically reductionist program of Descartes with its attempt to derive all phenomenal qualities from matter and motion? Sennert’s response to Santorio gives us a powerful hint of what the Wittenberg professor’s reaction might have been. And as I will argue, it also helps to elucidate a tradition of atomism distinct from the Cartesian mechanical philosophy that stemmed from different roots and ran on parallel tracks. I refer to the loose school that I call “chymical atomism,” a tradition that finds its origin not in the mathematicizing tendencies of the seventeenth century, but in the fusion of empirical data taken from chemical processes with theoretical knowledge, largely drawn from book four of Aristotle’s Meteorology, that characterized the scholastic alchemy of the Middle Ages. Although there were no doubt Arabic antecedents as well, chymical atomism can be clearly traced back to the High Middle Ages in Europe. The principal exponent of this tradition in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was the Summa perfectionis ascribed to “Geber,” that is, Jābir ibn Ḥ ayyān, but actually written by an occidental author around the end of the thirteenth century. The Summa perfectionis builds on the theories of Meteorology 3 and 4 to argue that the metals are composed of corpuscles

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of sulfur and mercury and that these two principles are in turn made up of the four elements agglomerated together in what he calls a fortissima compositio, that is, “a very strong juxtaposition.” Moreover, the Summa uses analysis by sublimation to demonstrate that mercury and sulfur are not decomposed by simple heating and vaporization. In a closed container, quicksilver and sulfur will sublime intact, neither burning nor oxidizing. Hence to Geber their robust corpuscles retain their full being and substantial identity within minerals and can be extracted and replaced for the purpose of improving a particular metal. It is for this reason that I employ the expression “atomism” rather than Kurd Lasswitz’s term “corpuscularism.”4 Chymical atoms were operationally indivisible, atomos, even though they did not share the a priori, absolute indivisibility of classical atomism. These features of the Summa perfectionis, namely the assertion of robust particles that defy decomposition into simpler components by the most powerful tools of the laboratory and which underlie seeming mixtures, and the use of laboratory-based analytical methods in support of that claim, are fundamental features of what I am calling chymical atomism. Over time, these claims would grow into an explicit reliance on what historians of chemistry have named “the negative-empirical principle,” according to which a substance is viewed as elementary if it cannot be decomposed by the tools of the chymist.5 Sennert himself would justify his belief in the primordial status of the Paracelsian principles mercury, sulfur, and salt, by invoking the negative-empirical principle in the following words: [A]rt can hardly progress further [than these] in the resolution of natural things, nor perhaps may even nature proceed, who when she constitutes something as a mixt, constitutes it from these first mixed materials (prima mixta) rather than immediately from the ultimate simples.6

A primum mixtum, then, was a substance presumed to be composed of the four elements: in practice, however, it could not be decompounded to reveal its putative composition. Not only was the “art” of chymical analysis incapable of performing such a reduction, but nature itself might well find this task to be impossible. Hence one could treat the various prima mixta as undecomposable and even homoeomerous from a practical point of view, even if Aristotelian philosophy required that they be made up in principle of the four elements.7 Sennert’s Hypomnemata physica builds on his assertion of operational indivisibility in the following terms:

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For there are atoms of another genus beyond the elementary (if anyone wishes to call them prima mixta, let him do so), into which other composite bodies are resolved as their homoeomerous components. And to be sure in the mixture of natural things, or that which takes place in non-living things, the bodies from which the mixts are composed are so broken up and divided into tiny particles that no one of them can be perceived separately and by itself. Also in all fermentations, digestions, and coctions which are carried out either by nature or art, nothing else takes place other than the fact that they are reduced to minima and very tightly united to one another. The resolution of natural bodies, on the other hand, both that which is performed by art and that which is done by nature, is nothing other than a division into minimal bodies.8

Sennert’s point is that his “atoms of another genus” rather than the Aristotelian elements are the immediate building blocks of nature and that chymical analysis reveals these atomic prima mixta rather than the Peripatetic quaternity of fire, air, water, and earth. From this he deduces that both the artificial processes of the laboratory and those employed by nature itself rely on the decompounding of macro-level bodies to the level of the minimal prima mixta and also on the recompounding of larger bodies from these operational building blocks. Sennert’s reference here to two contrasting processes, the tight bonding by which his atoms are joined together (arctissime uniantur) and the resolution (resolutio) that separates them from one another, reflects the increasing importance of synthesis and analysis in seventeenth-century chymistry. The German chymist’s confidence derived in part from his own experimentation with metals dissolved in strong acids, which he would then reclaim by adding a base that would cause the metal to precipitate. The example of silver dissolved out of electrum by nitric acid is particularly prominent in his work, since the silver carbonate that precipitates upon addition of salt of tartar (potassium carbonate) can be reduced to metallic silver by mere heating.9 This was an example of what Sennert called a “reduction to the pristine state,” where the silver, despite the assault of a powerful corrosive agency that made it disappear altogether in the solution, remained intact in the form of unaltered atoms. The tradition of chymical atomism came to rely increasingly on such demonstrative use of paired synthesis and analysis over the course of the seventeenth century. Robert Boyle, for example, borrowed Sennert’s reduction to the pristine state of silver to show that the ingredients of many inorganic chemical

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compounds can be associated and dissociated without undergoing fundamental change. Boyle famously described reductions to the pristine state involving metals such as mercury, gold, and silver that were first reacted with another agent, often a strong acid, and then reduced to their original form. The same sequence could also be produced with certain non-­ metallic materials, such as camphor, which Boyle first dissolved in sulfuric acid and then recaptured by adding water to the transparent solution.10 The point of all these experiments was the same one that Sennert had earlier stressed, namely that the seemingly radical changes brought on by what we would today call chemical reactions involved mere juxtaposition and bonding of unaltered corpuscles, which could then be reseparated and regained intact. Beyond these pervasive characteristics of chymical atomism one must also mention at least one feature that is striking by its absence. I refer to the use of structural explanation based on the putative shape of invisibly small corpuscles. Alchemical thinkers ranging from Geber through pseudo-Arnald of Villanova and pseudo-Ramon Lull often use the sizes of particles and pores to explain a variety of macro-level phenomena.11 The ability of some materials to sublime, for example, is frequently linked to their being composed of subtiles partes—small particles—while fixed materials are usually said to consist of grossae partes—large particles.12 Yet the number of references that one finds in these authors to the shapes of these corpuscles is vanishingly small: seldom indeed does one encounter an alchemical author who speaks of the whirligigs, hooks and eyes, and other microstructural machines of the Cartesian tradition. In a word, elaborate structural explanations do not play the major explanatory role for chymical atomism that they do in the mechanical philosophy of the seventeenth century, though neither are they absent. There was less need of them in chymical atomism, since the invisibly small corpuscles of this tradition were assumed to retain their own substance and properties at the micro-­ level rather than undergoing a reduction to Lockean primary qualities. The chymical atomism stemming from medieval alchemy is one of the principal traditions from which Daniel Sennert drew his own atomistic ideas, as shown not only by his De chymicorum cum Aristotelicis et Galenicis consensu ac dissensu of 1619, but also by his 1611 Institutiones medicinae, where corpuscular explanations from Geber are used to explain laboratory operations and chemical reactions.13 In De chymicorum and other post-1619 works, Sennert explicitly invokes the negative-empirical principle and uses it in conjunction with the reduction to the pristine state to

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demonstrate that the supposed perfect mixtures of Thomistic Aristotelianism are actually composites of juxtaposed atoms.14 Given the unequivocal advocacy of atomism upheld by Sennert from 1619 onward, one might therefore expect that the Wittenberg professor would have seen Santorio as an ally rather than casting him as a purveyor of “ridiculous and inept reasons.” Why then does Sennert denounce his Paduan counterpart and what, if anything, does the former’s hostility have to do with his atomism? The fact is that Sennert’s affirmation of occult qualities and his atomism are closely intertwined. Already in De chymicorum Sennert argues that material atoms are endowed with irreducible substantial forms that account for their essential characteristics. God has imposed substantial forms on bodies mixed together from the four elements: the substantial form of the mixt is not a property emerging from the elements themselves. All qualities beyond the four elemental qualitates manifestae of the scholastics, hot, cold, wet, and dry and the so-called tactile qualities such as hardness and softness flow directly from the substantial form of the mixt. The role of the substantial form in producing qualities is not limited to occult qualities, of course, but includes any sensible characteristics that cannot be derived from the four Aristotelian primaries, including characteristics like taste and color. Yet Sennert’s atoms also perform operations that are inaccessible to the senses, depending rather on formal qualities that are occult. Thus in the 1629 edition of De chymicorum he explains the fact that the Paracelsian principles mercury and sulfur cohere so tightly in spirit of wine that they can be distilled together as an action coming “from the whole substance.”15 This is an allusion to Galen’s qualities κατ’ ὅλην τὴν οὐσίαν, characteristics depending on the substance as a whole rather than stemming from the relative quantities of the four elements, which the renowned physician of Pergamon had used to explain an array of marvelous properties ranging from virulent poisons to the effects of the electric eel. Medieval and early modern commentators had equated Galen’s “whole substance” with the substantial form of the mixt, and the properties flowing from the whole substance with occult qualities, a move that Sennert also follows.16 But of course Sennert extends the qualities of the whole substance to cover the striking properties of materials revealed by the chymical laboratory, an area of endeavor unknown to Galen. The German professor thus equates the capacity of certain materials to form what we would today call a “chemical bond” with an occult quality that flows from the substantial

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forms of the mercury and sulfur atoms.17 Sennert attributes not only the bonding ability of mercury and sulfur to an occult quality, but also such other marvelous chymical phenomena as the seemingly instantaneous formation of tartarized vitriol from spirit of vitriol and oil of tartar, or the precipitating action that spirit of niter has on liquid butter of antimony, which also occurs in the blink of an eye.18 Sennert takes it as a matter of fact that the four primary qualities cannot act in such an instantaneous fashion, so these and other properties of his chymical atoms are the result of occult qualities and their activity. In a word, then, the bonding and dissociation of Sennert’s atoms depend on occult qualities, whose actions he sometimes also describes in the language of sympathy and antipathy. Before I pass to Sennert’s attack on Santorio, there is one other thing that requires comment. Although Sennert’s work from 1619 onward presents his belief in occult qualities and his atomism as a seamless package, in reality he upheld the former long before becoming a self-professed atomist. Sennert’s earliest publication, a 1596 disputation with Johann Jessenius as praeses, deals with diseases borne by the air, in particular, plague. Here we already see him explaining the action of plague as the work of an “occult quality,” which he equates with the Galenic property of “the whole substance.”19 Although one might reasonably surmise that Jessenius was the actual author of this disputation, other early works by Sennert express the same view, such as the 1605 collection of disputations collected under the title De differentiis morborum and the 1609 Quaestionum medicarum controversarum.20 It would be fair to say that Sennert’s first exposure to the doctrine of occult qualities probably stemmed from his medical studies at Wittenberg and that he later extended it to his atomistic matter theory. But once he had fused the theory of occult qualities with his atomism, the two would never part ways again: occult qualities, flowing directly from the substantial form, became the main agents of change in Sennert’s world of invisible atoms. One can therefore see why Sennert reacted passionately to Santorio’s critique of occult qualities in the latter’s Methodus vitandorum. A dismissal of occult qualities not only meant the rejection of Sennert’s explanation of plague and other poisonous agencies as well as additional strange phenomena such as magnetism; it also entailed a denial of Sennert’s mature atomism. Sennert could not allow Santorio’s critique to go unanswered without endangering the most original part of his own system of natural philosophy. But one might object—couldn’t Sennert simply have abandoned his occult qualities and kept the atomistic features of his matter

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theory? After all, he was unafraid of explicitly adopting a Democritean perspective in the 1619 De chymicorum, saying, what we have proposed is without doubt the opinion of Democritus himself, who said that all things are composed of atoms, and that generation and corruption are nothing but synkrisis and diakrisis.21

But the answer to this question is no. Despite his adherence to the Abderite, Sennert would not and could not adopt the ontological simplicity of ancient atomism. This was not the result of a hidebound adherence to Aristotle or an atavistic scholasticism: as we shall see, Sennert had good reasons not to enter the fold of the nascent mechanical philosophy.

2   Sennert Versus Santorio Sennert’s response to Santorio in the Paralipomena can be conveniently, if somewhat artificially, divided into three parts.22 The first deals with an objection made by Santorio that the writers on occult qualities treat them as if they were themselves substances. This opens such authors to what is literally a category-mistake, namely the incorrect allocation of occult qualities among the divisions of Aristotle’s praedicamenta, the ten categories of substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, habit, action, and passion.23 By placing qualities in the category of substance, Santorio argues, the writers on occult qualities expose themselves to a further objection, which is that substances by definition have no contrary, whereas qualities do. The contrary of white is black, that of cold is hot. Occult qualities also have contraries. Hence the French disease, which is brought on by an occult poison, can be cured by its antagonistic contrary: guaiac wood. But an occult quality that occupies the category of substance cannot have a contrary and therefore loses its status as a qualitas. Yet it cannot properly be a substance either, because then it could not inhere in another subject: the property of magnetism, for example, belongs to the magnet and is properly speaking an accident, not an independent entity. Sennert treats these objections as verbal quibbles and responds that even if some writers on occult qualities such as Jean Fernel make the mistake of elevating them to self-subsistent substances, his own view is that they are qualities flowing from the substantial form. To Sennert the substantial form is itself a substance having independent being, but the qualities that flow from it are mere accidents.

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The second part of Sennert’s rebuttal concerns Santorio’s attempt to reduce all qualities to the four Aristotelian primaries and even beyond them. In book eight, chapter seven of the Methodus vitandorum, Santorio explicitly tries to reduce the so-called tactile qualities of the Aristotelian tradition, such as flexibility, brittleness, smoothness, asperity, and so forth, to density and rarity. Hence density and rarity occupy a privileged position for Santorio. But this is not the final stage in Santorio’s reductionist program. Building on Aristotle’s Categories VIII 10a20–25, where the Stagirite says that density is simply a situation in which the parts of a body are close to one another and rarity the case where they are far apart, Santorio adds that this grants situs or position an even more privileged status. As he puts it, Behold, therefore, that position will produce density and rarity of parts, and all the passions and powers that follow . And position will be the genus generalissimum which cannot be resolved into another.24

Santorio goes on to say that even the four primary qualities are densities and are therefore reducible to position and the body occupying it. Sennert’s reply to Santorio’s reductionism is twofold. First he appeals to a scholastic principle that he had enunciated in De chymicorum and elsewhere—that an agent cannot act beyond the scope of its own powers (nec tum ultra suas vires agit).25 Hence fire, which acts by virtue of the primary qualities hot and dry, can only heat and desiccate: it cannot produce the purgative property of rhubarb or the narcotic property of opium. If an agency could act beyond its own species, then why not argue like Alexander of Aphrodisias that the human soul itself derives from the four elements? Sennert views this as patently absurd, giving him license to reject Santorio’s reductionism without further deliberation. As he puts it, The fact that he sets up density and rarity as the principle of all passions, and draws forth both the primary and secondary qualities, hot, cold, wet, dry, hard, soft, flexible, brittle, rough, smooth, thick, thin, from rarity and density is so obviously erroneous as to make it unnecessary to refute him. But let it be admitted that these qualities arise from density and rarity: even so, all of these qualities are not occult, which is the present topic, but rather tactile.26

With these dismissive remarks, Sennert then passes to the third part of his response, which consists of empirical evidence arguing for the existence and irreducible status of occult qualities.

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The first of Santorio’s empirical examples concerns an Italian noble in Hungary whom Santorio knew. The man suffered massively from cat allergy: so severe was his reaction that he would suffocate in the presence of a cat unless it was immediately driven away. Santorio asserts that the aristocrat’s ailment did not stem from the four primaries nor from an occult quality, but from a closing up of his lungs due to asthma. To the Venetian physician this provides evidence of the importance of density and narrowness, both spatial qualities that refer to position.27 He adds that the cause of the nobleman’s malady lay in a “condensing quality” (qualitas densans) found in the cat’s breath, which restricted the asthmatic’s lungs with potentially tragic results. To this Sennert again responds with the charge of absurdity. Relying on his own medical experience, he says that cat allergy does not always result in asthma, but can produce the more immediate symptom of swooning (animi deliquium). Hence Sennert denies that the active cause in the allergy is condensation. Moreover, this can happen even if the cat is sealed up in a chest, making it unlikely that the cat’s breath is the cause of the reaction. Sennert then passes to a succession of interesting empirical examples recounted in chapter ten of Santorio’s Methodus. The list consists partly of traditional specimens of occult action such as the lodestone’s ability to attract iron, the power of leopards’ bane to kill dogs and yet to help humans, and the narcotizing effect of opium. Santorio’s goal is to show that none of these properties can be due to the four Aristotelian primaries. If magnetism were due to the hot quality, then the heat in vaporized scents would attract iron; the heat or cold in leopards’ bane would kill men as well as dogs; and if a drachm of opium can kill a man, why is it that an ounce of ice, which is obviously colder, has no effect on him? Santorio’s point, of course, is that these marvelous properties of material things cannot descend from the four primaries and are therefore more likely to stem from density, rarity, and ultimately position. Sennert, however, sees nothing but an unwitting irony in the fact that Santorio has affirmed the existence of the traditional occult qualities. “The best thing of all,” he says, is that Santorio has demonstrated Sennert’s own point that the occult qualities do not flow from the four primaries. Sennert elaborates further on this claim, saying that Santorio is correct when he points out that the generation of various qualities in an instant cannot stem from the four primaries. When one looks through a blue glass held before a red one, for example, the color purple instantly emerges. Similarly, when gall water is mixed with vitriol, a black color immediately

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appears. Sennert had himself employed similar phenomena to make the same point in the 1619 De chymicorum, but of course he rejects Santorio’s conclusion that disqualifying the causal role of the four primaries opens the door to purely structural explanations. We have seen so far then that Sennert’s approach to atomism is markedly different from that of Santorio. For Sennert, the substantial form is a divine, irreducible entity, the “instrument and hand of God,” as he says in De chymicorum. All qualities that are peculiar to a given substance, including occult qualities, flow directly from this marvelous, formal agency. For Santorio, to the contrary, occult qualities are in principle reducible to density and rarity, and these in turn to position. In Sennert’s reading, Santorio has even gone so far as to threaten the irreducibility of substantial forms themselves. The Wittenberg professor suggests that Santorio wants to derive all qualities from substantia ut corporea, in other words from “body” itself rather than from any formal entities. As Sennert puts it, Nothing but dimension and quantity emerge from substance insofar as it is corporeal . But occult qualities, indeed all other qualities, actually derive from bodies not insofar as they are bodies, but rather insofar as they are endowed with forms.28

From his spirited defense of Aristotelian forms in the Paralipomena, one could easily receive the impression that despite his atomism, Sennert excluded microstructural explanations of phenomena altogether. This would be a serious misunderstanding of the German physician’s thought, however. If we return to Sennert’s corpus as a whole, the falsity of this perception instantly materializes. If we think back to Sennert’s demonstration of the reduction to the pristine state with silver and nitric acid, clear elements of structural explanation emerge. The reason for the apparent disappearance of the metal lies in the fact that its atoms have been separated from one another and are individually too small to see. When the silver is precipitated out of the solution by the addition of potassium carbonate, the resulting calx is “a congeries of innumerable atoms” which have become visible again merely because of their assembly into a mass. Sennert was not joking in 1619 when he announced his agreement with Democritus that generation and corruption are due to the synkrisis and diakrisis of atoms. The importance of corpuscular situs or position in changing the perceptible properties of matter receives further elaboration in Sennert’s

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consideration of “sugar of lead” (saccharum saturni) or lead acetate. Chymists made sugar of lead by reacting vinegar with lead oxide—the toxic compound received its name from its sweet taste. As Sennert was aware, one could then decompose the compound by distillation to acquire a highly volatile, burning spirit (mostly our acetone). He explains this in corpuscular terms in the De chymicorum of 1629, but somewhat less guardedly in a letter written to his friend and former student Michael Döring in 1623. According to Sennert’s letter, the volatile spirit does not derive from the lead itself. Rather, it comes from the acid component of the vinegar, which is itself a salt derived from the spirit of wine (impure ethyl alcohol). When the sugar of lead is subjected to distillation, the heat causes this vinous salt to disengage from the lead, hence regaining its freedom. According to Sennert, then, the volatile spirit separated from sugar of lead is spirit of wine, while spirit of wine itself is merely a more volatile form of vinegar, and by the same logic vinegar is just a fixed form of spirit of wine. “All of these things depend on atoms,” he assures Döring, but how? All of these things depend on atoms. Spirit of wine and spirit of vinegar consist of the same material, and of the same species of atom. But there is one position (positus) of them and one aggregation (unio) in spirit of wine, and another in spirit of vinegar.29

This is perhaps the closest that Sennert ever comes to linking specific chymical properties at the macro-level to modifications in the structural properties of the corpuscles making them up. But it is enough to show that he was quite willing to employ two of the characteristics that Democritus used in explaining the phenomena, namely as Aristotle tells us in De generatione et corruptione (315b6–15) and elsewhere, thesis and taxis, or position and arrangement. What is lacking in Sennert’s account is any reference to sche ̄ma or shape, the third attribute that Aristotle mentions when describing Democritean atomism. But this disregard for the shape of atoms, as I mentioned earlier in this chapter, was entirely characteristic of the tradition of chymical atomism.

3   Conclusion So let us return now to the subject with which this chapter began—namely the tradition of chymical atomism. If we read the older histories of the Scientific Revolution such as Rupert Hall’s 1954 classic The Scientific

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Revolution 1500–1800 or Richard Westfall’s equally venerable Construction of Modern Science published in 1971, the mid-century reverence for physics is writ large.30 The mathematization of nature espoused by Descartes, Leibniz, and Newton is associated closely in these surveys with the mechanical philosophy. “Corpuscularianism,” to use a term popularized by the survey writers and their more recent heirs, represents to them a progressivist move away from scholasticism to the so-called new science that began with Galileo and Descartes, bearing immediate fruit in the realm of the science of motion. When these textbooks of the Scientific Revolution move away from physics to the domain of chemistry, their general position is that there was scant progress in that discipline until the Chemical Revolution of the late eighteenth century, which cleared the ground for Lavoisier’s new elemental theory. There is little room indeed in this story for chymical atomism, which retained the Aristotelian notion of substance even at the micro-level. According to this traditional narrative, a natural philosopher like Sennert represents a confusingly eclectic composite of retrograde scholasticism and the nascent emphasis on corpuscles. At best, Sennert’s work appears from this vantage point as a transient half-way stage between hylomorphism and the structural explanations of the new science. To quote from Marie Boas Hall’s celebrated Establishment of the Mechanical Philosophy, Sennert “contributed nothing new to the development of a mechanical philosophy based upon a theory of atoms.” From her perspective, he was “neither original, successful, nor, ultimately, influential.”31 It would be more accurate to say that Boas Hall’s claim contributed nothing veridical to a history of science based upon empirical evidence, since Sennert’s atomism was original, successful, and influential. I would like to suggest that if the founders of the Scientific Revolution survey-genre had shifted their eyes from physics and astronomy and looked to the history of chemistry over the longue durée, they might have sung a different tune. If we carry the story into the century from Newton’s death to the publication of Lavoisier’s most famous work, the Traité Élémentaire de Chimie, a different story begins to emerge. Consider the beginning of Alan Rocke’s magisterial book Chemical Atomism in the Nineteenth Century. Here Rocke distinguishes between the Newtonian assertion of “solid, massy, hard, impenetrable” corpuscles as found in Query 31 of the Opticks and another tradition based more intimately on quotidian chymical practice, namely the school of the famous Halle professor Georg Ernst Stahl. It is

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the latter school that Rocke associates with the major stream of nineteenth-­ century chemical atomism. It is appropriate to quote Rocke’s important comments here: An empiricist option derived from the writings of G. E. Stahl, the German chemist, was also in evidence from early in the eighteenth century. Stahl did not so much controvert the mechanists’ conception of simple substances as assert its sterility for chemistry. Instead, he sought to define more empirical and chemically useful ‘principles’ that could be regarded as composing, and importantly, conferring properties on substances … the operational criterion of elementarity gradually insinuated itself into the consciousness of chemists, so that by the time Lavoisier first clearly and unambiguously stated it in his classic Traité Élémentaire de Chimie, it could provoke but little controversy.32

The operational principle of elementarity discussed by Rocke is simply Lavoisier’s famous claim that an element is the endpoint of analysis, the limit into which the strongest analytical tools of the time can divide a substance. Lavoisier famously avoided making hypothetical claims about atoms, but he nonetheless locates his irreducible substances within corpuscles, which he calls molécules primitives et élémentaires.33 As Rocke points out, this approach is already found in the works of Stahl. To us that should come as no surprise, because it is also present in the work of Sennert, and even in that of Geber. What had changed was not the operational criterion of elementarity and its linkage to substance-atoms: rather what had evolved was the technology that made this principle ever more compelling. The sublimations of Geber had given way to the mineral acids of Sennert and Stahl, and these in turn to the pneumatic chemistry of Lavoisier with its remarkable gravimetric precision. My point, then, is that instead of seeing Sennert’s atomism merely in the context of the mechanical philosophy, important as his matter theory was for Robert Boyle, we should also consider him the major exponent of chymical atomism that the seventeenth century produced. In this way Sennert emerges from the opprobrium of eclecticism and poorly integrated hylomorphic and atomistic ideas to become part of a story with chemistry as its endpoint instead of physics and astronomy. Sennert’s debate with Santorio, however misguided it might appear from the perspective of the Cartesian mechanical philosophy, actually placed the Wittenberg professor on the side of a movement that would eventually result in the formulation of the modern chemical atom.34

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Notes 1. Daniel Sennert, Danielis Sennerti D. medici et apud Wittibergenses publici Medicinae Profess. Paralipomena (Lyon: J.  A. Huguetan, 1643), 426: ‘Quod iis, qui omnia ad manifestas qualitates reducere conantur, accidit, vt Galenus, i. de nat. fac. cap. 14. scribit, ut rationes vel ineptas et ridiculas afferant, vel etiam ea negent, quae manifesta sunt, id etiam S. Sanctorio accidit, dum lib. 8. method, vitandor. in Med. error. reconditas et occultas qualitates ad manifestas reducere conatur.’ 2. This is a major theme of William R. Newman, Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientific Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006). 3. Fabrizio Bigotti “A Previously Unknown Path to Corpuscularism in the Seventeenth Century: Santorio’s Marginalia to the Commentaria in Primam Fen Primi Libri Canonis Avicennae (1625),” Ambix 64 (2017): 29–42. 4. Kurd Lasswitz, Geschichte der Atomistik vom Mittelalter bis Newton vol. 1 (Hamburg: Voss, 1890), 211–28. 5. Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Isabelle Stengers, A History of Chemistry (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 37. See Arnold Thackray, Atoms and Powers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 168, who in turn cites David Knight for this concept. 6. Daniel Sennert, Hypomnemata physica (Frankfurt: C. Schleichius, 1636), 41: ‘Hoc loco ut pauca de iis dicam, primo etiam ii, qui ea simpliciter non admittunt, prima mixta esse concedunt. De quo cum nemine litigabo, modo hoc obtineam, eo modo principia dici posse, quod in resolutione rerum naturalium ars ultra progredi vix possit, imo nec natura forsan progrediatur, dum aliquod mistum constituit, illud non immediate ex ultimis simplicibus, sed potius ex primis istis mistis constituit.’ The same idea is found in his De chymicorum cum Aristotelicis et Galenicis consensus ac dissensu (Wittenberg: Z. Schurer, 1619), 282, but without the term prima mixta. 7. The criterion of operational homoeomerity was met when the prima mixta could not be broken down to reveal heterogeneous components. 8. Sennert, Hypomnemata, 107–8: ‘Sunt enim secundo alterius, praeter elementares, generis atomi, (quas si quis prima mista appellare velit, suo sensu utatur), in quae, ut similaria, alia corpora composita resolvuntur. Et omnino in mistione rerum naturalium, seu quae fit in non viventibus, corpora, e quibus mista constant, ita in exiguas partes confringuntur, et comminuuntur, ut nullum seorsim, et per se agnosci possit. In omnibus etiam fermentationibus et digestionibus ac coctionibus, quae vel a natura, vel ab arte fiunt, nihil aliud agitur, quam ut ad minima redigantur, et ea sibi arctissime uniantur. Contra resolutio corporum naturalium, cum ea,

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quae a natura, tum quae arte fit, nihil aliud est, quam in minima corpora resolutio.’ 9. Sennert, Hypomnemata, 109–10: ‘Ita quamvis aqua, in qua metallum solutum est, non nisi limpida aqua esse videatur, et tam exacte sit mista, ut talis aqua etiam per chartam transfundi possit: tamen metallum suam naturam in ea integram servat, et facili negotio forma subtilissimi pulveris ad fundum praecipitatur, qui postmodum in metallum iterum funditur. Ita etiam si una massa ex auro et argento fiat per fusionem, et ita per minimas atomos coeant, ut corpus istud ex variis constare nemo agnoscere possit: interim in minimis illis atomis quodque suam formam retinet, et per aquam fortem separari, et in pristinum corpus reduci potest. Hinc multarum operationum Chymicarum, et eorum, quae in chymicis fiunt, caussae reddi possunt.’ 10. Robert Boyle, Of the Atomicall Philosophy, in The Works of Robert Boyle, edited by Michael  Hunter and Edward  Davis, vol. 13, 228 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1999–2000); The Sceptical Chymist, in ibid. vol. 2, 231, and The Origine of Formes and Qualities, in ibid., vol. 5, 396–7. 11. For a recent treatment of the mixtio per minima theme, see Antoine Calvet, “La théorie per minima dans les textes alchimiques des XIVe et XVe siècles,” in Chymia: Science and Nature in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, edited by Miguel López Pérez, Didier Kahn and Mar Rey Bueno, 41–69 (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010). 12. The classic alchemical treatment of subtiles partes and grossae partes is the Summa perfectionis attributed to Geber. See William R.  Newman, The Summa perfectionis of pseudo-Geber (Leiden: Brill, 1991), passim. 13. The sources of Sennert’s atomism were not limited to alchemy, of course, though alchemical authors played an important role, up to and including the works of Sennert’s contemporary Andreas Libavius. His atomism also owed important debts to Julius Caesar Scaliger’s Exotericarum exercitationum liber quintus decimus de subtilitate ad Hieronymum Cardanum (Paris: M. Vascosan, 1557) and to a host of medical and philosophical authors. See Newman, Atoms, 85–156. 14. Newman, Atoms, 85–156. 15. Daniel Sennert, De chymicorum cum Aristotelicis et Galenicis consensu ac dissensu (Wittenberg: Z. Schürer Sr, 1629), 189a. 16. See the Galenic passages cited on p. 284 of Brian P. Copenhaver, “Astrology and Magic,” in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, edited by Charles Schmitt and Quentin Skinner, 264–300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), See also id., “A Tale of Two Fishes: Magical Objects in Natural History from Antiquity through the Scientific Revolution,” Journal of the History of Ideas 52 (1991): 373–392 and Linda Deer Richardson “The Generation of Disease: Occult Causes and

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Diseases of the Total Substance,” in The Medical Renaissance of the Sixteenth Century, edited by Andrew Wear, Roger French and Iain Lonie, 175–94 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). 17. Sennert, De chymicorum (1629), 189a. For more on Sennert and the doctrine of occult qualities, see Joel A.  Klein, “Daniel Sennert and the Chymico-Atomic Reform of Medicine,” in Medicine, Natural Philosophy and Religion in Post-Reformation Scandinavia, edited by Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham, 20–37 (London: Routledge, 2017). 18. Sennert, De chymicorum (1619), 355. 19. Johann Jessenius (and Daniel Sennert?), De morbi, quem aer tota substantia noxius peragit, praeservatione et curatione disputatio IV (Wittenberg: J. Dorffer, 1596), C3v: ‘Pestis igitur cum non evidentis, sed potius occultae qualitatis ratione noxia, nullis induciis datis, iis quae tota substantia juvent, contrabellandum.’ 20. Daniel Sennert, De differentiis morborum disputatio prima (Wittenberg: J. Schmidt, 1605), theses 27, 30, 40, 41, and 42. See also id., Quaestionum medicarum controversarum (Wittenberg: Martinus Henckelius, 1609), 49–60, Quaestio VII. 21. Sennert, De chymicorum (1619), 358: ‘Atque haec, quam proposuimus, est proculdubio antiquissimorum Philosophorum de mistione opinio, et ipsius Democriti, qui ex atomis omnes componi, et generationem nihil aliud, nisi synkrisin et diakrisin, esse statuit.’ 22. Sennert, Paralipomena, 426–33. 23. For a summary treatment of the praedicamenta see Paul Studtmann, “Aristotle’s Categories,” in online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed March 11 2018 https://plato.stanford.edu/. 24. Santorio Santori, Methodi vitandorum errorum omnium qui in arte medica contingunt libri XV (Venice: F. Bariletto, 1603), f. 157v: ‘ecce igitur, quod situs partium faciet raritatem, et densitatem, passiones, et omnes potentias, quae sequuntur: situsque erit genus generalissimum, quod in aliud resolui nequit.’ 25. Sennert, De chymicorum (1619), 247. 26. Sennert, Paralipomena, 429. 27. Santori, Methodi, f. 159v. 28. Sennert, Paralipomena, 429. 29. Daniel Sennert, Danielis Sennerti Vratislaviensis doctoris et medicinae professoris in academia Wittebergensi operum (Lyon: J. A. Huguetan, 1676), vol. 6, 592; letter dated March 23, 1623: ‘Acetum, quatenus acidum, quia acre, et hanc suam vim a sale vini habere puto … Confirmatque hanc opinionem, praeter ea, quae a te allegantur, valde illud (modo verum sit) quod Angelus Sala contra Quercetanum defendit; ex plumbo nullum fieri spiritum, sed quod inde fieri videtur esse spiritum Vini, qui ex aceto, quo plum-

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bum solutum est, postliminio redit, et quasi reviviscit, Nimirum dum spiritus Vini figitur, fit inde acetum; dum spiritus aceti volatilis redditur, fit inde spiritus Vini. Quae omnia ex atomis pendent. Constat enim Spiritus Vini et spiritus Aceti eiusdem materiae et speciei atomis: sed alius positus, aliaque eorum unio est in spiritu Vini, alia in spiritu Aceti. Vides non esse de nihilo, quae nuper de atomis Democriti ad te scripsi; Et saepe invito, et aliud cogitanti, necessario quasi de iis aliquid cogitandum est.’ The parallel passage is found in Sennert, De chymicorum (1629), 424–5. 30. A.  R. Hall, The Scientific Revolution 1500–1800 (London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1954); Richard Westfall, The Construction of Modern Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971). 31. Marie Boas [Hall], “The Establishment of the Mechanical Philosophy,” Osiris 10 (1952): 412–541 at 428; Marie Boas [Hall], The Scientific Renaissance 1450–1630 (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962), 263, n.*. 32. Alan J. Rocke, Chemical Atomism in the Nineteenth Century: From Dalton to Cannizzaro (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1984), 4–5. 33. Lavoisier, Traité Élémentaire de Chimie, in Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, Œuvres, vol. 3, 294 (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1864). 34. Needless to say, my expression “the modern chemical atom” means the atom of nineteenth-century chemistry, not the atom consisting of subatomic particles that chemists and physicists uphold today.

CHAPTER 5

Atoms, Mixture, and Temperament in Early Modern Medicine: The Alchemical and Mechanical Views of Sennert and Beeckman Elisabeth Moreau Recent research on early theories of matter has shown the emergence of atomistic interpretations from the late Middle Ages to the eighteenth century.1 The Renaissance was a turning point where atomistic theories flourished as transitional accounts which combined ancient atomism, Aristotelian physics, and alchemy. Such an atomist “revival” was prompted by the rediscovery of Diogenes Laërtius’ doxography of Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus, and by the first edition of Lucretius’ poem De rerum natura. The Aristotelian natural philosophy also played an important role in this current by continuing the scholastic debates on matter, the elements, and their substance. In addition, alchemy was crucial in the atomistic recrudescence as it considered the essential principles of matter, while praising Democritus as an ancient alchemical figure. Collectively,

E. Moreau (*) FNRS – Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Barry, F. Bigotti (eds.), Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614–1790, Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79587-0_5

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these philosophical movements contributed to the emergence of “neo-­ atomism” in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. So far investigated in natural philosophy and alchemy, early modern neo-atomism has remained largely unexplored regarding medicine. Among the various medical disciplines that participated in the atomist revival, this chapter considers physiology. A branch of theoretical medicine, physiology studies the structure and functioning of the healthy body. In the historiography of the “scientific revolution”, this medical field has long been disparaged as an archaic discipline because of its obedience to Galenism. However, the last decades have witnessed a renewal of interest in early modern physiology. Historians of science have emphasized the importance of this medical field for the explanation of humours, vital functions, and the relationship between body and soul.2 Along with these themes, the minute structure of the living body was also a key topic in physiology. The body was indeed considered as composed of four elements, whose four qualities determined the state of health or “temperament”. Defined as a balance of qualities, the temperament came from the union or “mixture” of the elements as the first components of the body. Established by Aristotle and Galen, the notion of temperament as a mixture of elements roused numerous discussions on the status of matter and the substantial form in scholastic medicine. These debates, in turn, stimulated corpuscular and atomistic explanations in the early modern period. In this regard, the Italian physician Santorio Santori (1561–1636) proposed an interesting interpretation of elements and mixture in his medical works. According to Fabrizio Bigotti, Santorio suggested a pre-­ atomistic conception of bodies as porous compounds of elements that were characterized by size, shape, and motion in his Methodus (1603) and Commentaria in Artem medicinalem Galeni (1612).3 However, the originality of Santorio’s theory of matter deserves further appraisal in light of alternative approaches to temperament that were proposed in his own time. This chapter explores this question through the cases of two neoatomist physicians: the German alchemist Daniel Sennert (1572–1637) and the Dutch engineer Isaac Beeckman (1588–1637). Sennert and Beeckman were remarkable for providing two different perspectives on atomistic physiology: one based on alchemy and the other on mechanicism. A professor of medicine at the University of Wittenberg, Sennert was emblematic of the early seventeenth-century German

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physicians highly trained in the Aristotelian and Galenic philosophy, who attempted to establish Paracelsian medicine in the academic sphere.4 Influential in the work of Boyle and Leibniz, his treatises on natural philosophy, medicine, and alchemy were widely read in the seventeenth century. On the other hand, Isaac Beeckman dedicated his life to technical activities in water systems in Zeeland, before occupying teaching positions at the Latin school of Utrecht, Rotterdam, and Dordrecht. Trained in theology at the University of Leiden and in mathematics at the Academy of Saumur (France), Beeckman obtained a medical degree at the University of Caen (France) in 1618, but never practised medicine.5 Instead, he developed a medical theory throughout his notebook, where he expounded his atomistic views in a mechanical philosophy that was inspired by his professional activities in hydraulics. Although he did not publish any treatise during his lifetime, his notebook circulated among his circle of scholarly friends, such as the French philosophers René Descartes, Marin Mersenne, and Pierre Gassendi.6 Whereas Sennert and Beeckman developed an atomistic account of temperament and mixture, both attached their interpretation to the medical tradition, despite Galen’s rejection of atomism. By presenting their medical sources, this chapter aims to place Sennert’s and Beeckman’s atomistic explanations of temperament in the broader context of Renaissance Galenism. As it explores the role of the Galenic tradition in the emergence of early modern neo-atomism, this study also addresses the intellectual context of Santorio’s endeavours in this direction. I will first consider the interpretation of elements and mixture that was applied to the notion of temperament in Sennert’s Institutionum medicinae libri quinque (1620 [e.p. 1611]) and his De chymicorum cum Aristotelicis et Galenicis consensu ac dissensu liber (1629).7 Then, I will go on with the conception of temperament in Beeckman’s notebook between 1616 and 1620. The final section examines Santorio’s theory of mixture in Methodi vitandorum errorum omnium qui in arte medica contingunt libri XV (1603) in comparison with Sennert’s and Beeckman’s respective accounts of elements, matter, and the substantial form.

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1   Sennert on Minimal Particles and the Superior Form In the history of early modern science, Sennert is an important figure for his project to merge Aristotelian physics, Galenic medicine, and Paracelsian alchemy into a consistent medical philosophy. In 1611, he attempted to systematize his medical thought in the Institutiones medicinae, a treatise divided into five books on physiology, pathology, semiology, hygiene, and therapeutics.8 Its general structure was comparable to eponymous works by the German physician and botanist Leonhart Fuchs (1501–1566) and the Dutch physician Johan Van Heurne or Heurnius (1543–1601), whom Sennert at times quoted in his treatise.9 Undoubtedly, he sought to emulate both medical glories of the reformed Germanic world by publishing his own Institutiones in Wittenberg, where he deployed his skills in Aristotelian natural philosophy and expressed openness to alchemical pharmacology. The first book on physiology (De φυσιολογία) adopted the framework of the genre promoted by the Physiologia (1567) of the French physician Jean Fernel (1497–1558). The book began by defining medicine, health, and temperament, before ending with the vital functions, such as nutrition and reproduction.10 In the second edition of his Institutiones (1620), Sennert updated some of its parts according to the Paracelsian philosophy that he expounded in the first edition of his alchemical treatise De chymicorum … liber (1619). Nevertheless, his views on temperament were quite similar to those presented in 1611, as they were anchored to the Aristotelian “pluralist” reasoning that he adopted until the second edition of De chymicorum … liber in 1629. From that moment, Sennert developed an alternative interpretation of mixture, which is explored in the second part of this section.11 Before tackling his later resort to atoms in De chymicorum … liber, I shall now consider Sennert’s early interpretation of mixture and temperament in the Institutiones. 1.1  Elements as Minima In the medical tradition, the notion of temperament was based on the concept of mixture developed in Galenic medicine and Aristotelian natural philosophy. As stated by Galen in De elementis secundum Hippocratem, the temperament resulted from the mixture of the elements, namely their physical union through the balance of their qualities.12 Such a

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conception drew on Aristotle’s account of mixture in De generatione et corruptione. As Aristotle claimed, the elements mingled by action and passion of their contrary qualities, while their substances remained in potentiality in the compound, so that the resulting body was qualitatively moderate and substantially homogenous.13 In medieval and early modern medicine, this description raised abundant debates concerning the status of elements during mixture, in particular their substantial form and qualities.14 As Fabrizio Bigotti has shown, Santorio addressed this very question between 1603 and 1625 by discussing the medical interpretations of Galen, Avicenna, and Fernel. In order to delineate these various stances, I will now look at Sennert’s appraisal of the notion of temperament. Among the Renaissance physicians who shaped Sennert’s view on temperament, Jean Fernel stands as a major figure. His medical philosophy was a Platonic response to the “materialistic” interpretation of Galen, which explained all physiological phenomena by the simple mixture of elements.15 In De abditis rerum causis (1548), Fernel stated that the body’s vital principle, as well as poisons and pestilential diseases, had a celestial nature and some “occult” properties, which came from their substantial form.16 As Hiro Hirai has shown, his account applied the Platonic philosophy of Marsilio Ficino in a medical context by enhancing the divine origin of the form and the role of the worldsoul.17 In his Physiologia, first published in 1542 as De naturali parte medicinae, Fernel supported the same idea in asserting that the living body had a twofold constitution, one related to the elements (material) and the other related to the vital principle (formal).18 The material constitution of the body corresponded to the temperament which resulted from the mixture of elements. These elements were arranged in a “juxtaposition” of minute parts whose forms remained intact, that is, in actuality. By contrast, the formal constitution of the body was related to its substantial form, which had a celestial nature and achieved the mixture of elements. In many respects, Sennert adopted Fernel’s approach to temperament, in the first place, by differentiating the body’s formal and material constitutions. Following Aristotle and Galen, he considered the structure of the body into organic or “anhomeomerous” parts, such as the organs and limbs. These organic parts were composed of similar or “homeomerous” parts, for instance, the veins, arteries, muscles, tendons, tissues, and bones. As Sennert explained, the homeomerous parts were homogeneous

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compounds or “mixts” resulting from the mixture of elements. They constituted the particles (particulae) and nearest principles (proxima principia) of the body, whose superior form determined their formal or “essential” constitution.19 Related to the soul, the superior form assumed the vital functions and the specific properties of the body parts, while achieving their elemental or “natural” constitution, in other words, their temperament. Following Fernel’s interpretation, Sennert considered temperament as the moderate state or “concord” stemming from the “battle” of primary qualities through their mutual action and passion.20 In his view, this qualitative moderation was distinct from the substantial form of the body. It was indeed the diversely balanced constitution of the body which caused its various states of health. In contrast, the formal nature of the living body was an essential constitution which was inalterable for its connection with the soul.21 To prove his point, Sennert appraised additional interpretations of temperament by Galenist physicians. Whereas Sennert claimed the exclusive relationship between the form and the body’s life, he acknowledged that many physicians, such as Leonhart Fuchs, identified the temperament with the substance of the compound.22 However, Sennert objected, this stance contradicted the rules of physics, because it identified the substantial form of a compound with the mixture of its qualities, which had an accidental status. For this reason, Sennert rather followed the views of the Spanish physician Luis Mercado (1525–1611), archiatre of Philip II.23 According to this stance, the temperament resulted from the alteration of the compound through its qualities. As was claimed by Mercado, this process consisted in the mixture of the elements through the action and passion of their qualities, as well as the “crushing” of the elements into their smallest parts or minima (comminutio ad minima).24 Sennert further affiliated Mercado’s view to Avicenna’s definition of temperament or complexio. In his view, Avicenna deemed the complexio as the quality coming from the mutual action and passion of elements during mixture. As for the substances of the elements, they were reduced to contiguous minima (partes ad minimas redactae).25 From Mercado’s and Avicenna’s interpretations of mixture, Sennert suggested that the formation of temperament involved the breakup into elemental minima, whose primary qualities torn up and merged into a single moderate quality.26 Having associated the natural temperament to the primary qualities of the compound, Sennert turned to the definition expounded in Fernel’s

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Physiologia. Whereas their respective interpretations were very similar, Sennert questioned Fernel’s stance regarding the status of the elements within the compound. Because Fernel described the qualities as “extreme” and the forms as “intact” at the end of mixture, Sennert compared his model to a mere assemblage of grains and peas.27 One must note that in his Physiologia, Fernel actually dismissed the interpretation of mixture as an assemblage of elements, in the same way as he rejected atomism. Still, he eventually proposed the ambiguous formula of a “continuous juxtaposition” of intact forms, along with the “concert” of intact qualities.28 In contrast, Sennert asserted the breakup of the qualities and the status in potentia of the elemental forms within the compound. In appraising the stances of Fuchs, Mercado, and Fernel regarding mixture, Sennert gave insight into his own interpretation of temperament. His insistence on the breakup of elements and qualities during mixture reflected his Aristotelian “pluralist” interpretation, which was inspired from the Averroistic  model of mixture.29 Following this approach, not only the qualities but also the substantial forms of elements were torn up in small parts within the compound. They united into a plurality of subordinate forms, which constituted a new median form, namely the form of the compound or “mixt”. In the Renaissance, this interpretation was developed by Aristotelian philosophers at the University of Padua, such as Giacomo Zabarella (1533–1589). In De rebus naturalibus libri XXX (1590), Zabarella claimed the reduction of the elements into small parts of different degrees, which penetrated each other to form a homogenous whole.30 As Emily Michael and William Newman have shown, Sennert developed this model of mixture as early as in his Epitome naturalis scientiae (1600). This approach to mixture underpinned his early criticism of Fernel’s concept of temperament in the Institutiones. However, Sennert changed his interpretation in the second edition of De chymicorum … liber (1629).31 The next section moves on to discuss his theory of mixture and temperament in this treatise. 1.2  From Minimal Particles to Atoms From the first edition of his De chymicorum … liber in 1619, Sennert expounded his medical views on matter by insisting on the benefits of Paracelsian alchemy for the development of pharmacy. As he explained, the separation of the alchemical principles or tria prima (Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury) allowed the “fixation” of a powerful “volatile” substance

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into a moderate one. Consequently, even violent poisons and toxic metals, such as antimony, mercury, and arsenic, could be transformed into harmless and yet efficient remedies thanks to the alchemical art.32 With this aim in mind, Sennert proposed a conciliation of Paracelsian alchemy with Galenic medicine and Aristotelian natural philosophy. In the same way as other figures of a “chemical compromise”, he believed that the Paracelsian system was profitable for the improvement of drug making, but required the adjustment of its most obscure concepts.33 To this purpose, Sennert anchored the Paracelsian concepts of principles and “separation” to the Aristotelian notion of mixture and the Galenic account of temperament. For this reason, the theory of temperament expounded in De chymicorum … liber continued that of the Institutiones, but further discussed the structure of matter in connection with alchemy. Whereas the first edition of De chymicorum … liber endorsed a pluralist interpretation of mixture, its second edition (1629) expanded on a different model. Sennert, indeed, followed the argument of the Italian physician Julius Caesar Scaliger (1484–1558), whose Exotericae exercitationes (1557) against Gerolamo Cardano’s De subtilitate enjoyed great renown in Northern Europe.34 For his theory of mixture, Scaliger was an important figure in the diffusion of the Aristotelian corpuscularianism that was developed at the University of Padua in the Renaissance. Sennert adopted his description of mixture as the  motion of the smallest bodies (motus corporum minimorum) towards a mutual contact, which resulted  in the formation of a single being.35 As Sennert previously stated in the Institutiones, these “miscible” elements were reduced to minimal parts, which were subject to a mutual action and passion through their contrary qualities. However, he joined Scaliger in asserting that these forms bound together under the supervision of the superior form of the compound. They remained intact, that is, in actuality, though in an inferior degree to the substantial form of the “mixt”. By supporting Scaliger’s interpretation, Sennert meant to contend with the Latin pluralist account of mixture, which he affiliated to Zabarella, Averroes, and the Franciscan theologian John Duns Scotus (c.1266–1308).36 Despite his endorsement of this view in his previous works and his constant reference to Zabarella’s account of the superior form, Sennert eventually qualified the tearing (refractio) of the forms during mixture as “pure fiction”.37 With this assertion, he joined Scaliger, Avicenna, and Fernel in their claim of the permanence of intact forms within the compound.38 As William Newman has shown, Sennert’s change

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of interpretation aimed to provide an account of mixture that was more consistent with the atomistic framework that he adopted in the first edition of De chymicorum (1619).39 As he merged the concept of mixture with the alchemical notion of separation, Sennert identified the alchemical principles or tria prima to Democritean atoms whose reunion (synkrisis) and separation (diakrisis) caused the generation of bodies.40 In his view, all “fixed” and “volatile” substances involved in alchemical operations resulted from such a process of diakrisis and synkrisis.41 In support of this interpretation, Sennert referred to ancient authorities, most notably, Aristotle, Galen, and Avicenna. To justify his adhesion to the atomistic philosophy of Democritus, Sennert first explained that Presocratic philosophers transmitted correct conceptions of natural change, although their terminology was misunderstood by their adversaries. In his view, it was because the Democritean reunion (concretio) of corpuscles was a more convincing explanation than the mixture of elements that the philosophical tradition partly followed atomism in postulating the association and separation of discontinuous components.42 As Sennert pointed out, whereas Aristotle rejected Democritus as a leading figure of mathematical atomism in De generatione et corruptione, he remained open to physical atomism.43 As was illustrated in the Meteorologica, Aristotle, indeed, described bodies as composed of corpuscles and pores, while considering natural phenomena, such as rarefaction and condensation, as a process of diakrisis and synkrisis.44 Sennert took much of these arguments from a major source in his work, the German physician Andreas Libavius (c. 1550–1616).45 A ferocious adversary of the Paracelsian system, Libavius sought to show the initial compatibility of medieval alchemy with the authorities of Aristotle and Galen. Sennert partially adopted his concept of separation or diakrisis (separatio) and reunion or synkrisis (concretio) in the pharmacological part of his Institutiones (1611). Although this treatise did not mention atoms, it supported the reunion and separation of minimal parts (partes minimae) following the terminology of the medieval treatise Summa perfectionis attributed to the Arab alchemist Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan). It was in the first edition of De chymicorum … liber (1619) that Sennert defined these minimal parts as Democritean atoms.46 Having claimed the compatibility of Aristotle with Democritus, Sennert finally considered Galen’s account of elements as a forerunner of atoms. Whereas Galen castigated Democritus’ atoms in De elementis secundum Hippocratem, he described the resolution of the compound into smallest

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parts or particles (minimas particulas) during mixture.47 Not only did Galen define the element as the minimal part of bodies, Sennert claimed, he also stated that the mixture of qualities was facilitated by the division of the compound into smaller parts.48 According to Sennert, Avicenna honed this view in his Canon by defining complexio as the quality that arose from the mixture of elements by contact of their minute parts.49 In the same way as he did in the Institutiones, Sennert quoted Avicenna to assert the resolution of the compound into contiguous minima and eventually endorsed Avicenna’s view on intact elemental forms. From all this, Sennert concluded that authorities like Aristotle, Galen, and Avicenna were in fact reconcilable with his Democritean interpretation of elements. In claiming his obedience to the medical tradition, Sennert deemed his account of mixture as more adequate to his atomistic explanation of the tria prima. Defined as atoms and minimal particles, the alchemical principles corresponded to what Sennert called the “homeomerous” bodies. In the philosophical tradition, such a type of bodies included homogenous compounds of elements, for instance, tissues, bones, blood, wood, and metals. In the Institutiones, Sennert defined such homeomerous parts as the “particles” (particulae) and nearest principles of bodies, which were endowed with a superior form. In his De chymicorum … liber, he employed the same terms to designate the tria prima as homeomerous parts and “first mixts”, which were atomic compounds with a superior form. As Sennert further stated, the form of homeomerous bodies was superior to that of their constituent elements in degree and in nature. The superior form, indeed, had a celestial nature rooted in the divine creation. As Michael Stolberg and Hiro Hirai have shown, Sennert considered that the forms were transmitted through the seeds that were propagated by God at the Creation.50 Such an idea was already present in one of his major sources, Andreas Libavius. The latter suggested that homeomerous bodies like body parts and the alchemical principles had a celestial essence. For instance, in his Novus de medicina veterum … tractatus (1599), Libavius identified the tria prima as elemental compounds (elementata) and “first mixts” in the hierarchy of beings, in the same way as the homeomerous parts. Such compounds enclosed a powerful essence—in the sense of superior form and quintessence—which was responsible for their alchemical and physiological properties. For Libavius, this essence was infused by God during the Creation and then remained immanent in the homeomerous parts of bodies.51

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In enhancing the celestial powers of the substantial form, Sennert took up Libavius’ strategy of counteracting the Paracelsian emphasis on the tria prima by showing their elemental composition. This interpretation was anchored in medieval alchemical treatises such as John of Rupescissa’s De consideratione quintae essentiae about the divine essence enclosed in elemental compounds. It also referred to the Rosarium philosophorum in distinguishing the four elements from the first compounds that contained a quintessence.52 In consequence, Sennert’s interpretation of the tria prima continued medical and alchemical explanations of homeomerous bodies as homogenous mixtures of elements. Their alchemical and sensory properties, he claimed, came from their superior form, which arranged the atoms with the instrument of the body heat.53 As for the atoms, they were directed by the superior form and provided the elemental  matter  of homeomerous bodies.

2   Isaac Beeckman on Atomic Elements and Geometrical Proportion In comparison with Sennert, Beeckman’s medical atomism was less inspired by alchemical concerns than by professional activities in hydraulic engineering and the study of physics, astronomy, and mathematics. His interest in these fields resulted in a mechanical approach to natural phenomena. For this reason, Beeckman is also an interesting point of comparison with Santorio, who adopted a mechanical view on medicine and its instruments and whose works were partly quoted in Beeckman’s notebook. In his first notes between 1604 and 1608, the young Beeckman briefly investigated questions of astronomy and mathematics, which he gathered from ancient and contemporary texts, such as the works of Euclid, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and Simon Stevin. Most of these authors were recommended to Beeckman by the Dutch mathematician Rudolph Snel or Snellius (1546–1613) during his studies at Leiden in 1607–1610. Snellius also trained Beeckman in Ramist philosophy, whose focus on logic partly shaped Beeckman’s medical theory of matter. In about 1616, Beeckman was studying treatises of medicine in view of obtaining a medical degree at Caen (Northwest France). As he was occupied in reading these works, he sought to answer a series of medical questions. These issues were often problematized in mechanical terms, as evidenced by the numerous schemata, geometric modelling, and

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measurements in  his notebook. In the corollaries of his medical thesis (1618), Beeckman applied the knowledge he acquired during his studies in Leiden, his mathematical training in Saumur, and his work on fountains and waterpipes.54 Most notably, he stated the existence of interstitial void (vacuum intermixtum) and ascribed the traditional fuga vacui of pump suction to air pressure.55 Although the notion of void was much debated in Aristotelian philosophy, it was diffused, in the early modern period, through ancient treatises on mathematics and engineering, such as the Pneumatica of Heron of Alexandria, also known as Spiritalium liber. Abundantly commented upon by Beeckman in 1616, Heron’s Pneumatica described the discrete structure of matter and the dispersed vacuum in water pumps. Despite his primary concern with mathematics and engineering, Beeckman’s medical thinking was far from being purely mechanical. As will be shown in this section, it integrated an atomistic theory in a medical context grounded in Galen. Beeckman’s atomistic sources were overall based on Lucretius’ De rerum natura.56 In this section, I examine his early physiological theory between 1616 and 1620 as the result of his eclectic synthesis of Galenism, mechanicism, and atomism.57 2.1  Elements and Pores In the same way as Sennert, Beeckman did not consider atomism as incompatible with the traditional physics of elements and qualities, in spite of Aristotle’s and Galen’s numerous objections to Democritus. As he explained, bodies were composed of atoms (atomi) which were separated by interstitial void. The latter formed “intermediate empty spaces”, that is, pores of diverse size between each atom.58 As will be examined in the last section of this chapter, Beeckman shared a similar conception of the primordia—elements or atoms—to that of Santorio. In his view, the motion (motus), shape (figura), and number (quantitas) of atoms brought about the “forces” of bodies, namely their physical qualities. Following this reasoning, Beeckman deemed the four elements as atoms endowed with four types of shapes which were associated  with the primary qualities.59 Hot and cold qualities were due to the atomic motion, speed, and size.60 Moist and dry qualities depended on the round or sharp atomic shape. Secondary qualities, such as taste, were caused by the shape of atoms and their ability to fit the pores. For instance, a round shape caused pleasant flavours, while

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a sharp or hooked shape brought disagreeable flavours, following the account of Lucretius.61 By defining the four elements as four types of atoms, Beeckman reinterpreted the notion of substantial form related to the elements. As seen in the previous section, late Renaissance philosophers such as Fernel and Sennert claimed the supra-elemental status of the substantial form as a superior entity of celestial origin, which achieved elemental bodies and caused their vital properties. In contrast, Beeckman viewed the form as the mere arrangement of atomic elements, in particular their situs. This term corresponded to Lucretius’ notion of “position” (positura), namely, the spatiality of atoms.62 Consequently, the form varied according to the geometrical arrangements of atoms, for instance, in a square or a cube. As Beeckman explained, two distinct bodies with the same elemental portions and particles had a distinct atomic disposition.63 In consequence, the interval between the pores also determined the “essential difference” of bodies, that is, their form. Thus, in deriving the distinction between substance and physical qualities from the arrangement of atoms, Beeckman challenged the Aristotelian theory of matter-form, despite his traditional terminology of elements, qualities, and form. Beyond this apparently materialistic interpretation, Beeckman expounded teleological views on the origin and organization of atoms. On the one hand, he adopted Galen’s conception of finality in De usu partium.64 Following Galen, he deemed the body matter as created by a demiurge, as was shown by the adequate structure and functioning of the organism. Interestingly, this teleological conception of physiology overlapped Beeckman’s Calvinist faith regarding predestination.65 He indeed stated that the concourse of atoms, which were “skillfully” designed by God, did not occur by chance.66 Moreover, Beeckman integrated Lucretius’ philosophy into his account of divine providence. As he explained, the divinely achieved atoms caused the harmonious functioning of nature by gathering in suitable circumstances depending on particular settings.67 Their many arrangements resulted in a highly diverse nature, in the same way as the letters of the alphabet could formulate an infinity of words.68 2.2  The Minima and “Homogenea” of Bodies In 1620, Beeckman integrated key notions in the Galenic approach to elements, namely minima and “particles”, into his atomistic theory. In his

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view, atoms agglomerated into different levels, including minima and minimal particles (minima particula).69 Rooted in Galen’s De elementis, these minimal particles were part of a complex material structure. According to Beeckman, they operated the actions of a body part and broke up into their constituent minima in case of destruction.70 Such a description echoed the traditional subdivision of the body parts into organic or “anhomeomerous” parts, such as the limbs and the organs, and similar or “homeomerous” parts, such as nerves, flesh, muscles, and tissues. Interestingly, Beeckman juxtaposed this explanation with the Aristotelian natural minima, though in the sense of the limited number of atoms that were required to operate a physiological function.71 According to Beeckman, the compounds were arranged into primary and secondary minima, which were also called “homogenous” parts (homogenea).72 In Beeckman’s interpretation, the notions of homogenea and minima drew on the Galenic conception of body parts. This term referred to the traditional homeomerous parts, namely the homogenous compounds resulting from the “perfect” mixture of elements. As Benedino Gemelli has pointed out, the notion of minimum in Beeckman’s thinking stood as a type of particle which was less theoretical than the atom and more convenient in a physical or chemical context.73 Overall, Beeckman’s concept of homogenea sought to explain the different physiological and medicinal properties which resulted from the gradual formation of complex bodies. Among the possible sources for Beeckman’s terminology of homogenea, alchemy and natural philosophy also had a prominent place. On the one hand, the alchemical works of Andreas Libavius were part of the references cited in his notebook. In particular, Beeckman noted Libavius’ approach to alchemical substances as entities made of homogenous bodies.74 On the other hand, Beeckman’s terminology of homogenea likely referred to the works of German Calvinist theologian Bartholomaeus Keckermann (c.1571–1609). A professor of philosophy at the University of Dantzig (now Gdansk), Keckermann attempted to conciliate the Ramist logic with the Aristotelian philosophy of Zabarella.75 While Beeckman mentioned Keckermann’s Systema logicae (1600) in his correspondence of 1613, he also commented on his Systema physicum (1600) in 1618 in his notebook. From Keckermann, he kept the definition of elements as simple homogenous bodies which shared the same nature and denomination, in reference to the traditional homeomerous bodies, such as water, wine, blood, gold, and wood. As Keckermann pointed out, their minima and particles had

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the same nature as the whole body which they constituted.76 In consequence, Keckermann’s account pointed to the multiple acceptations of homogenea as elements, particles, and minima, while emphasizing their status as homeomerous bodies. Following this scheme,  Beeckman established two levels of homogenous parts, which corresponded to the subdivision of bodies into minimal particles and minima. As he explained, the elements first united (conjunctio) into some minima, which formed the “primary” homogenous part, as well as the minima of the “secondary” homogenous parts.77 When these secondary homogenea were divided, they lost their specific properties and broke up into primary homogenea. Similarly, the primary homogenea were decomposed into their constituent elements, atoms, and minimal particles. Although Beeckman was unable to specify how many minima entered in the composition of primary homogenea, he insisted that their finite number was able to build an abundance of natural beings.78 2.3  The Spatial Arrangement of “Particles” As he began to study Galenic medicine, Beeckman noted the discontinuous interpretation of elements and mixture in Renaissance physiology. In 1618, he reported in his notebook that Fernel’s Physiologia asserted the intact status of the elements that were united in the compound during mixture.79 From Fernel’s explanation of temperament, Beeckman retained the definition of mixture as a juxtaposition of elemental minute parts. Following this view, he considered the healthy temperament as a correct arrangement of particles, namely elemental atoms. Therefore, the substantial form of the body was nothing but the “disposition” (dispositio) and “binding” (connectio) of its material components.80 Interestingly,  Beeckman drew his interpretation of temperament as a disposition of atomic elements on  anatomy  and logic. One major reference was De morbis (1548) by the Italian physician Giovanni Argenterio (1513–1572). From this treatise, Beeckman  borrowed the definition of health and illness as a correct or incorrect connectio and dispositio of the anatomical parts.81 However, he applied it to his matter theory so that the binding and disposition related to the elemental particles of the body.82 As will be seen in the last section of this chapter, this reasoning offered similarities with Santorio’s account of mixture in Methodus vitandorum. Moreover,  the notions of connectio and dispositio reflected Beeckman’s sources in logic and dialectics. Among them, Melanchthon’s

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Erotemata dialectices (1547) took a logical approach to the notion of form as the dispositio and connexio of the constituents of discourse. Keckermann, who likely inspired Beeckman’s concept of homogenea, also took up this definition in his logical works.83 Similarly, Beeckman viewed the healthy temperament as the correct binding and disposition of its minimal parts. One year later, Beeckman related his interpretation of temperament as the binding of minimal parts to the Galenic conception of eukraton, namely the well-tempered body. In the medical tradition, this notion designated the most appropriate temperament (temperatura).84 Its constitution was different for each species following the idea of a “latitude” of temperament.85 This entailed that a fish, a lion, or a human being had a distinct eukraton, which was characterized by a moderate state (medium) coming from the mixture of their elements. For Beeckman, the ideal temperament of the human being was equal in weight (ad pondus) to the extent that its qualities were equally distributed from a quantitative point of view.86 Whereas Galen stated the theoretical nature of the temperament equal in weight, which could not be found in nature, Beeckman believed that the ideal temperament consisted in such a quantitative balance of elements in relation to a middle state. Beeckman honed his interpretation of temperament as an  arithmetic proportion of elements from an atomistic perspective. As he stated in 1620, the ideal constitution (eukraton) was a proportionate union and a quantitative disposition of elemental particles and minima. If this conception corresponded to the  Galenic definition of temperament equal in weight (ad pondus), Beeckman considered this terminology of little importance because the mathematical proportion alone was insufficient to define temperament. As he explained, the position and shape of the minima also needed to be taken into account.87 Because of their geometrical proportion and their position (situs), the particles of the human body consisted in regular polyhedra. The shape of its minima was composed of twenty triangles, which formed “suitably connected” icosahedra.88 In Beeckman’s interpretation, this geometrically ordered shape was implicitly equivalent to a homogenous part. The regular shape of their minima defined the substantial form with its specific properties. Thus, for Beeckman, it was the diverse arrangements of icosahedra which defined the temperament and particular features of each human being.89 This reasoning also implied that all living beings were provided with a particular atomic disposition, which was defined by its regular shape. However, the exact configuration of each species was unknown to Beeckman.

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A remaining question is the source of Beeckman’s interpretation of the primordia as polyhedral figures. This idea was first developed in Plato’s Timaeus, where the four elements were presented as polyhedra made up of triangular units designed by God.90 The Platonic solids were also discussed in Euclid’s Elementa from a mathematical perspective. But Beeckman’s discussion on the polyhedral constitution of the living realm was overall reminiscent of Kepler’s Strena sive De nive sexangula (1611).91 In investigating the geometrical structure of snow crystals, Kepler postulated that living beings might be composed of pentagonal figures which formed regular polyhedra, namely dodecahedra or icosahedra.92 According to this theory, their regular figure was related to an internal formative principle, which was responsible for the reproduction and functioning of living beings.93 Whereas Beeckman adopted a similar geometric and corpuscular reasoning, his primary objective was to propose a mathematical definition of temperament on the basis of a determinate number of components.94 Hence his mathematical approach was distinct from the Renaissance Platonic approach to polyhedra as geometrical instantiations of living beings. In commenting upon Kepler’s Strena in around 1628, Beeckman actually considered the notion of “formative nature” as “ridiculous and unworthy of a philosopher”.95 In his view, the qualities and faculties of bodies were not related to an incorporeal entity depending on the substantial form of beings, which early physicians and alchemists had associated to the “total substance” and the quintessence. For Beeckman, all these notions corresponded to the atomic composition and shape of homogenous bodies.96

3   Santorio’s Theory of Mixture in Light of Sennert and Beeckman Having explored Sennert’s and Beeckman’s interpretations of temperament, I will close this investigation by comparing their theories of mixture and elements with Santorio Santori’s early theory of mixture in Methodus (1603).97 In the eighth book of this treatise, Santorio harshly criticized the notion of hidden or “occult” (reconditae) qualities related to the substance by targeting Fernel’s exposition of the total substance (tota substantia) in De abditis rerum causis.98 This concept was developed by Galen about powerful qualities, such as magnetic, physiological, pharmacological, and

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toxic powers, which were known by experience but impossible to explain rationally. Fernel sought to elucidate their origin by associating the body’s total substance to its superior form. Since the forms had a celestial origin and were diffused by the world-spirit through the seeds, the total substance did not result from the mixture of elements but had a divine nature causing its strong powers. With this reasoning, Fernel attempted to provide a consistent explanation of the hidden causes of poisons, violent diseases, and epidemics like plague and syphilis in a fashionable Platonic framework.99 In contrast to Fernel’s account of the whole substance, Santorio believed that the attribution of “occult” qualities to the body’s form and substance was philosophically dubious as all qualities were supposed to derive from matter. At first, he seemed to claim that such operative powers derived from the harmony and proportion of qualities, namely their temperament. Following the Galenic tradition, which Fernel, Sennert, and Beeckman adopted, Santorio described temperament in relation to mixture as a union of minute parts and particles. But his theory took an original turn as he attributed to these parts some shape (figura), position (situs), and interstices (meatus) in compliance with Galen’s definition of the body’s disposition.100 It should be noted, however, that Galen’s terminology designated the shape and position of anatomical parts, while Santorio pointed to their smallest components, namely the elements.101 To counter any accusation of Democritean atomism, Santorio asserted that the substantial form underpinned the qualities of a compound. Each of them emerged from matter thanks to the “working” (opificio) of its arrangement.102 In order to produce an infinite number of forms, matter was disposed in eight “positions” from which came various properties, first rarity and density, then primary qualities such as heat and cold, finally secondary qualities such as sharpness and softness. By “position”, Santorio meant eight types of situs: inside and outside, forwards and backwards, left and right, upwards and downwards.103 He further compared this model to the structure and functioning of a clock, due to a “more divine handicraft” (diviniori artificio).104 Still, Santorio did not provide any further details on the union of particles within the body, nor did he elaborate his matter theory in relation to physiological phenomena in Methodus vitandorum. According to Fabrizio Bigotti, Santorio later offered additional explanations of his matter theory in his Commentaria on Galen’s Ars medica (1612) and in the marginalia of his Commentaria on Avicenna’s Canon

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(1625).105 These accounts also give insight into his physiology of digestion and perspiration in Medicina statica (1614). For his criticism of the supra-elemental character of the substantial form and the Platonic philosophy of Fernel, Santorio’s interpretation contrasted with Sennert’s medical theory of matter. Both physicians viewed temperament as a union of the minimal particles of bodies, in the sense of discrete units of matter which juxtaposed during mixture. Such an interpretation of the elements was stimulated as much by the Galenic debates on mixture as by the Renaissance approach to natural minima in the Aristotelian school of Padua. Whereas Santorio preserved the terminology of matter-form, elements, and qualities in his account of mixture, he nonetheless reduced the substantial form to the shape, position, and motion of elements as discrete units of matter. Thus, in suggesting the emergence of substances and their qualities from matter, Santorio diverged from Sennert’s interpretation of the substantial form.106 Sennert indeed adopted Fernel’s conception of the form as a supra-elemental entity which supervised elemental compounds and conferred them some “occult”, that is, physiological and alchemical, powers. On the other hand, Santorio’s interpretation of mixture offered similarities with Beeckman’s account of temperament. While it is difficult to establish whether Beeckman read Santorio’s Methodus vitandorum, he provided comparable statements in his notebook between 1616 and 1620. As shown in the previous section, Beeckman claimed that the substantial form of bodies resulted from the spatial arrangement and the various dispositions of minimal particles, which were initially designed by God. In addition, both Santorio and Beeckman applied the anatomical views of Galen about the disposition of the body parts at the level of their smallest components. However, Santorio’s and Beeckman’s sources for the geometrical arrangement of elements, in analogy with that of anatomical parts, drew on distinct sources. Beeckman’s conception of atomic dispositio was anchored in Argenterio’s account of anatomical disposition, in addition to Lucretian atomism and Ramist logic. In contrast, Santorio’s account of material shape, position, and number was inspired from the matter theory of the Venetian theologian Paolo Sarpi (1552–1623). Moreover, Santorio did not mention atoms or atomist philosophers in his medical account of elements and mixture.107 Like Santorio, Beeckman applied a mechanical analogy to the functioning of the human body, but in relation to pumps and waterpipes rather than clocks. He integrated this scheme in Lucretian atomism and Galenic

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physiology, which he comprehensively applied to his explanation of health and nutrition. For instance, Beeckman provided a hydraulic interpretation of digestion as a process of dilation and contraction of the digestive organs, where body heat and pressure transformed the atomic arrangement of food by rarefaction and condensation.108 In the same way, the concoction of the four humours in blood was described as a reconfiguration of chyle into four homogenea.109 Although it is unlikely that Beeckman’s atomistic reasoning was rooted in Methodus vitandorum, he was acquainted with some of Santorio’s works that were subsequent to this treatise. These works include Ars de statica medicina (1614), Commentaria in primam Fen primi libri Canonis Avicennae (1625), and De remediorum inventione (1630), as attested by Beeckman’s notebook and Catalogus librorum.110 Between 1628 and 1631, Beeckman discussed Santorio’s Commentaria on Avicenna in his notebook, mostly about mechanical problems and the pulsilogium, but did not relate these themes to his own medical theory of matter.111 In addition, he expressed a deep interest in Santorio’s medical instruments in his correspondence of 1631–1633.112 Therefore, if Beeckman’s physiological theory drew on the works of Santorio, it would be overall on his Medicina statica regarding nutrition as a process of perspiration, evacuation, and repletion of the digestive organs.

4   Conclusion Sennert’s and Beeckman’s medical accounts of elements, mixture, and temperament proposed two contrasting atomistic conceptions of the body. On the one hand, Sennert adopted a Democritean view on elements and mixture as a consequence of his theoretical obedience to Paduan Aristotelianism and his practical concerns in alchemical pharmacy. His medical theory of matter was rooted in the medieval and Renaissance interpretations of elements as contiguous particles that mingled during the formation of temperament. Whereas this view took an atomistic dimension, it was only to emphasize the reunion of discontinuous material units. Overall, his theory of matter remained imbued with Aristotelian hylomorphism as it insisted on the role of the superior form in the formation of bodies. On the other hand, Beeckman considered Lucretian atomism as the most adapted framework to apply his theoretical and practical concerns in geometry, hydraulics, and engineering. Unlike Sennert, he comprehensively applied the traditional characteristics of atoms, such as

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size, shape, and position, as well as the notion of interstitial vacuum, to his account of temperament and mixture. In identifying bodies as homogenous compounds of elemental “particles”, both Sennert and Beeckman reinterpreted in atomistic terms the traditional discussions on the role of elements, qualities, and the substantial form in the constitution of bodies. This framework was centred on the Galenic account of temperament as a proportion of the elemental qualities, and the Aristotelian definition of mixture as the homogenous union of the elements through their matter and form. Both early modern physicians defined elements as minimal particles which aggregated into homogenous body parts. However, in contrast with Sennert, Beeckman shaved away the Aristotelian model of mixture as a battle of elemental qualities, from which emerged the substantial form, while the elements remained in potentiality in the compound. Instead, he understood the substantial form as the proportional arrangement of atoms from a geometrical and spatial point of view. It was their regular positioning which ensured the homogeneousness of the body. Moreover, both Sennert and Beeckman dismissed the impious dimension of atomism by emphasizing their creation by God, from which originated the harmony and functionality of nature as a sign of the divine providence. If Sennert sought to highlight the celestial origin of the superior form to explain the physiological and alchemical properties of bodies, Beeckman focused on the creation of atoms, minima, and particles as the fundamental units of matter, which were subject to an infinite number of arrangements. By “atomizing” the notion of form, which traditionally emphasized the superior and even divine nature of the body’s substance, Beeckman took an original position towards the medical tradition. In sum, Sennert’s and Beeckman’s medical theories of matter offer an interesting point of comparison to understand the various intellectual strategies that late Renaissance physicians developed to support atomism in a Galenic context. Most remarkably, the questions at stake, including the conception of elements as minimal particles, the nature of the substantial form, and the notion of “occult” qualities, formed the subtext of Santorio’s theory of matter. Although he did not explicitly refer to atoms or atomist philosophers, Santorio developed an original conception of elements that were subject to a clockwork process of mixture. For his reinterpretation of temperament from a mechanical perspective, Santorio’s account is better understood if placed in the context of Sennert’s reception of Paduan Aristotelianism and Beeckman’s atomistic conception of

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the substance. Together, the three physicians provide striking illustrations of the complex relationship between Galenic medicine and the emergence of atomistic explanations of temperament in the early seventeenth century.

Notes 1. See Antonio  Clericuzio, Elements, Principles and Corpuscles: A Study of Atomism and Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000); Christoph  Lüthy, John E.  Murdoch and William R. Newman (ed.), Late Medieval and Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theories (Leiden: Brill, 2001); W.R. Newman, Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientific Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006); Christoph Meinel, “Early Seventeenth-Century Atomism: Theory, Epistemology and the Insufficiency of Experiment,” Isis, 79 (1988): 68–103. 2. See Manfred Horstmanshoff, Helen King and Claus Zittel (ed.), Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Changing Concepts of Physiology from Antiquity into Early Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2012); Andrew Cunningham “The Pen and the Sword: Recovering the Disciplinary Identity of Physiology and Anatomy before 1800. Part 1: Old Physiology: the Pen,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 33 (2002): 631–65. 3. See Fabrizio Bigotti’s chapter, “Gears of an Inner Clock: Santorio’s Theory of Matter and its Applications,” in this volume. 4. On Sennert, see Emily  Michael, “Sennert’s Sea Change: Atoms and Causes,” in Lüthy, Murdoch and Newman, eds., Late Medieval, 331–362; ead., “Daniel Sennert on Matter and Form: At the Juncture of the Old and the New,” Early Science and Medicine, 2 (1997): 272–99; Newman, Atoms, 85–156; Clericuzio, Elements, 9–34; Hiro  Hirai, Medical Humanism and Natural Philosophy: Renaissance Debates on Matter, Life and the Soul (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 151–72; Michael Stolberg, “Particles of the Soul: The Medical and Lutheran Context of Daniel Sennert’s Atomism,” Medicina nei secoli, 15 (2003): 177–203. 5. On Beeckman, see Klaas van Berkel, Isaac Beeckman on Matter and Motion: Mechanical Philosophy in the Making (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013); Benedino Gemelli, Isaac Beeckman, atomista e lettore critico di Lucrezio (Florence: Olschki, 2002); Clericuzio, Elements, 182–4; Frédéric de Buzon “Beeckman, Descartes and Physico-Mathematics,” in The Mechanization of Natural Philosophy, edited by Daniel  Garber and Sophie Roux, 143–58 (Dordrecht: Springer, 2013); Mart J. Van Lieburg, “Isaac Beeckman and his Diary-Notes on William Harvey’s Theory on Blood Circulation (1633–1634),” Janus, 69 (1982): 161–83.

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6. Isaac Beeckman, Journal tenu par Isaac Beeckman de 1604 à 1634, edited by Cornelis de Waard, 4 vols (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1939–53). 7. Daniel Sennert, Institutionum medicinae libri V (Wittenberg: Z. Schürer, 1620); id., De chymicorum cum Aristotelicis et Galenicis consensu ac dissensu (Wittenberg: Z. Schürer Sr, 1629). 8. On Sennert’s approach to physiology, see Elizabeth  Moreau, “Vegetal Analogy in Early Modern Medicine: Generation as Plant Cutting in Sennert’s Early Treatises (1611–1619)” in Vegetative Powers: The Roots of Life in Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Natural Philosophy, edited by Andreas Blank and Fabrizio Baldassarri, 221–240 (Cham: Springer, 2021). 9. Leonarth Fuchs, Institutionum medicinae, ad Hippocratis, Galeni, aliorumque veterum scripta … Libri quinque (Lyon: T.  Guerin, 1555); Johannes  Heurnius, Institutiones medicinae (Lyon: Officina Plantiniana, 1592). 10. See Jean  Fernel, “The Physiologia of Jean Fernel (1567). Tr. John M.  Forrester”, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 93 (2003): i–636. 11. On the evolution of Sennert’s philosophy, see Michael, “Sennert’s Sea Change”; Christoph  Lüthy “Daniel Sennert’s Slow Conversion from Hylemorphism to Atomism,” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, 26 (2005): 99–121. 12. Galen, On the Elements According to Hippocrates, trans. Phillip De Lacy (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1996). 13. Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption, 1.10, 327a30–328b25. See Rega Wood and Michael Weisberg, “Interpreting Aristotle on Mixture: Problems about Elemental Composition from Philiponus to Cooper,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 35 (2004): 681–706. 14. Annaliese  Maier, An der Grenze von Scholastik und Naturwissenschaft (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1952), 3–143; ead., On the Threshold of Exact Science: Selected Writings of Anneliese Maier on Late Medieval Natural Philosophy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982), 124–42; Norma Emerton, The Scientific Reinterpretation of Form (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1984), 76–105. 15. Giancarlo Zanier, “Platonic Trends in Renaissance Medicine,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 48 (1987): 509–19. 16. Linda Deer Richardson “The Generation of Disease: Occult Causes and Diseases of the Total Substance,” in The Medical Renaissance of the Sixteenth Century, edited by Andrew  Wear, Roger K.  French and Iain M. Lonie, 175–94 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). 17. Hirai, Medical Humanism, 46–79; id., Le concept de semence dans les théories de la matière à la Renaissance (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 83–103;

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id., “Humanisme, néoplatonisme et prisca theologia dans le concept de semence de Jean Fernel,” in Jean Fernel. Corpus, edited by José KanyTurpin, Revue de philosophie, 41 (2002): 43–70. 18. Fernel, “Physiologia”, 3, 214–55. See Elizabeth  Moreau, “Elements, Mixture and Temperament: The Body’s Composition in Renaissance Physiology,” in Oeconomia corporis: The Body’s Normal and Pathological Constitution at the Intersection of Philosophy and Medicine, edited by Chiara Beneduce and Denise Vincenti, 51–8 (Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2018). 19. Sennert, Institutionum 1.3, 10ab. 20. Ibid., 1.4, 16b. 21. Ibid., 1.3, 8a. 22. Ibid., 1.4, 14a. See Fuchs, Institutionum, 1.3.1, 45. 23. On Luis Mercado, see Michele L.  Clouse, Medicine, Government and Public Health in Philip II’s Spain (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 43–74. 24. Sennert, Institutionum, 1.4, 14b. 25. Ibid., 1.4, 15a. See Avicenna, Avicennae Arabum medicorum principis [Canon medicinae] (Venice: Giunta, 1595), 1.1.3.1, vol. 1, 11ab. 26. Sennert, Institutionum, 1.4, 15b–16a. 27. Ibid., 1.4, 16ab. 28. Fernel, “Physiologia”, 2.8, 208–13. 29. Emily Michael, “Averroes and the Plurality of Forms,” Franciscan Studies, 52 (1992): 155–82. 30. Jacopo  Zabarella, De misti generatione et interitu libri tres, in De rebus naturalibus libri XXX (Venice: P. Meietus, 1590), 407–78. 31. Michael, “Daniel Sennert”; ead., “Sennert’s Sea Change”; Newman, Atoms, 85–156. 32. Sennert, De chymicorum (1629), 12, 213b–14a. 33. On the “chemical compromise” in the seventeenth century, see Allen G.  Debus, Science, Medicine and Society (New York: Science History Publications, 1972), 151–65. 34. Julius Caesar Scaliger Exotericarum exercitationum liber quintus decimus De subtilitate ad Hieronymum Cardanum (Paris: M. Vascosan, 1557), f. 143 v. On Scaliger’s concept of mixture, see Kuni  Sakamoto, Julius Caesar Scaliger, Renaissance Reformer of Aristotelianism: A Study of His Exotericae Exercitationes (Leiden: Brill, 2016); Christoph  Lüthy “An Aristotelian Watchdog as Avant-Garde Physicist: Julius Caesar Scaliger,” The Monist, 84 (2001): 542–61. 35. Sennert, De chymicorum (1629) 12, 210ab. 36. Ibid., 11, 152b. On Duns Scot’s interpretation of mixture, see Richard A. Cross, The Physics of Duns Scotus: The Scientific Context of a Theological Vision (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 47–76. 37. Sennert, De chymicorum (1629), 11, 153a.

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38. Ibid., 11, 152b. 39. Newman, Atoms, 85–153. 40. Sennert, De chymicorum (1629), 12, 211a. 41. Ibid., 12, 213b–14a. 42. Ibid., 12, 211b. 43. Ibid., 12, 211b–12a. See Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption, 1.2, 315b7–10. 44. Aristotle, Meteorology, 1.9, 346b23–25, and 2.9, 369b35–36. See William R.  Newman, “Corpuscular Alchemy and the Tradition of Aristotle’s Meteorology, with Special Reference to Daniel Sennert,” International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 15 (2001): 145–53. 45. On Libavius, see Newman, Atoms, 66–81; Bruce T.  Moran, Andreas Libavius and the Transformation of Alchemy: Separating Chemical Cultures with Polemical Fire (Sagamore Beach: Watson Publishing International, 2007); Owen Hannaway, The Chemist and the Word: The Didactic Origins of Chemistry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975). 46. Sennert, Institutionum, 5.2, 1046; Id., De chymicorum (1619), 18, 358. See Newman, Atoms, 89–91. 47. Sennert, De chymicorum (1629), 12, 212a. 48. Galen, On the Elements, 9, 137. 49. Sennert, De chymicorum (1629), 12, 212a. See Avicenna, [Canon medicinae], 1.1.3.1, vol. 1, 11ab. 50. Hirai, Medical Humanism, 151–72; Stolberg, “Particles”. 51. Andreas  Libavius, Novus de medicina veterum tam Hippocratica quam Hermetica tractatus (Frankfurt: P.  Kopff, 1599), 42. See Elizabeth Moreau, “Reforming the Prisca Medicina: Libavius’ Axioms of Elements and Mixture,” in Natural Knowledge and Aristotelianism at Early Modern Protestant Universities, edited by Pietro D. Omodeo and Volkhard Wels, 255–270 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2019). 52. John of Rupescissa, De consideratione quintae essentiae rerum omnium (Basel: P. Perna, 1561), 15–21; S.n., Rosarium philosophorum (Frankfurt: C. Jacob, 1550), f. g2 v. 53. Sennert, De chymicorum (1629), 12, 213a. 54. van Berkel, Isaac Beeckman, 84–5. 55. Beeckman, Journal, vol. IV, 44 (1618). See Edward  Grant, Much Ado about Nothing: Theories of Space and Vacuum from the Middle Ages to the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). 56. See Gemelli, Isaac Beeckman, 73–122; Elizabeth  Moreau “Le substrat galénique des idées médicales d’Isaac Beeckman (1616–1627),” Studium 3 (2011): 137–51. 57. On Beeckman’s medical approach to elements, mixture, and temperament, see Elizabeth  Moreau, “Combining Atomism with Galenic

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Medicine: The Physiological Theory of Isaac Beeckman (1616–1627)” in Isaac Beeckman in Context: Science, the Arts, and Culture in the Early Dutch Republic, edited by Klaas van Berkel and A. van Dixhoorn (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022), in press. 58. Beeckman, Journal, vol. I, 201–2. 59. Ibid., 152–3. 60. Ibid., 216. 61. Ibid., 149–50. See Gemelli, Isaac Beeckman, 59–61; Lucretius, De rerum natura, 2, 402–7. 62. See Gemelli, Isaac Beeckman, 79 et passim; Lucretius, De rerum natura, 1, 685 and 2, 1017–22. 63. Beeckman, Journal, vol. I, 153. 64. Ibid., vol. I, 163–4. 65. van Berkel, Isaac Beeckman, 140–7. 66. Beeckman, Journal, vol. II, 62–3. 67. Ibid., 43, 57. 68. See Gemelli, Isaac Beeckman, 53–8, 97–102; Lucretius, De rerum natura, 2, 688–99, 1013–22. 69. Beeckman, Journal, vol. II, 96. 70. Ibid., 117. 71. Aristotle, Physics, 1.4, 187b35–188a13. See John E.  Murdoch “The Medieval and Renaissance Tradition of Minima Naturalia,” in Lüthy, Murdoch and Newman, eds., Late Medieval, 91–132. 72. Beeckman, Journal, vol. II, 117–18. 73. Gemelli, Isaac Beeckman, 105. See also Henk  Kubbinga, “The First Molecular Theory (1620): Isaac Beeckman (1588–1637),” Journal of Molecular Structure (Theochem), 181 (1988): 205–18. 74. Gemelli, Isaac Beeckman, 127. In this passage, Beeckman quoted Andreas Libavius, Syntagmatis selectorum … Alchymiae Arcanorum tomus primus, 5.18 (Frankfurt: N. Hoffmann and P. Kopff, 1615), 193–4. 75. On Keckermann, see Joseph S. Freedman “The Career and Writings of Bartholomew Keckermann (d.1609),” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 141 (1997): 305–64; Cesare  Vasoli, “Bartholomaeus Keckermann e la storia della logica,” in La storia della filosofia come sapere critico, edited by Mario Dal Pra, 240–59 (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1984); Cees H. Leijenhorst “Place, Space and Matter in Calvinist Physics: Petrus Ramus, Clemens Timper, Bartholomaeus Keckermann and Johann Heinrich Alsted,” The Monist, 84 (2001): 520–41. 76. Bartholomaeus  Keckermann, Systema physicum septem libris adornatum (Hanover: W.  Antonius, 1612), 2.7, 128 and 133; id., Systema logicae tribus libri adornatum (Hanover: W. Antonius, 1611), 1.22, 190. 77. Beeckman, Journal, vol. II, 118–19.

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78. Ibid., 122. 79. Beeckman, Journal, vol. I, 168–9. 80. Ibid., 203. 81. Giovanni  Argenterio, De morbis libri XIIII (Lyon: S.  Honoré, 1558), 2.23, 652–4. See Nancy G. Siraisi, “Giovanni Argenterio and SixteenthCentury Medical Innovation: Between Princely Patronage and Academic Controversy,” Osiris 6, (1990): 161–80. 82. Beeckman, Journal, vol. I, 221–2. 83. Philipp Melanchthon, Erotemata dialectices (Wittenberg: J. Crato, 1556), 3, 142; Bartholomaeus  Keckermann, Systema logicae minus (Hanover: W. Antonius, 1606), 247–8. 84. Beeckman, Journal, vol. I, 347. 85. On the latitude of temperament in scholastic medicine, see PerGunnar  Ottosson, Scholastic Medicine and Philosophy: A Study on Commentaries on Galen’s Tegni (ca. 1300–1450) (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1984), 166–94; Roger K.  French, Canonical Medicine: Gentile Da Foligno and Scholasticism (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 106–7. 86. Beeckman, Journal, vol. I, 296–7. 87. Beeckman, Journal, vol. II, 70. 88. Ibid., 124–5. 89. Ibid., 125. 90. Plato, Timaeus, 55a–56c. On the geometrical approach to the form, see Emerton, Scientific Reinterpretation, 126–53. 91. Johannes  Kepler, The Six-Cornered Snowflake, trans. Colin Hardie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 92. Johannes Kepler, Strena seu De nive sexangula (Frankfurt: G. Tampach, 1611), 12. 93. Lancelot L. Law Whyte, “Kepler’s Unsolved Problem and the Facultas Formatrix,” in Johannes  Kepler The Six-Cornered Snowflake (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 57–63. 94. Kepler took this interpretation from Giordano Bruno, De triplici minimo (1591). However, Beeckman did not mention this work in his diary and commented on Bruno only from 1632. On Bruno’s atomistic interpretation of the minimum, see Hilary Gatti (2001) “Giordano Bruno’s SoulPowered Atoms: From Ancient Sources towards Modern Science,” in Lüthy, Murdoch and Newman, eds., Late Medieval, 163–80. 95. Beeckman, Journal, vol. III, 33–4. 96. Beeckman, Journal, vol. II, 83, 85–6, 118, 127–9. 97. On Santorio, see Fabrizio  Bigotti “A Previously Unknown Path to Corpuscularism in the Seventeenth Century: Santorio’s Marginalia to the Commentaria in Primam Fen Primi Libri Canonis Avicennae (1625),” Ambix, 64 (2017): 29–42; Nancy G.  Siraisi, Avicenna in

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Renaissance Italy: The Canon and Medical Teaching in Italian Universities after 1500 (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 206–352. 98. Jean Fernel, Jean Fernel’s On the Hidden Causes of Things: Forms, Souls and Occult Diseases in Renaissance Medicine, trans. John M.  Forrester (Leiden: Brill, 2005). See John M.  Forrester, “Jean Fernel and the Importance of his De abditis rerum causis,” in Fernel On the Hidden Causes, 3–66; Hirai, Medical Humanism, 46–79; Brian P. Copenhaver, Magic in Western Culture, from the Antiquity to the Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 301–13. 99. Richardson, “Generation”. 100. Santorio  Santori, Methodi vitandorum errorum omnium … libri XV (Venice: F. Bariletto, 1603), 8.5, f. 155 v. 101. See Galen, On the Usefulness of the Parts, trans. M.  Tallmadge May (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968); id., On Anatomical Procedures, trans. Charles Singer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956). 102. Santorio, Methodi, VIII.8, f. 158 v. 103. Ibid., VIII.7, f. 157 v. 104. Ibid., VIII.10, f. 160 r. 105. Bigotti, “Gears of an Inner Clock.” 106. On Sennert’s reception of Santorio in his posthumous Paralipomena (1643), see William Newman’s chapter in this volume. 107. Bigotti, “Previously Unknown Path”, 36–7. 108. On Beeckman’s approach to digestion, see Moreau, “Combining Atomism.” 109. Beeckman, Journal, vol. II, 103–4. 110. Ibid., vol. IV, 302; S.n., Catalogus variorum et insignium librorum clarissimi doctissimique viri D. Isaaci Beeckmanni (Dordrecht: I. Andreae, 1637). 111. Ibid., vol. III, 41, 174, 177, 183. 112. Ibid., vol. IV, 207, 216.

CHAPTER 6

Santorio, Regius, and Descartes: The Quantification and Mechanization of the Passions in Seventeenth-Century Medicine Fabrizio Baldassarri

In a letter to the German polymath Hermann Conring (1606–1681), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) acknowledges both Santorio Santori (1561–1636) and René Descartes (1596–1650) as two authors Research for this chapter has been carried out with the support of the Land Niedersachsen Herzog August Bibliothek fellowship and by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation (CNCS— UEFISCDI), project number PN-III-P1-1.1-PD-2016-1496, “The Overlooked History of Vegetal Life. From the Vegetative Soul to Metabolism in Early Modern Philosophy and Biomedicine,” and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020

F. Baldassarri (*) Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Barry, F. Bigotti (eds.), Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614–1790, Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79587-0_6

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whose methodologies had improved medicine, a discipline still lagging in curiosity and without a precise method.1 If Leibniz’s praise is easy to understand in the context of his correspondence, which positively refers to both Santorio and Descartes, the association of their names seems somewhat striking, for Descartes and Santorio are not usually related. First, their biographies differ, as Descartes never visited Padua, where Santorio was a professor, and Santorio died before Descartes’ publication of the Discours de la méthode in 1637. Second, their doctrines do not directly intersect: Descartes never mentions Santorio’s method or his instruments while he elaborates his own physiology. Nevertheless, Leibniz’s association reveals something more than a mere juxtaposition of names, because he stresses that their methodologies both enhanced medical knowledge. This is an important point to understand seventeenth-century medicine. In order to explore this association, I identify Henricus Regius (or Hendrik de Roy, 1598–1679) as a point of convergence between Santorio and Descartes. A former disciple of Santorio at the University of Padua and main proponent of Cartesian philosophy, Regius found in Descartes a system susceptible of being developed into a new philosophy of man in which his medical training at Padua could be easily integrated, as I examine in Sect. 1. Nevertheless, no easy connection between Descartes and Santorio emerges even in Regius’ work. Subsequently, more than just finding evidences of Santorio in Descartes or Regius, I try to investigate how much their medical theories could integrate, as Leibniz suggested. A more promising field of investigation is the passions of the soul.2 In this case, while Regius opposed Descartes’ theory of the mind, which I explore in Sect. 2, he especially advanced a theory of soul pertinent to Paduan Averroism and consistent with his medical pragmatism. Their contrast ultimately results in the publication of two treatises on the passions of the soul, whose differences and proximities are significant. These are Descartes’ Traité sur les passions de l’âme (1649), the wellknown attempt to mechanize passions I summarize in Sect. 3, and Regius’ Dissertatio de animi affectibus (1650), a less-known text.3 Both treatises research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodovska-Curie Grant Agreement n.890770, “VegSciLif.” I would like to thank the organizers, Jonathan Barry and Fabrizio Bigotti, and the attendees of the conference “Humours, Mixtures, Corpuscles. A Medical Path to Corpuscularism in the Seventeenth Century” for their valuable comments on a previous version of this chapter, as well as Teresa Hollerbach, who read and provided me with some precious remarks on the section on Santorio’s passions.

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propose a medical interpretation of the mind-body composite4 and deal with the role of temperaments, animal spirits, and humours as bodily causes for passions, which develop as a subject of medical and natural philosophical investigation.5 A main difference however arises from the metaphysical ground Descartes claims necessary for this study, while Regius rejects it altogether and unearths an utterly medical approach to passions. As I show in Sect. 4 devoted to Regius’ treatise on passions, the latter combines Descartes’ mechanization of the body with a few aspects derived from his medical training at Padua, and especially from Santorio’s medical knowledge. Still, Regius does not quantify passions as Santorio suggests in Section VII of Medicina statica (1614), entitled De animi affectibus (“The affections of the mind”), which I analyse in Sect. 5. In this text, Santorio indeed provides a medical framework for the passions which is consistent with his theory of insensible perspiration and his attempt to quantify the main bodily processes. In sum, although no clear connection develops between Descartes and Santorio, as not even Regius could account for a clear connecting point, their innovative mechanization and quantification of passions ultimately reveal two complementary methodologies that shaped a modern medical understanding of the nature of the human being, as Leibniz claimed. In exploring their study of passions, Descartes’ mechanization grounded in metaphysics, Regius’ mechanization embedded within a medical study of temperaments, and Santorio’s quantification of passions, in this chapter I aim to outline a significant, though complex (and non-linear) path in the history of medicine.

1   Henricus Regius Between Santorio and Descartes Regius somehow stands between Santorio and Descartes. He was a disciple of the former, whose influence shaped Regius’ formation at Padua, and later an enthusiastic proponent of the philosophy of Descartes. Let us briefly consider Regius’ intellectual biography and then discuss the reason why Regius was attracted to Descartes’ natural philosophy within his medical knowledge. Regius’ formation is well known. He matriculated at Franeker University, where he became magister artium in 1616, then decided to pursue his

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studies in medicine at the University of Groningen in 1617, under Nicolaus Mulerius (1564–1630), and matriculated at Leiden University in 1618, where he studied under Otto Heurnius (1577–1652) and Aelius Everhardus Vorstius (1564–1624). Regius then travelled around Europe to secure his medical knowledge: he studied at Montpellier with Lazarus Riverius (1589–1655) and matriculated at Padua University in 1622.6 He then graduated in Padua on 29 March 1623. Santorio Santori presided over the committee, whose other members included Cesare Cremonini (1550–1631) and Adrianus Spigelius (Adriaan van den Spiegel, 1578–1625).7 Regius discussed two puncta, a philosophical one on Aristotle’s Physica8 and a medical one on Hippocrates’ Aphorism 6 on extreme diseases. Santorio, who was preparing a commentary on Hippocrates’ Aphorism, personally raised this second question (see Fig. 6.1).9 In 1638, when Regius became a professor of medicine and botany at Utrecht University, he claimed he owed his professorship to his knowledge of Cartesian philosophy.10 Still, Regius’ medical background was strong, and he did not require further instructions from Descartes, who at the time had only published the Discours de la Méthode.11 What aroused Regius’ interest was Descartes’ mechanical understanding of nature. Descartes’ mechanical framework had a greater explanatory power that enabled Regius to secure his medical knowledge within a new science.12 Indeed, he accepted Descartes’ mechanical philosophy because he could accommodate what he had learnt at Padua with a modern anthropology. Thus, although diverse sources play a role in shaping Regius’ medicine,13 this reveals a connecting point between Descartes’ philosophy and Santorio’s doctrine.14 Indeed, Regius found several proximities between their theories. For example, several philosophical claims align Descartes’ work and Santorio’s Methodi vitandorum errorum omnium qui in arte medicina contingunt libri XV (1603). These especially are: (a) the rejection of occult qualities and of four qualities; (b) the similitude between living bodies and clocks;15 (c) the conception of corpuscles; (d) the idea that bodily properties belong to number, place, and shape and not to the four primary qualities; and (e) the notion that these mechanical aspects provide living bodies with motions. Furthermore, several methodological features draw some association between Santorio and Descartes: (f) the reduction from the complex to the simple, which is consistent with the concept of machine and mechanization of physiology; (g) the attention to mathematics and proportion as

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Fig. 6.1  The report of Regius’ graduation at Padua University. Archivio storico Università degli Studi di Padova—ASUP, Archivio Antico, ms. 274, p.  160. (Courtesy of Università degli Studi di Padova—Ufficio Gestione Documentale)

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a means to describe nature;16 and (h) the role of the place, figure, and number of particles to describe natural bodies. Additionally, even the primary importance that Regius attributed to experience and observation in medical knowledge was already an important topic in Santorio and Descartes.17 Among other similarities, they (i) used and fabricated instruments to achieve experiments (though Descartes did not reproduce nor use Santorio’s instruments and only worked on the fabrication of lenses and microscopes), and (j) promoted an idea of scientia that combines experimentation with mathematical certainty, in order to reshape traditional knowledge—in the case of Santorio, just to complement traditional knowledge, whereas Descartes wanted to get rid of tradition altogether.18 In sum, not only did Santorio’s medical knowledge play a role in Regius’ pre-Cartesian medical formation, but also in his acceptance of Cartesianism.19 Yet, difficulties arise as important differences surface between Santorio’s and Descartes’ medicine. Descartes’ mechanical physiology allows him to conceive nothing else than magnitudes, shapes, places, and the motion of particles in living bodies (“magnitudines, figuras, situs et motus particularum […] as Physicians know very well”20), yet he quantifies neither this composition nor the amount of heat he experiences in the heart.21 By contrast, Santorio elects quantification, pondus, numero et mensura, as the fittest method to investigate the functioning of living bodies. Furthermore, Santorio specifically links the quantitative investigation of metabolic activities and bodily excretion with his theory of insensible perspiration, whereas Descartes fails to reproduce a similar quantitative approach, whose application remains problematic. Although a few references to insensible perspiration surface in Descartes’ correspondence and works, these are very general claims. For example, he discusses insensible perspiration in a letter to Regius of 1640, concerning excretion,22 in the 1643 letter to Adolphus Vorstius (1597–1663), the professor of medicine and curator of the Leiden Hortus Botanicus,23 and in two letters of 1645 to William Cavendish (1592–1676), the Marquis of Newcastle.24 Moreover, in some biomedical notes collected in the Primae cogitationes circa generationem animalium and the Excerpta anatomica, Descartes claims that due to a defect of insensible perspiration (ob defectum insensibilis transpirationis), the subtle and light particles that compose the blood are held within the extremities of vessels and cause ephemeral fevers (ephemeram febrim),25 and also discusses insensible perspiration in reference to humours and particles, sweat, and perspiration.26 However these

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references are quite traditional and have nothing to do with Santorio’s quantification of metabolic equilibrium in living bodies, which Descartes likely did not know, although his friends, such as Dutch experimenter Henricus Reneri (1593–1639), possessed Santorio’s texts.27 In contrast, Regius relies on Santorio’s quantitative approach when dealing with bodily perspiration and temperature. In Fundamenta physices (1646), generally considered a satisfying Cartesian physiology,28 Regius presents a more exhaustive explanation of these operations and describes excretions in keeping with Santorio’s doctrine, explicitly referring to him as his preceptor.29 Moreover, Regius appropriates some aspects of Santorio’s perspiration as a stream of corpuscles and as a way to describe bodily health (sanitas).30 The former defines a living body in its capacity to preserve itself and to unblock obstructions in living bodies, which is perfectly in line with Santorio’s conception of health as potentia resistendi.31 In this sense, Santorio’s doctrine is central in Regius. Still, Regius’ understanding of the healthy body as a machine in which the motion of fluids is unobstructed is also Cartesian.32 What results is significant: on the one hand, Regius acknowledges Santorio’s quantitative approach in medicine for a more complete explanation of living operations; on the other hand, he re-interprets Santorio’s insensible perspiration from a Cartesian perspective, ultimately accommodating his medical knowledge (certainly grounded in Santorio’s doctrine) within a Cartesian mechanical framework.33

2   Regius Against Descartes: The Status of the Mind Regius embraced Cartesianism, but did not endorse every feature of it. Such a selective stance equally affects metaphysics and medicine. Indeed, Regius covered a broader territory than Descartes on medical matters,34 and sometimes he substantially differed from the latter, while he also rejected Descartes’ metaphysics. Both philosophical and physiological notions play a role in their medical divergence.35 The main issue of this opposition is the nature of the mind and its relation with the body. This question aroused a debate between Descartes and Regius that persisted, and worsened, over time. As a result, their relationship rapidly deteriorated. Their discussion started in May 1641, when Descartes edited Regius’ disputes on the threefold nature of the human

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soul and suggested Regius should avoid this usage.36 In December of the same year, Regius proposed the accidental union of mind and body, the ens per accidens that sparked the Utrecht crisis.37 In 1645, Descartes recommended Regius not to publish Fundamenta physices, whose impact would be harmful due to Regius’ interpretation of the mind as a mode of the body, which he considered organic.38 Regius did not follow this recommendation and published his work. In Explicatio mentis humanae sive animae rationalis (1647), Regius provides a materialistic description of the mind and its faculties. Descartes’ response in the Notae in programma quoddam (1648)39 led to the termination of their friendship. The core of the discussion is Descartes’ metaphysics, whose project Regius considers an utter failure.40 Regius believes that Descartes’ substantial differentiation between mind and body discredits the latter’s entire philosophy and affects his medicine as well. Indeed, their discussion had a medical relevance. First, this is evident in the case of Regius’ distinction between sensible and insensible parts (partes insensibiles), whose definition is rooted in physiology (and not in metaphysics, as it was in Descartes). According to Regius, insensible parts account for health or disease.41 Second, their discussion concerns the case of the mind as such. Regius conceives the mind as a mode of the body. As such, the mind cannot perform any operation without the body’s assistance. His claim of an ‘organic’ mind thus opens to a precise medical understanding of several mental conditions, like madness, fainting, weakness, deep drowsiness, apoplexy, and other accidents.42 A very different medicine of the mind develops.43 One of the physiological and medical outcomes of their metaphysical discussion on the nature of the mind concerned the passions, something on which Descartes had already confronted Regius in their correspondence of 1641.44

3   Descartes’ Mechanics of Passions In 1643, when Elisabeth of Bohemia (1618–1680) asked Regius about the interaction between soul (or mind) and body she had read in Descartes’ Meditationes de prima philosophia (1641), Regius wavered and suggested that she take the matter up with Descartes directly.45 In his reply to Elisabeth, Descartes stresses that the mind “being united to the body, can act or can be acted upon by it (peut agir ou patir avec lui).”46 Therefore, the union of the mind and body shows “the power the soul has to move the body [as well as] the body [has the power] to act on the soul, in

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causing its sensations and passions (ces sentiments et ces passions).”47 This is a crucial point. As known, the epistolary correspondence between Descartes and Elisabeth eventually resulted in Les passions de l’âme.48 In this text, Descartes innovatively deals with passions en physicien, that is, as a natural philosopher working on medicine,49 but the ground for understanding passions lies in metaphysics. In the text, Descartes describes the physiology of the internal movement of particles and fluids that reach and affect the brain, ultimately producing the passions,50 making a relevant space for a physiological account in the treatise. Let us analyse this issue. In part one of the treatise, Descartes deals with a physiological description of the living body, in which he explains the basic features of his medicine,51 and the composition between mind and body. He also provides his definition of passions as “perceptions, sensations or emotions of the soul […] which are caused, maintained and strengthened by some movement of the spirits.”52 In part two, Descartes describes the last part of his definition, relating passions to physiology. After enumerating all passions,53 he “enumerates the movements of the blood that accompany each passion,”54 and analyses the movement of particles, humours, and temperaments within the body. Although Descartes focuses on the mind, as passions “dispose the soul to want the things which nature deems useful for us, and to persist in this volition,”55 the disposition of organs, as well as the presence and movement of fluids, blood, and animal spirits, plays a relevant role in passions.56 He details the role of the body in five of the six primitive passions—wonder, the first primitive passion, is indeed purely intellectual.57 These passions are love, hatred, joy, sorrow, and desire. Descartes relates joy (articles. 99, 104), love (97, 102), and desire (101, 106) to a great mobility of blood, which produces and spreads heat in the chest,58 displays a regular pulse,59 sometimes faster than normal, in some cases eases digestion, and shapes the particles of animal spirits in precise ways.60 In these cases, the blood does not face obstructions, but its motion is easy and fast as all pores are open.61 Moreover, blood easily mixes with the juices of digestion.62 By contrast, in hatred (articles 98, 103) and sorrow (100, 105), the blood has difficulty mixing with the juices of digestion because the stomach ceases to perform its functions and appears obstructed,63 but mixes with the humours from the gall bladder and spleen. At the same time, the openings in the heart are restricted and the blood is not agitated at all.64 The heart is cold and transmits this cold to the body.65 As a result, the pulse is irregular, “weaker and quicker”66 in

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hatred, “weak and slow”67 in sadness, and the blood produces animal spirits with “very unequal parts” that “move very strangely.”68 By means of his physiology, Descartes explores the role of the body in the production of passions, detailing the movements and structure of spirits and blood. These latter cause passions.69 This connection is also evident in the case of the external signs of emotions, like changes in colour, listlessness, fainting, tears, groans, sights, and trembling. When a passion either closes the orifices and stops the blood in precise locations70 or thickens the blood, thereby diminishing the production of animal spirits,71 a specific sign surfaces in the body. Descartes’ physiological approach to passions provides an account for formation of animal spirits and temperaments in mechanistic terms. Still, despite dealing with the fact that obstructions and irregular mixtures of blood and other humours cause passions, he provides little attention to describing all these physical issues or to quantifying them. At the same time, Descartes does not elaborate a therapeutics to unclog obstructions or remove stagnating humours which affect the mind.72 In his treatise on passions, Descartes maintains the metaphysical distinction between the mind and the body. Although he mechanizes the production of animal spirits within the body, therefore describing passions as a physical phenomenon, and focusing on the mechanical causality of human dispositions that cause passions, no treatment for these physical features develops as a medicine for passions. In the end, since no clear medical remedies surface, his medical approach to passions presents a crucial lacuna and Descartes’ treatment of passions ultimately relies on the power of the mind in a sort of (metaphysical) self-therapy.73

4   Regius on Passions In 1650, Regius responded to this work with his Dissertation on the Affections of the Soul, by means of which he intended to stress his independence from Descartes. Regius had already devoted three pages to passions in Fundamenta physices, page 288–290, but felt obliged to supplement his theory. His Dissertation consists of 26 articles printed in 19 pages. In articles 1–2, Regius introduces the topic; in articles 3–18, he presents a general theory of passions; in articles 19–23, he discusses emotions in detail; and in articles 24–26, he describes some moral, psychological, and medical issues related to passions.74

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According to Regius, a passion is “a thought (cogitationem) connected to a violent motion of the animal spirits in the cavities of the brain, by which the soul (animus) or the mind (sive mens) is vehemently affected together with the body” (art. 4).75 As thoughts, the primary seat of passions is the brain (solo cerebro … eorum sedes primaria); however, as they affect the body as well, the heart is their secondary seat (art. 5). These emotions variously affect and upset both the mind and the body. As they debilitate the mind (debilitas mentis, art. 11) and the body, they produce reactions like laughing, trembling, redness, grieving, joy, and sadness (art. 15). Overall, Regius distinguishes two emotions, lust and sorrow (voluptas et dolor, art. 16), from which he derives all other emotions. He explains these passions in terms of animal spirits whose movement either allows the blood to excite a pleasing warmth or prevent it from leaving the heart, therefore cooling the body (art. 17–18). In all cases, the basis of passions is a physiological process in which the blood is either pumped in the body or prevented from moving. In article 25, Regius stresses that passions could be moderate or immoderate, as they “pervert our judgement, cause great inconvenience, and plunge us in diseases and other evils.”76 The price to cure these passions is to moderate physical pain by the remedies of medicine (per remedia medica), but also by a correct judgement (art. 26). Regius’ rejection of Cartesian metaphysics surfaces in his theory of passions. Accordingly, since there is no radical distinction between mind and body, this implies no real distinction between an agent, the body, and a patient, the mind.77 Subsequently, passions are actions of both the mind and the body. Regius rejects their passive status and attributes them a corporeal nature. This entails the possibility to influence the passions directly. A way to do so is by means of individual temperament (art. 9). According to Regius, temperament (temperamentum or temperies) depends on a particular disposition of particles. Insensible particles (insensibiles partes) establish temperament, as he defines in Fundamenta physices, whereas sensible particles concern the bodily conformation.78 Together with the conformation of particles, temperament defines health79 and helps define the activity of the mind, whose nature is material.80 Since temperaments differ in different bodies, individuals have different thoughts.81 This difference in temperaments depends on the changes that the body undergoes.82 In turn, these changes serve to regulate temperaments and passions. Through knowing the movement of particles and the formation of temperaments, it is possible to fix them.

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Regius’ definition and knowledge of passions relies on the mechanical disposition of particles and the temperaments. This point surfaces in Descartes too, although his interpretation of temperaments is not fully fleshed out; yet, temperaments are connected to the passions.83 When Elisabeth describes her condition to Descartes,84 he acknowledges the bad condition of her spleen and lungs as reliant on “the bad temperament of the blood, which is caused by her sorrow.”85 At this stage, Descartes recommends Elisabeth to divert her mind from sad thoughts,86 as though this is the most efficient remedy against passions. He repeats this claim in Les passions de l’âme: temperament is a cause of passions,87 but he acknowledges the exercise of virtue alone as the supreme remedy against those passions.88 Despite the similarity in their theories of passions, this is an important difference. While Regius acknowledges a medical way to treat passions by fixing temperaments, whose nature is grounded on the medical definition of insensible particles, this possibility is unacknowledged by Descartes, who followed a metaphysical path and only partially engages passions as a physician. In this sense, no pure medical treatment is acknowledged by Descartes, despite his claims that medicine would present a remedy to fix temperaments and cure organs, an assumption voiced in the Discours whose ultimate expression came in Les passions de l’âme.89 In this sense, while Descartes conceived passions as a natural philosopher who had mechanized nature and the human body, thus constructing passions from a bodily perspective, his position has a metaphysical ground. In contrast, Regius’ position is utterly medical, thus uniting the Cartesian mechanical interpretation of passions with a medical system.

5   Santorio: Weighing the Passions A medical understanding on the role of temperaments and humours in relation to passions is exposed in Section VII of Santorio’s Medicina statica, a text Regius knew. Here, Santorio measures the secretion of perspiration in relation to the passions of the soul and discusses how passions affect the spirits and the balance of the body. This section counts 48 short aphorisms, whose organization is puzzling: no clear definition of affections arises and many interconnecting threads develop. Santorio mainly relates passions to the changes in weight and perspiration, which thus have the double role of cause and effect of

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emotions. As a result, Santorio’s medical focus on passions mostly concerns the body, with little attention to the mind. In Aphorism 1, Santorio distinguishes two classes of passions. The first consists of anger and great joy (pericharia) that render bodies lighter. The second consists of fear (timor) and sorrow (maestitia) that render bodies heavier. All affections follow this distinction.90 This is a very innovative approach to mapping the passions, especially when compared to Aristotelian commentaries and neo-Stoic texts, which follow different ways to measure emotions and feelings and avoid any quantitative study. As he claims in Aphorism 23, whenever someone feels joy without reason this depends on a freer perspiration, and the body diminishes its weights.91 In Aphorism 27, Santorio repeats that joy and anger help evacuate heavy matter. These emotions relieve the body. In fear and sorrow, by contrast, light matter evacuates and heavy matter remains.92 Santorio explains this distinction in evacuation in Aphorisms 2–5. During fear and sorrow, lighter parts are perspired (perspirat levius) and heavier parts remain. By contrast, during joy and anger both light and heavy matters are perspired.93 Consequently, those bodies affected by sorrow and fear easily suffer from obstructions, parts hardening, and hypochondriac affections,94 and they are more exhausted.95 At the same time, holding heavy matter makes the body amenable to feel fear and sorrow.96 In Aphorism 6, Santorio presents a remedy against passions, as he claims the consolation of the soul (animi) renders perspiration easier.97 Accordingly, consolation of the soul is the remedy that makes the body perspire and release those excrements held during sorrow and fear. In other words, the consolation of the soul restores a correct functioning of the body. In Aphorism 11, Santorio presents joy as a remedy to counterbalance sorrow, as the first produces good humours (humores suaves) that remove the heavy matter that stagnates in a sad body.98 Adopting the Hippocratic principle in passions, Santorio stresses that the opposite is cured with the opposite (contraria contrariis curantur), that is, anger and hope remove fear, so there is no need for a medical remedy, but only for an opposite passion.99 In Aphorism 22, he also claims that the evacuation of heavy perspiring excrements removes sorrow and fear, as joy and anger are removed by the evacuation of the lighter ones.100 In short, Santorio’s statical approach does play a role in his understanding of passions. The consequences of this are clear. First, either consolation of the soul or feeling a contrary passion is a way to heal anyone from bad emotions. Second, freer perspiration and the removal of obstructions of

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non-­evacuated excrements, affects the passions the mind feels. This is exemplified in Aphorism 21, where Santorio notes that all immoderate passions disappear by means of evacuation or perspiration.101 He also focuses on several physical consequences. In Aphorisms 9 and 10, Santorio claims that a long sorrow renders the flesh colder, because the heavy and dense parts of matter do not perspire from the body.102 Sometimes sorrow produces fever with cold and mortal sweat.103 In Aphorism 15, Santorio claims that people perspire less when they sleep with sorrow (cubitum cum maestitia), and their bodies are heavier during the following day. In Aphorism 25, Santorio stresses that a moderate joy helps digestion and nutrition.104 Additionally, Santorio claims that extreme passions are dangerous. In Aphorism 24, he stresses that moderate joy helps evacuate the matter in excess; while in extreme joy both unnecessary and necessary materials are evacuated.105 In Aphorism 26, he shows that extreme or unexpected joy harms the body, as it forces not only the exhalation of excrements but also those of all vital spirits (spirituum vitalium).106 In Aphorism 28, he claims that a joy lasting a few days prevents sleep and reduces strength.107 Aphorisms 30 and 31 concern digestion and nutrition more directly. Joy develops when light food opens the pores, as it facilitates perspiration and the evacuation of excrements.108 Heavy food blocks the pores, prevents perspiration, and produces sorrow. Then, Santorio differentiates between the motion of the soul (animus) and the motion of the body. The affection of the soul influences the weight of the body more than the latter does,109 and this affection harms the body more.110 As a result, Santorio differentiates between the violent motion of the soul, which has no rest during sleep, and the violent movement of the body, which has rest.111 Santorio also connects passions with human habits, namely games and study, in Aphorisms 42–45, before arguing that an extremely long sorrow harms the heart in exactly the same way that a prolonged joy harms sleep. Both extremes are dangerous for the body.112 By contrast, a great diversity of passions testifies to a healthful perspiration.113 In Aphorism 48, Santorio claims that joy makes the heartbeat easy (faciliores), while the contrary occurs with sorrow (maeror).114 In sum, Santorio relates the passions to perspiration and excretion, as passions either help or prevent the bodily perspiration of matter. In many cases, obstruction results in fever or other afflictions or diseases with a direct bearing on emotions. Santorio’s explanation of passion relies on his

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quantification of bodily processes and on weighing the body, that is, his experimentation with perspiration, temperature, pulse, and humidity of the air, though he does not give any exact quantification nor explicitly mentions a quantification of passions in this section. Subsequently, it is possible to cure passions not only by feeling an opposite passion—as Santorio suggests—but also by reactivating the perspiration of stagnating matter, which means by operating on the weight of the body. Consistently with his medical statics, Santorio’s discussion of passions covers a precise medical segment, the one related to transpiration, matter stagnation, bodily obstructions, and metabolic activities in general. Therefore, he limits the mind-body relationship to this focus on the body, providing an important medical, and quantitative, study of emotions.

6   Conclusion: A Complementary Association A strange triangle therefore develops. On the one corner, there is Descartes’ study of passions developing from the mechanization of the mind-body union (I have briefly sketched Descartes’ Passions in Sect. 3); on the other corner, there is Santorio’s quantitative study of passions, which he considers reliant on the insensible perspiration of excrements and allows for a medical treatment of passions as one can deal with temperaments and humours, ultimately weighing passions (I have explored Santorio’s text in Sect. 5). Apparently, associating Descartes and Santorio remains problematic. Despite their revolutionary theories, no contact surfaces, and this triangle could easily resolve into two parallel lines. Yet, Regius seems to play a role (as I have discusses in Sect. 1). Nevertheless, rather than being a segment connecting these corners, Regius stands in the third corner, somehow providing a more medical interpretation (partly based on his training at Padua) of passions to Descartes’ mechanics (I have explored Regius’ text in Sect. 4). In constructing the triangle, Regius connects both authors: he importantly benefitted from Descartes’ mechanization of the body in the understanding of the body and used Santorio’s quantification to deal with excretion and metabolic operations, an underspecified topic of Cartesian physiology. Yet, connecting these corners does not result into an isosceles triangle, as Regius is much closer to Descartes than to Santorio. If, on the one hand, he benefitted more from Descartes’ theory of passions, as the texts discussed in the chapter reveal, and from Descartes in general; on the other hand, as Andrea Strazzoni has shown, Regius’ medical sources varied and cannot be restricted to Santorio alone.

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While a few connections emerge between Descartes and Santorio, for Descartes was aware of Santorio’s work on insensible perspiration and was in contact with scholars who knew Santorio’s theory and work,115 an articulation between Descartes and Santorio, even with the intermediary of Regius, remains a general, theoretical claim. Indeed, Regius did not clearly synthetize Descartes’ mechanics with Santorio’s statical experimentation and investigation of the body. Still, an interesting point surfaces, as I have discussed in Sect. 2: several issues of the opposition between Regius and Descartes are rooted in Regius’ Paduan pragmatism, and concern an important medical difference. According to Regius, the states of the mind originate in the temperaments, which in turn depend on insensible particles, while Descartes claims the mind and the body to be diverse substances. This makes it possible to treat them medically in Regius, whereas Descartes develops a rational medicina mentis. In this sense, some of Santorio’s theory of insensible perspiration surfaces in Regius as a way to treat medical states, an absent issue in Descartes. In conclusion, these two points, (a) Descartes’ mechanization of the formation of temperaments and (b) Santorio’s quantification of the presence of bodily humours, focus on two issues related to the same problem, the role of temperaments and humours in passions, and the attempt to measure and treat passions in the early modern period. While mechanizing and quantifying temperaments and obstructions, these treatises develop a consistent and complementary medical approach to passions. Although this synthesis does not surface in Regius, who tried to fill Descartes’ medical lacunae, the medical reception of Cartesian philosophy develops an interesting relation between Descartes’ mechanization and Santorio’s quantification of the body in the second half of seventeenth century.116 In sum, as it surfaces for the case of passions, an association between Descartes’ and Santorio’s methodologies results in a meaningful, though unexplored, medical understanding of human nature, as predicted by Leibniz.

Notes 1. Leibniz to Hermann Conring, 24 August 1677, in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe, Philosophischer Briefwechsel: 1663–1685, Reihe 2. Bd. 1 vol. 12 (Hannover, Academie Verlang, 2006), 563: “Quanquam enim multa elegantia detexerint Anatomici, pleraque tamen curiosa magis quam utilia videntur, et morborum origines non tam manibus quam accurata ratiocinandi methodo assequi licet. Quam si

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Sanctorium ex prioribus, Cartesium ex novissimis eximas, in paucis scriptoribus agnosco.” On Leibniz, see Andreas Blank in this volume. 2. On the passions in the early modern time see Walther W. Riese, La théorie des passions à la lumière de la pensée médicale du XVIIe siècle (Basel: Karger, 1965); Stephen Gaukroger, The Soft Underbelly of Reason: The Passions in the Seventeenth Century (London: Routledge, 1998); Vincent Aucante, “La démesure apprivoisée des passions,” Dix-septième siècle 213, no. 1 (2001): 613–30; Gail K. Paster, Katherine Rowe, and Mary FloydWilson, eds., Reading the Early Modern Passions: Essays in the Cultural History of Emotion (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); Gábor Boros, “The Passions,” in Philosophy in Early Modern Europe, edited by Desmond M. Clarke and Catherine Wilson, 182–200 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Martin Pickavé and Lisa Shapiro, eds., Emotion and Cognitive Life in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Freya Sierhuis and Brian Cummings, eds., Passions and Subjectivity in Early Modern Culture (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013); Carlo Borghero and Antonella Del Prete, ed., L’uomo, il filosofo, le passioni (Florence: Le Lettere, 2017); Paola Giacomoni, “The Light of the Emotions: Passions and Emotions in Seventeenth-Century French Culture,” Nuncius, 33, 1 (2018): 56–87; Domink Perler, Feelings Transformed: Philosophical Theories of the Emotions, 1270–1670 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018); Denis  Kambouchner, “Descartes and the Passions,” in Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism, edited by Steven  Nadler, Tad M.  Schmaltz and Delphine  Antoine-Mahut, 193–208 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019); Giulia Belgioioso and Vincent Carraud, eds., Les Passions de l’âme et leur réception philosophique (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), especially Annie Bitbol-Hespériès, “De toute la nature de l’homme: de L’Homme à la Description du corps humain, la physiologie des Passions de l’âme et ses antécédents médicaux”, 67–100. 3. Theo Verbeek, “Regius and Descartes on the Passions,” in Descartes et Cartesianism: Essays in Honour of Desmond Clarke, edited by Stephen Gaukroger and Catherine  Wilson, 164–76 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). A French translation of this paper with an original section on Cartesianism has been published as, Theo Verbeek, “Une réaction peu connue aux Passions de l’âme: Regius et Descartes,” in Les Passions de l’âme et leur réception, pp. 335–52. Cf. Horst B. Hohn, “De affectibus animi” 1650: Die Affektlehre des Arztes Henricus Regius (1598–1679) und sein Verhältnis zu zeitgenössischen Philosophen (Cologne: Forschungsstelle des Instituts für Geschichte der Medizin der Universität zu Köln, 1990).

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4. Descartes, Les passions de l’âme, [PA] Seconde response, in Œuvres Complètes, edited by Charles Adam, Paul Tannery (Paris, Vrin, 1964–1974) [hereafter AT], vol. XI, 326: “[M]on dessein n’a pas esté d’expliquer les Passions en Orateur, ny même en Philosophe morale, mais seulement en Physicien.” The English translation is taken from The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, edited by John  Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984–91 [hereafter CSM]). 5. Richard Hassing has recently claimed Descartes “explains the passions ‘only [partly] as a Physician’,” Cartesian Psychophysics and the Whole Nature of Man: On Descartes’s Passions of the Soul (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015). See also Fabrizio Bigotti, Physiology of the Soul. Mind, Body, and Matter in the Galenic Tradition of Late Renaissance (1550–1630), chapter 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019). 6. Karl E. Rothschuh, “Henricus Regius und Descartes. Neue Einblicke in die frühe Physiologie (1640–1641) des Regius,” Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences, 21 (1968): 39–66 at 62, n. 151. 7. The others were Franciscus Bonardus and Ioannes Colle. Cf. Catalogus Germanorum Theologorum Artistarum et Medicorum … in Patavina Universitate Lauream suscepere (Fondo: Archivio Antico dell’Università di Padova, 274), 106–7. 8. Aristotle, Physica, 184a, 16–20: ‘Innata autem ex notioribus nobis via, et  certioribus in certiora naturae, et notiora. Non enim eadem nobis nota, et simpliciter. Unde quidem necesse secundum modum hunc procedere ex incertioribus naturae nobis autem certioribus in certiora naturae, et notiora.’ For the reference, see note 7. 9. For the reference on the question, see note 7. Santorio Santori, Commentaria in primam sectionem Aphorismorum Hippocratis (Venice: M.  A. Brogiolo, 1629), 408: ‘Ad extremos morbos, exacte extremae curationes optimae sunt.’ 10. Regius to Descartes, 18 August 1638, AT II, 305–6; Erik-Jan Bos (ed.), The Correspondence between Descartes and Henricus Regius (Utrecht, Zeno, 2002), 3–4. 11. Note that in 1633, Descartes received the invitation to fill the chair in theoretical medicine at the University of Bologna, see Gideon Manning, “Descartes and the Bologna affair,” British Journal for the History of Science, 47, no. 1 (2014): 1–13. 12. See, for example, Regius’ disputation Pro sanguinis circulatione (20 June 1640): Bos (ed.), Correspondence, 45–8. 13. Cf. Andrea  Strazzoni, “How Did Regius Become Regius? The Early Doctrinal Evolution of a Heterodox Cartesian,” Early Science and Medicine, 23 (2018): 362–412.

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14. Rothschuh, “Henricus Regius,” 51–2; Paolo  Farina, “Sulla formazione scientifica di Henricus Regius: Santorio Santorio e il De statica medicina,” Rivista critica di storia della filosofia, XXX (1975): 363–99. 15. Note that this was a very pervasive metaphor in early seventeenth century; see Otto  Mayr, Authority, Liberty, and Automatic Machinery in Early Modern Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). On the relationship between mechanics and medicine, see Raphaële Andrault, La raison des corps: Mécanisme et science médicale (Paris: Vrin, 2016); Fabio  Zampieri, Il metodo anatomo-clinico fra meccanicismo ed empirismo. Marcello Malpighi, Antonio Maria Valsalva e Giovanni Battista Morgagni (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2016). 16. Descartes, Discours II, AT VI, 19–20. 17. On Regius’ experimentation, see Delphine  Antoine-Kolesnik, “Le rôle des expériences dans la physiologie d’Henricus Regius: les «pierres lydiennes» du cartésianisme,” Journal of Early Modern Studies, 2 (2013): 125–45. On Descartes’ experimentation, see Discours V, AT VI, 50: “ce mouvement [du coeur] suit necessairement de la seule disposition des organes qu’on peut voir à l’oeil dans le coeur, et de la chaleur qu’on y peut sentir avec les doigts, et de la nature du sang qu’on peut connoistre par experience, que fait celui d’un horloge, de la force, de la situation, et de la figure de ses contrepois et de ses roues.” 18. Fabrizio  Baldassarri, “«[P]er experientiam scilicet vel deductionem.» Descartes’ Early 1630s Battle for Scientia,” Historia Philosophica, 15 (2017): 115–33; id., “Descartes, René”, in Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, edited by Marco Sgarbi (Cham: Springer, 2020). 19. See Andrea  Strazzoni, “The Medical Cartesianism of Henricus Regius. Disciplinary Partitions, Mechanical Reductionism and Methodological Aspects,” Galileiana, XV (2018): 181–220. 20. Descartes to Vorstius, 19 June 1643, AT III, 686. 21. On this direct experience on the heart, see Fabrizio Baldassarri, Il metodo al tavolo anatomico. Descartes e la medicina, Rome: Aracne, 2021, pp. 59–100. 22. Descartes to Regius, 24 May 1640, AT III, 68; Bos (ed.), Correspondence, 42. 23. Descartes to Vorstius, 19 June 1643, AT III, 688, CSM 3, 226. Vorstius studied medicine at Padua, where he graduated under Adriaan van den Spiegel on 20 August 1622 24. Descartes to Newcastle, 19 April 1645, AT IV, 191; Descartes to Newcastle, October 1645, AT IV, 328. 25. Descartes, Primae cogitationes circa generationem animalium, AT XI, 536: “Tenues et laeves faciunt ephemeram febrim, retentae et putrescentes in extremitatibus vasorum ob defectum insensibilis transpirationis.”

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26. Descartes, Excerpta anatomica, IV, AT XI, 598: “Inter acres numero spiritus omnes qui per insensilem transpirationem egrediuntur.” Ibid., AT XI, 633: “Sudor non differt ab ea materia quæ exhalat e corpore per insensibiles transpirationes, nisi copia, cruditate, et salsedine: quia, cum magis laxentur meatus cutis, fit aqua quod alioqui esset aër.” Cf. Vincent Aucante, La philosophie médicale de Descartes (Paris: PUF, 2006), 95. 27. Catalogus variorum ac rarissimorum librorum … D.  Henrici Reneri, (Utrecht: A.  Roman, 1639). Cf. Robin O.  Buning, “Henricus Reneri (1593–1639): Descartes’ Quartermaster in Aristotelian Territory” (PhD diss., University of Utrecht, 2013); id., “Henricus Reneri and the Earliest Teaching of Cartesian Philosophy at Utrecht University,” in Les Pas-Bas aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Nouveaux regards, edited by D.  AntoineMahut and C.  Secretan, 65–78 (Paris: Champion, 2015). See also, Baldassarri, Il metodo, pp. 53–56. 28. Cf. Huygens to Mersenne, 12 September 1646, in Marin Mersenne, Correspondance du P. Marin Mersenne, edited by Cornelis de Waard and Armand Beaulieu (Paris: CNRS, 1932–88), vol. 14, 450. Descartes claims Fundamenta physices to be authentically Cartesian as he accuses Regius of plagiarism: see Delphine Antoine-Mahut, “The Story of L’Homme,” in Descartes’ Treatise on Man and its Reception edited by Delphine AntoineMahut and Stephen Gaukroger, 1–29 (Cham: Springer, 2016), 6–7. 29. Henricus Regius, Fundamenta physices (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1646), 205. 30. See Fabrizio Bigotti’s chapter in this volume. 31. See Bigotti, Physiology of the Soul, 236. 32. See Gideon  Manning, “Descartes’ Healthy Machines and the Human Exception”, in The Mechanization of Natural Philosophy, edited by Sophie  Roux and Daniel  Garber, 237–62 (New York: Springer, 2013); Fabrizio Baldassarri, “Seeking Intellectual Evidence in Sciences: The Role of Botany in Descartes’ Therapeutics,” in Evidence in the Age of the New Sciences, edited by James A.T.  Lancaster and Richard  Raiswell, 47–75 (Boston: Springer, 2018). 33. Cf. Strazzoni, “Medical Cartesianism,” 203. 34. Descartes to Regius, November 1641, AT III, 443: “Sed sane multa sunt in Thesibus tuis, quæ fateor me ignorare, ac multa etiam, de quibus si forte quid sciam, longe aliter explicarem quam ibi explicueris. Quod tamen non miror; longe enim difficilius est, de omnibus quæ ad rem medicam pertinent suam sententiam exponere, quod docentis officium est, quam cognitu faciliora seligere, ac de reliquis prorsus tacere, quod ego in omnibus scientiis facere consuevi.” Cf. Epistola ad P. Dinet, AT VII, 582–3. 35. Catherine Wilson, “Descartes and the Corporeal Mind: Some Implications of the Regius Affair,” in Descartes’ Natural Philosophy, edited by Stephen Gaukroger, John Schuster and John Sutton, 659–79 (London:

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Routledge, 2000); Desmond  Clarke, “The Physics and Metaphysics of the Mind: Descartes and Regius,” in Mind, Method, and Morality: Essays in Honour of Anthony Kenny, edited by John  Cottingham and Peter  Hacker, 187–207 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Delphine  Bellis, “Empiricism Without Metaphysics: Regius’ Cartesian Natural Philosophy,” in Cartesian Empiricism, edited by Mihnea Dobre and Tammy Nyden, 151–84 (Dordrecht, Springer, 2013); Eri-Jan Bos, “Henricus Regius et les limites de la philosophie cartésienne,” in Qu’est-ce qu’être cartésien?, edited by Delphine  Kolesnik-Antoine, 53–68 (Lyon: ENS Edition, 2013). 36. Descartes to Regius, early and late May 1641, AT III, 369–72; Bos (ed.), Correspondence, 63–9. 37. Descartes to Regius, December 1641, AT III, 460; Bos (ed.), Correspondence, 90. Cf. Martin Schook, Admiranda methodus (Utrecht: J. van Waesberge, 1643); Theo Verbeek, La Querelle d’Utrecht (Paris: Les Impressions Nouvelles, 1988); id., “’Ens per accidens’: le origini della querelle di Utrecht,” Giornale critico della filosofia italiana, 12 (1992): 276–88; Han van Ruler, The Crisis of Causality: Voetius and Descartes on God, Nature and Change (Leiden: Brill, 1995). 38. Descartes to Regius, July 1645, AT IV, 249–50; Bos (ed.), Correspondence 187–8. 39. Colin F. Fowler, Descartes on the Human Soul: Philosophy and the Demands of Christian Doctrine (Boston: Springer, 1999); Vlad  Alexandrescu, “Regius and Gassendi on the Human Soul,” Intellectual History Review, 23 (2013): 433–52. 40. Regius to Descartes, 23 July 1645, AT IV, 255. See Caspar Barlaeus to Constantijn Huygens, 7 August 1642, in Constantjin Huygens, De Briefwisseling van Constantijn Huygens 1608–1697, edited by Jacob A. Worp, vol. 3 (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1911), vol. 3, 328: “Promittit probationes eas, quibus ab humano ingenio proficisci solidiores non possunt […] Promittit geometricam evidentiam, et Cimmerijs nos tenebris ac Pharia caligine involvit.” Cf. Fowler, Descartes, 350; Bos, “Henricus Regius,” 190; Tad M.  Schmaltz, “The Early Dutch Reception of L’Homme,” in Descartes’ Treatise on Man and its Reception edited by Delphine  Antoine-Mahut and Stephen  Gaukroger, 71–90 (Cham: Springer, 2016), 73–4. 41. Bellis, “Empiricism,” 172. Cf. Theo Verbeek, “The Invention of Nature: Descartes and Regius,” in Descartes’ Natural Philosophy, edited by Stephen Gaukroger, John Schuster and John Sutton, 149–67 (London: Routledge, 2000), 157. 42. Regius, Fundamenta, 246; Henricus Regius, Philosophia naturalis (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1654), 342–3. Cf. Bellis, “Empiricism,” 161.

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43. For a reconstruction on this topic, see Guido Giglioni, “Medicine of the Mind in Early Modern Philosophy,” in The Routledge Handbook on the Stoic Tradition, edited by John Sellars, 189–203 (London: Routledge, 2016). 44. Descartes discussed the part of the passions in his correspondence with Regius, see Descartes to Regius, early May 1641, AT III, 373; Bos (ed.), Correspondence, 66. 45. Elisabeth to Descartes, 6 May 1643, AT III, 660–1; Lisa Shapiro (ed.), Correspondence between Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2007). Cf. Peter  McLaughlin, “Descartes on Mind-Body Interaction and the Conservation of Motion,” Philosophical Review, 12 (1993): 155–82. 46. Descartes to Elisabeth, 21 May 1643, AT III, 664; Shapiro (ed.), Correspondence, 63–5. 47. Descartes to Elisabeth, 21 May 1643, AT III, 665; Shapiro (ed.), Correspondence, 65. 48. See Franco Aurelio Meschini, “Un texte stratifié: l’influence d’Elisabeth,” in Les passions de l’âme, pp. 101–36. On Descartes and passions, see Denis Kambouchner, L’homme des passions: Commentaires sur Descartes. 2 vols (Paris: Albin Michel, 1995); Carole Talon-Hugon, Descartes ou les passions rêvées par la raison. Essai sur la théorie des passions de Descartes et de quelques-­uns de ses contemporains (Paris: Vrin, 2002). 49. Cf. Gianluca Mori, “Descartes Incognito: la “Préface” des Passions de l’Âme,” Dix-septième siècle, 277, no. 4 (2017): 685–700. See also Baldassarri, Il metodo. 50. Descartes believed that madness depended on the excessive presence of bad humours in the brain, see Meditationes de prima philosophia, I, AT VII, 18–19: “insanibus, quorum cerebella tam contumax vapor ex atra bile labefactat…” Cf. La Recherche de la vérité, AT X, 500. 51. Note article 31, on the movements of muscles, which is in open contrast with Regius’ interpretation of muscles. On this opposition, see Schmaltz, “Early Dutch Reception”. 52. Descartes, Les passions de l’âme, I, art. 27, AT XI, 349; CSM I, 338–9. 53. Ibid., II, arts 53–68, AT XI, 373–9. 54. Descartes to Elisabeth, May 1646, AT IV, 407; Shapiro (ed.), Correspondence, 135. Cf. PA, II, art. 96, AT XI, 400. 55. Descartes, Les passions de l’âme, II, art. 52, AT XI, 372; CSM I, 349. 56. Ibid., II, art. 96, AT XI, 401; CSM I, 362–3: the cause of passions “is located also in the heart, the spleen, the liver and all the other parts of the body, in so far as they help to produce the blood and hence the spirits.” 57. Ibid., art. 71, AT XI, 381; CSM I, 353: “we do not find it accompanied by any change in the heart or in the blood, such as occurs in the case of other passions […]. It has no relation with the heart and blood.”

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58. Ibid., art. 99, AT XI, 403; CSM I, 363. 59. On the cause of pulse variation, see Descartes, Discours de la méthode, V, AT VI, 52. 60. Descartes, Les passions de l’âme, art. 97, AT XI, 402; CSM I, 363. Ibid., art. 104, AT XI, 406; CSM I, 365. 61. Ibid., art. 104, AT XI, 405; CSM I, 365. 62. Ibid., art. 102, AT XI, 404; CSM I, 364. 63. Ibid., art. 98, AT XI, 402; CSM I, 363. 64. Ibid., art. 105, AT XI, 406; CSM I, 365. 65. Ibid., art. 100, AT XI, 403; CSM I, 363. 66. Ibid., art. 98, AT XI, 402; CSM I, 363. 67. Ibid., art. 100, AT XI, 403; CSM I, 363. 68. Ibid., art. 103, AT XI, 405; CSM I, 364. 69. Ibid., art. 107–111, AT XI, 407–11. 70. Ibid., art. 117, AT XI, 414–5; CSM I, 369. 71. Ibid., art. 118, AT XI, 416; CSM I 369. 72. Descartes to the Marquis of Newcastle, April 1645, AT IV, 190–1. For a therapeutics, see Excerpta anatomica, AT XI, 606; Remedia et vires medicamentorum, AT XI, 641–4. On Descartes’ interpretation of leeches in healing maladies, see Elisabeth to Descartes, 23 August 1648, AT V, 226–7; Shapiro (ed.), Correspondence, 174. I discuss this in Baldassarri, “Seeking Intellectual Evidence”; id., Il metodo, 130–50. 73. Descartes to Elisabeth, November 1646, AT IV, 529; Simone D’Agostino, Esercizi spirituali e filosofia moderna: Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza (Pisa: ETS, 2017). 74. For a more detailed analysis of this text, see Verbeek, “Regius”. 75. Henricus Regius, De affectibus animi dissertatio (Utrecht: Th. van Ackersdijck, 1650), IV: “Animi affectum esse cogitationem, cum vehementiore spiritum Animalum, in ventriculis cerebri existentium, motu conjunctam, quo Animus sive mens, cum corpore, vehementius afficitur.” 76. Ibid., “quia judicium nostrum pervertunt, et in magnas molestias, morbosque, et alia mala nos praecipitant.” 77. Descartes has a very different view, see Descartes, Les passions de l’âme, I, art. 2, AT XI, 328; CSM I, 328: “what is a passion in the soul is usually an action in the body.” 78. Regius, Fundamenta, V, 95: “Quatenus in ea insensibiles partes adaptantur, vocantur temperamentum; quatenus sensibiles, conformatio.” Cf. VIII, 145: “Corpora viva sunt, quorum partes ita sunt temperatae et conformatae … secundum temperiem et partium conformationem.” 79. Ibid., X, 159: “Sanitatis partes duae sunt: bona temperies, et apta partium conformatione.”

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80. Ibid., XII, 247: “Correcta enim per aetates et sanationes temperie nostri corporis, corriguntur cogitationes; ea vero per senectutem et morbos depravata, depravantur etiam mentis operationes; ea denique per morbo omnino corrupta, mox etiam cessat omnis nostra cogitatio, sive cogitandi actio, et homo tandem moritur.” 81. Ibid., 249: “ex vario corporis temperamento, varii in homine soleant esse mores et cogitationes, cum inde varii in corpore fiant motus.” 82. Regius, Philosophia, V, cap. XII, 433. 83. Aucante, Philosophie, 383–6. Cf. Kambouchner, L’homme, vol. I, 67 et. seq.; Deborah J. Brown, Descartes and the Passionate Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 39: “Descartes’ terminology of ‘animal spirits’ is, however, divorced from the broader theory of temperaments that defines medieval Galenism.” 84. Elisabeth to Descartes, 24 May 1645, AT IV, 208. 85. Descartes to Elisabeth, May or June 1645, AT IV, 220. Cf. Descartes to Elisabeth, 1 September 1645, AT IV, 282. 86. Descartes to Elisabeth, May or June 1645, AT IV, 219–20. Shapiro (ed.), Correspondence, 92: “I do not doubt that this [i.e., turn her imagination from sources of displeasure] alone would be capable of bringing her back to health, even though her spleen and lungs were already ill disposed.” 87. Descartes, Les passions de l’âme, II, art. 51, AT XI, 371–2. 88. Ibid., art. 148, AT XI, 441–2. 89. Verbeek, “Regius,” 171. Discours, IV, AT VI, 62; CSM I, 143. See Étienne Gilson, René Descartes. Discours de la Méthode, texte et commentaire (Paris: Vrin, 1987), 447. 90. Santorio Santori, Ars de statica medicina (Venice: M. A. Brogiolo, 1634), VII, Aph. I, “Inter affctus animi, ira et pericharia corpora efficiunt leviora, timor et maestitia graviora: caeteri vero affectus ut his participantes operantur.” 91. Ibid., Aph. XXIII, “Si quis sine causa sentiat se hilarem, id a magis aperta perspiratione fit, et eius corpus die sequenti minoris ponderis invenitur.” 92. Ibid., Aph. XXVII, “Laetitia et ira auferunt e corpore quod ponderat et levitat; maestita et timor solum quod levitat, quod ponderat vero relinquitus.” 93. Ibid., Aph. II, “Maerore et timore perspirant levius, ponderosius vero relinquitur: laetitia et ira utrumque.” 94. Ibid., Aph. III, “Hinc timentes et maerentes facile obstructiones, partium duritiem et affectus hypochondriacos patiuntur.” 95. Ibid., Aph. IV: “Qui ira vel laetitia afficiuntur, nullam in itinere defatigationem persentiuntur; eorum enim corpora facile crassum perspirabile exhalant, quod non accidit dum maerore, vel timore vexantur.”

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96. Ibid., Aph. V: “Perspirabile ponderosum plus iusto retentum ad maestitiam et timorem, leve vero ad laetitiam vel iram disponit.” 97. Ibid., Aph. VI, “Nihil magis reddit liberam perspirationem, quam animi consolatio.” 98. Ibid., Aph. XI, “Acrimonia perspirabilis retenti ob maestitiam commode aufertur a percharia; funduntur enim humores suaves, et deinde a corpore pondus et acrimonia tolluntur.” 99. Ibid., Aph. XII, “Ira et spes auferunt timorem […]; passio enim animi non medicinis, sed alia passione contraria superatur.” 100. Ibid., Aph. XXII, “Timor et maestitia, ut ex staticis colligitur, per evacuationem excrementorum crassorum perspirabilium, ira et pericharia per tenuium auferuntur.” 101. Ibid., Aph. XXI, “omnes alii immoderati animi affectus per aliquam evacuationem perspirabilium possunt diminui et auferri.” 102. Ibid., Aph. IX: “Maestitia, si diu duret, carnes frigida facit: impedit enim ne perspirabilium crassa et frigida portio exhalet.” 103. Ibid., Aph. X, “Hinc febris […] sudores frigidos et ut plurimim laetales molitur.” 104. Ibid., Aph. XXV, “Moderata iuvat coctrices facultates: natura enim non gravata superfluo longe melius suorum officiorum munera explet.” 105. Ibid., Aph. XXIV, “Laetitia moderata insensibiliter evacuat solum superfluum, immoderata superfluum et utile.” 106. Ibid., Aph. XXVI, “Improvisum gaudium magis nocet […] non enim solum movet exhalatinem excrementorum tertiae coctionis, verum etiam spirituum vitalium.” 107. Ibid., Aph. XXVIII, “Laetitia perseverans per multos dies somnum impedit, et vires dissolvit.” 108. Ibid., Aph. XXX, “Edulia, quae aperiunt, gaudium, quae impediunt perspirationem, maestitiam movent.” Aph. XXXI, “Selinum, et caetera aperientia, gaudium: legumina, carnes pingues, et caetera incrassantia …” 109. Ibid., Aph. XXXV, “Corpus quiescens magis perspirat et minoris ponderis fit, si animo vehementer agitetur, quam si celerrime corpus moveatur, animo permanente otioso.” 110. Ibid., Aph. XXXIX, “Magis nocet nimius animi affectus quam nimius corporis motus.” 111. Ibid., Aph. XLI, “Motus vehemens animi differt a motu vehementi corporis; hic quiete et somno, ille nec quiete nec somno cessat.” 112. Ibid., Aph. XLVI, “perennis tristitia bonam cordis constitutionem evertit, et excessus laetitiae somnum impedit; omne enim nimium naturae inimicum.” 113. Ibid., Aph. XLVII, “Nunc hilares, nunc maesti, nunc iracundi, nunc timidi perspirationem magis salutarem habent.”

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114. Ibid., Aph. XLVIII, “Laetitia diastolem et systolem efficit faciliores, maeror et maestitia difficiliores.” 115. On Reneri, see note 26, and also Fabrizio  Baldassarri, “Elements of Descartes’ Medical Scientia: Books, Medical Schools, and Collaborations”, in Scientiae in the History of Medicine, edited by Fabrizio Baldassarri and Fabio Zampieri, 155–168 (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2021). On the one hand, Santorio’s work was widespread in Europe, and every physician knew it, or discussed some of its topics, yet no presence of any of this is to be found in Descartes’ correspondence, as he never discussed Santorio (nor quantification of the living body) with Mersenne or Beeckman. 116. See, for example, the cases of Heidentryk Overkamp, Theodor Craanen, Cornelis Bontekoe, Steven Blankaart, Johannes Muys, Janusz Abraham Gehem, and others; cf. Anette Henriette Munt, “The Impact of Dutch Cartesian Medical Reformers in Early Enlightenment German Culture (1680–1720)” (PhD diss., University of London, 2004).

CHAPTER 7

Santorio and Leibniz on Natural Immortality: The Question of Emergence and the Question of Emanative Causation Andreas Blank

1   Introduction In his early metaphysics, Leibniz interprets the results of Santorio’s quantitative methods as supporting the possibility of the natural immortality of human beings. Unlike thinkers in the Neoplatonic tradition, what Leibniz has in mind is not just the immortality of human souls1 but rather the immortality of the composite of body and soul. Leibniz is aware that the practice of cannibalism challenges the idea that the entire body could be a subject of resurrection (because some parts will be incorporated in two different bodies at different times); and in response, Leibniz develops his “kernel of substance” doctrine, according to which a much smaller portion of the organic body is the subject of resurrection. The relevant passage from a letter to his patron, Duke Johann Friedrich of Hanover of A. Blank (*) Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, Austria e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Barry, F. Bigotti (eds.), Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614–1790, Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79587-0_7

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1671, has, as far as I know, never been translated into English, so it might be useful to begin by citing it at length: I am almost of the opinion that each body, of humans, animals, plants and minerals alike, has a kernel of substance that differs from the caput mortuum, as the chymists call it, consisting of terra damnata and phlegm. This kernel is so subtle that it remains in the ashes of burnt things, and can contract itself, as it were, into an invisible center. As one can, to a certain measure, use the ashes of plants as seeds, and as in the fetus or fruit of animals the punctum saliens already comprises the kernel of the whole body. Now, I moreover believe that this kernel of substance does not decrease nor increase, although its dress and cover is in perpetual flow and sometimes fumes away, sometimes increases from air and food. Hence, when one human devours another human, the kernel of each remains what it has been, and thus the substance of the one is never nourished by the substance of the other. When it happens to someone that a body part is cut away, this kernel of substance withdraws to its fountain head and retains in a certain measure the motion, as if the body part were still there. As it is the case when people who have lost an arm say that it seems to them that they still have their arm and feel all fingers, which comes from the remaining spirits or kernel of substance. If this can take place when a body part is cut off, then it also can take place when all body parts dissolve and decay; then the kernel of the whole body will no less contract itself into such a subtlety that neither fire nor water nor any visible force can damage it. When this kernel of substance, which is located in a physical point (the proximate instrument and, as it were, vehicle of the soul, which is located in a mathematical point) always remains, it does not matter much whether or not all gross matter is attached to us; it is in constant change anyway, and either fumes away every day, or where it stays in place, coagulates into dirt that has to be washed away. In particular, it is clear that these effluvia probably are entirely new almost every year, especially when one looks a bit closer at Santorio’s experiments that he has described in Medicina statica. If we can replace them in this life while retaining the identity of our body, how much less will the spiritualized bodies be bound to them.2

This passage is complex and touches upon more issues than can be dealt with in a single article. The comparison with supposed cases of palingenesis—the regeneration of living beings from their ashes—is a prominent topic in other early modern natural philosophers such as Joseph Du Chesne (1544–1609) and Daniel Sennert (1572–1637), and I have dealt with it in a previous article.3 The issue of phantom pain is a point I will

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come back to a bit later in the present article. Here I would like to focus upon Leibniz’s relation to Santorio. In an obvious sense, using Santorio’s experiments in the way Leibniz does expresses a profound misunderstanding of Santorio’s natural philosophy. A closer look into Santorio’s more theoretically oriented medical writings reveals that he vehemently rejected the idea of natural immortality. In this sense, the relation between Santorio and Leibniz cannot be informatively characterized in terms of “influence.”4 Still, it may be interesting to ask what the theoretical differences between the natural philosophies of Santorio and the early Leibniz are that could explain their diverging attitudes toward the possibility of natural immortality. Taking such a comparative perspective may be a useful way to get a grip on some features of their natural philosophies whose relevance for the question of natural immortality might go unnoticed otherwise. I will argue for two claims: 1. Santorio, but not the early Leibniz, makes use of emergentist ideas along lines developed by Alexander of Aphrodisias and Galen.5 The central idea that ancient accounts of emergence have in common with contemporary debates about emergence is the view that when material composites have reached a certain level of complexity, then causal powers arise that cannot be analyzed as sums of the causal powers of the constituents of the composites.6 Unlike some of his contemporaries, Santorio does not hold that emergent properties arise through the emergence of new substantial forms such as the forms of elements and the souls of living beings; nevertheless, he holds that new causal powers emerge from the temperament of elementary qualities.7 The early Leibniz, too, is opposed to having recourse to substantial forms in explaining the phenomena of the material world. But unlike Santorio, Leibniz rejects the view that new causal properties could arise from material composites. 2. Consequently, the early Leibniz takes souls and their powers to be non-­emergent phenomena and describes the dependence between matter and soul in a way that differs significantly from Santorio’s views. The early Leibniz, but not Santorio, uses the concept of emanative causation to characterize the relation between the soul and its potencies. Souls in the early Leibniz do not originate from matter and, therefore, have a kind of activity of their own, although they depend upon matter in the sense that the initial information upon which they can perform mental operations is sensory input. For the

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early Leibniz, the p ­ ersistence of souls is therefore not bound to the persistence of any macroscopic body structures. By contrast, for Santorio, all natural powers, including vegetative, sensitive, and rational powers, emerge immediately from “similar” parts8—parts that contain constituents of the same nature and that are the building blocks of “dissimilar” parts such as organs. This is why he rejects the concept of emanative causation and holds that the persistence of these powers depends on the persistence of the temperaments of similar parts.

2   Natural Immortality and the Question of Emergence All of Santorio’s emergentist considerations are connected with his analysis of the notion of temperament. As he characterizes Avicenna’s concept in his Commentaria in primam Fen primi libri Canonis Avicennae (1625), “the temperament is a simple quality, which results from the aggregate of four primary qualities, such that the four primary ones are not corrupted but preserved in the mixture and in the temperament itself.”9 This interpretation is plausible only if one leaves aside, as Santorio does, all of Avicenna’s considerations concerning the role of divine emanative causation in the origin of substantial forms and the qualities arising from them.10 In defense of Santorio it can be pointed out that Avicenna is not very explicit about his emanationist cosmology in the first Fen of the first book of the Canon on which Santorio is commenting, which opens the way for productive reinterpretations. In any case, Santorio adopts Avicenna’s account of the material conditions that have to be met in order for the temperament to arise. According to Avicenna, it is the characteristic of natural mixture that there is not only a mutual action and passion between the primary qualities but also a previous division of matter into natural minima; moreover, these minima must “touch each other for the most part.”11 The purpose of this last condition is clear: genuine mixture requires mutual action and passion between all ingredients.12 But what could be the sense of that enigmatic expression “to touch each other for the most part”? As Santorio notes with respect to the quantity of substance, this cannot take place if one assumes that minima of elements have different sizes. For instance, if out of a minimum of water more than ten minima of air can arise, then a minimum of air is just

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too small to touch a minimum of water “for the most part.”13 Therefore, Santorio conjectures that Avicenna must have meant “touch” by means of quality, not by means of quantity of substance: [A] minimum touches the largest part of another minimum under the condition of mutual action and passion between contrary qualities, through which quality is multiplied, because by means of qualities always a new quality can be educed from the potency of matter, and … this is the new, fifth quality, while the other four remain intact.14

Santorio uses observations made with artificial mixtures to support the view that this is the right analysis of the concept of temperament. For instance, he points out that in the mixture of iron and gold a greater hardness arises than can be found in each metal alone; likewise, in bones a high degree of hardness arises out of materials that by themselves are not hard at all.15 Likewise, the temperament of opium shows a heightened power of cooling the body although elementary coldness has been diminished through the process of mixture; analogously, cantarides shows a heightened power of heating the body although elementary heat has been diminished through the process of mixture.16 In all of these cases, Santorio suggests, a new quality arises in an artificial mixture that is entirely different from the primary qualities.17 As he argues, if new qualities arise in artificial mixtures, where parts are juxtaposed without being divided into natural minima, then such qualities can even more easily arise in natural mixtures, whose parts are divided into natural minima and, therefore, can act upon each other “for the most part” much more easily.18 Santorio puts his view of temperament into historical context when he approvingly paraphrases a passage from Alexander of Aphrodisias’s De mixtione: “The struggle between elements proceeds to the point where, once the contrariety of exceeding qualities has been abolished, a new quality results.”19 By accepting this view, Santorio places his own account of the temperament into the context of one of the clearest examples of ancient emergentism. At the same time, it is significant that he quotes a passage from De mixtione, which deals with a new quality that results from the struggle between elements, and not the more prominent passage from De anima, where the soul is described as an emergent phenomenon. According to Alexander, the soul “is the power and form that supervenes upon the blend of bodies in a particular proportion, not the proportion or composition of the blend. … The soul … is not a balance, but the power

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[that supervenes] upon the balance: it cannot be without this balance, but is not [the same] as it.”20 As Victor Caston has argued, the use of “to supervene” should here be understood as amounting to the claim that mental states cannot change without a change of bodily states, thereby exactly matching the contemporary concept of supervenience.21 Moreover, Caston emphasizes that, for Alexander, the soul possesses causal power that is more than an aggregate of the causal powers of the elements.22 In his Methodi vitandorum errorum omnium qui in arte medica contingunt libri XV (1603), Santorio points out that his view favors Aristotle more than Democritus: [W]e concede that under rare and dense quantity, and under other differences of position, forms are hidden that are substances, and that emerge from matter by means of dispositions; and we say that matter receives its dispositions from the eight differences of position, from whence various rarities and densities, and innumerable hot and cold, rough and smooth qualities arise, which in turn lead to various interstices; and according to the variety of all these qualities, also an infinite variety of forms comes about, which Democritus did not admit.23

However, unlike Alexander, Santorio holds that “powers do not follow from substance, or emanate by themselves from substance, but from the proportion and harmony of parts, namely from their figure, position and interstices.”24 Accordingly, he gives a deflationary account of the notion of form. As to similar parts, he holds that the temperament functions as a simple form.25 As to dissimilar parts, he holds that no single quality arises but rather as many qualities as there are similar parts that constitute dissimilar parts.26 Therefore, he regards the form of dissimilar parts as nothing other than the composition of similar parts.27 This must be so, he argues, because all actions of organic parts derive from temperament of similar parts, while the other parts only provide assistance. For example, vision originates from the temperament of the retina, but presupposes the proper functioning of the other parts of the eye.28 Santorio’s treatment of emergent qualities marks a departure from Alexander and his early modern followers, such as Santorio’s teacher Jacopo Zabarella,29 in two respects: (1) Santorio does not regard new qualities as deriving from substantial forms that emerge from mixtures. In support, he points out that one can observe that transparent minerals lose their transparency when they are ground to powder, without any loss of

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substance.30 Also, the ability to jump or to sing does not depend on the substance of the soul but rather on the constitution of similar body parts.31 If these qualities would depend immediately on substance, Santorio argues, they would have to remain the same as long as the substance remains the same.32 (2) Santorio does not restrict the qualities from which new qualities emerge to primary qualities. Rather, he holds that new dispositions emerge in matter on the basis of changes in position, from which there arise changes in rarity and density, from which there are changes in heat and coldness, the degree of cohesion, and the occurrence of interstices.33 In particular, he emphasizes that such new powers can arise only through a new spatial arrangement of parts, without any change on the level of primary qualities. For instance, laying a red piece of glass over a blue piece of glass produces a purple color. Similarly, chemical compounds undergo changes in color without any observable change in heat or coldness.34 Also, it seems implausible to assume that the killing power of opium emerges from any change on the level of elementary coldness, since substances that are much colder do not have such powers.35 Likewise, in what we now would classify as allergic reactions, the exhalation of a cat carries a “new quality” without any observable change of primary qualities.36 As Santorio surmises, the great variety of such “new qualities” is due to the infinite variety of the positions of internal parts.37 And while he concedes that it would be stupid to assume that the powers of a living being directly result from primary qualities, he also believes that it is not necessary to refer these powers to something substantial. In particular, Santorio conjectures that the differences in the position of internal parts will turn out to offer sufficient explanatory resources for the powers of living beings.38 Both in his Commentaries to Avicenna’s ‘Canon’ and in his De remediorum inventione (1629), he distinguishes four kinds of temperament in an animal: (1) innate temperament (temperamentum innatum) that originates from the origin of the animal;39 (2) inflowing temperament (temperamentum influens) that originates from the heart and the brain; as he clarifies, this is not the form of parts, but rather the temperament of matter that functions as food for innate heat (an entity which I will come back to presently);40 (3) the mixed temperament (temperamentum mixtum) that arises out of the mixture of innate and inflowing temperament: “from which there results a new being, or a new form that is called the form of the whole part of the living being;”41 and finally (4) the total temperament (temperamentum totale) of a whole inner organ and the whole individual.42 He holds that the temperament of similar parts

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has to be distinguished from innate, inflowing, and total temperament, thereby suggesting that we identify the temperament of similar parts with the mixed temperament. His central thesis is that “this mixed temperament brings forth immediately and completely all operations.”43 Consequently, he regards all new causal powers in animals as originating from the temperament of similar parts.44 In spite of their divergence regarding the analysis of the emergence relation, Zabarella and Santorio converge on rejecting natural immortality. Zabarella holds that the death of animal souls, including the souls of humans, is a “necessary byproduct” (necessaria sequela) of the decay of the body.45 Similarly, for Santorio the death of an animal results from the decay of an entity that plays an influential but somewhat enigmatic role in the medical tradition, the innate heat (calor nativus/calor innatus).46 With respect to his interpretation of innate heat in Avicenna, Santorio’s considerations pose the problem of historical accuracy. As Michael Stolberg has argued, Avicenna’s own views on the supra-elementary powers of innate heat can best be understood in the framework of his emanationist cosmology47—a point entirely missed by Santorio. Santorio interprets Avicenna very much from the perspective of his reading of Galen. In his Commentaria in Artem medicinalem Galeni (1612), Santorio points out that, in Galen, one finds various identifications of innate heat: (1) with temperament;48 (2) with whole substance;49 (3) with nature;50 (4) with the substance of powers;51 and (5) with the essence of the soul.52 This series of identifications suggests that innate heat differs both from celestial heat and from elementary heat. Santorio develops his conception of innate heat in his commentary on the Hippocratic Aphorisms (1629). As he claims, when innate heat “is generated, it is generated through a real change of elements, in such a way that a new power arises, which differs formally from the elements.”53 As he explains, the power is new in the sense that it brings forth operations that differ from its principles and that are sometimes even contrary to them.54 The new power can be said to be “formally different” in the sense that it changes “a whole into a whole.” This somewhat opaque expression presumably signalizes that the causal power cannot be resolved into the sum of the causal powers of the constituents but rather is a power of the whole similar part. Such a reading at least is suggested when Santorio discusses the relation between innate heat and another enigmatic entity, first-born heat (calor achigonon/calor primigenium). As Santorio points out, according to Galen the first-born heat is generated out of seed and menstrual

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blood.55 Moreover, Santorio notes that Avicenna ascribes two functions to first-born heat: (1) it changes the seed into nerves, membranes, and other similar parts, and thereby gives temperament; (2) in the already formed organism, it persists but does not give to temperament but to composition (figures, positions, numbers, channels).56 Santorio surmises that first-born and innate heat are of the same kind.57 Given the identification of innate heat with temperament that Santorio accepts, this idea suggests that also the first-born heat can be understood as a kind of temperament, but it is not the temperament of body parts but rather the temperament of mixtures of seminal matter and menstrual blood that play a causal role in the generation of similar parts of living beings that have their own temperament. This is why, according to Santorio, innate heat relates to first-born heat as an offspring relates to parents.58 And he remarks that “the constitution generated by first-born heat is the whole being of similar parts.”59 Santorio explicates the sense in which he speaks of the “whole being” of similar parts in three respects: (1) The temperament is in every minimal part of a similar part; hence, the sameness of temperament explicates the sense in which a similar part is composed of minimal parts of the same nature.60 (2) All operations of the similar part depend on the temperament.61 (3) The temperament is not a body but rather the essence of the similar part.62 This is why, according to Santorio, Galen in such cases spoke of “actions of the whole substance.”63 Thereby, Santorio offers an alternative to two influential interpretations of Galen. According to one interpretation, such actions result from the sum of the causal powers of the primary qualities of the constituents of a composite. According to a rival interpretation, such actions are due to a substantial form that informs the composite.64 Santorio stands out because he deviates from the first— reductionist—option but also does not fall into the second option that binds emergentism to the ontology of substantial forms. Rather, what he has in mind is an ontology of emergent properties—an ontology that he applies to mixtures as well as to the similar parts of living beings, including humans. Such a reading is confirmed by the treatment of qualities of the whole substance in the Methodus. After having put forth the claim that all occult and manifest qualities depend on the three-dimensional structure of parts, he goes on to explain: [O]ccult qualities are called by Galen qualities of the whole substance, because this ultimate degree does not depend upon a single quality of the substance but on all of them, for instance, on such-and-such spatial order,

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rarity and density of part, such-and-such a number, figure and magnitude, or such-and-such a heat, coldness, dryness and humidity, such that there is no single determinate quality of this substance that does not contribute to the production of this occult quality …; for each degree of this quality can bring about a new, unknowable power, if it is a mixture with the other quality of this substance.65

This is the theoretical framework in which Santorio analyzes aging and natural death. In his Commentaries to Avicenna’s “Canon,” he takes up Avicenna’s insight that in the temperament of the elderly not only the quantity, but also the quality of innate heat changes.66 This change is described in terms of the lamp metaphor: as the flame consumes the oil in a lamp, the innate heat is an active principle that uses up a passive principle, called “radical moisture” (humidum radicale).67 On first sight, the metaphor seems to indicate that the innate heat could remain fully intact as long as the radical moisture is replenished.68 However, Santorio conjectures that radical moisture is nourished itself by vital spirits; hence if vital spirits become hot due to passions, the nourishment of radical moisture also makes what is nourished dry and hot.69 As Santorio notes, this explains why Avicenna thought that not only innate heat and radical moisture but also nutritive powers decrease over time.70 If the fuel of innate heat itself becomes too hot and dry, then a chain of effects takes place: the intestines become fatigued; fatigued intestines do not concoct well; impaired concoction brings it about that parts that are lost are not sufficiently replaced; and organs whose parts are not sufficiently replaced lose their power of expulsion such that they become full of excrements.71 In particular, the experiments of the Medicina statica have shown that earthy parts do not fly away as the other parts. This is why with increasing age there is an increase of earthy parts like salt; death results because all powers are grounded in a symmetry between the four elements; where the symmetry is disturbed, also the functions that originate from the temperament cease.72 This implies that, for Santorio, the continuation of life is not bound to the preservation of any particular portion of matter. Rather, life depends on the continuation of the temperament of similar parts, which can emerge from continuously changing material constituents. On the contrary, it is the persistence of material parts that, in his view, presents an obstacle to the continuation of life because it is exactly the material parts that cannot be divided or expelled that threaten the harmony of qualities underlying

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the temperament. If the harmony is disturbed to such an extent that innate heat can no longer emerge from it, natural death occurs. In this way, Santorio’s mortalist position can be understood as a consequence of his emergentist analysis of vital powers. The contrast with Leibniz’s early analysis of material changes will now be easy to see. At the time when he was reading Santorio, Leibniz embraced a theory of a material pneuma or ether whose motion he used for various explanatory purposes: My hypothesis consists in the circulation of the ether with the light or sun around the earth, opposite to the circulation of the earth, from which I derive gravity and elasticity, and magnetic attraction, and from these all the antipathies and sympathies of things, and solutions, and precipitations, and fermentations, and reactions.73

He clearly regards the ether as material since he compares it with Kenelm Digby’s concepts of fire and spirit74—both of which are described in unambiguously corpuscular terms.75 Leibniz uses this hypothesis in a conciliatory manner that is meant to fuse some intuitions of mechanistic philosophy with some intuitions stemming from ancient and medieval philosophy. As he recounts, at the beginning of his philosophical career, he agreed with the corpuscularian philosophers that, in order to explain corporeal phenomena, one should not without necessity have recourse to God or to incorporeal forms and qualities.76 However, starting from the definition of body as what is in space, he realized that from this definition no explanation for the determinate figure, magnitude, motion, and cohesion of bodies can be derived.77 For this reason, he came to the hypothesis of an incorporeal being as an origin of motion; due to the harmony among the motions of bodies, he was led to surmise that there is only a single such being; moreover, since otherwise no sufficient reason for the determinate figure, magnitude, and motion of bodies could be given, he was led to the assumption that this single being is intelligent.78 This conception of the nature of matter and the origin of motion has far-reaching consequences for the notion of form, which still occurs in Leibniz’s early natural philosophy. First, Leibniz argues that the concept of matter as what is in space implies that matter, very much as spatial extension, has “interminate quantity.”79 Second, he argues that the only kind of form that motion can give rise to is nothing other than figure.80 If these premises are taken together, it becomes clear why forms arise through

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splitting up the continuity of matter: “For since figure is the boundary of body, what is required for introducing form into matter is boundary. Hence, in order for various boundaries to arise, what is required is discontinuity of parts.”81 Moreover, if one does not want to assume the existence of a vacuum (as the early Leibniz is reluctant to do), then one has to assume that forms arise through motion.82 This is why the natural philosophy of the early Leibniz is resolutely anti-emergentist. In fact, he takes up emergentist terminology only to give it an entirely different meaning: “We say that forms arise out of the potentiality of matter, not by producing anything new, but only by taking away something old.”83 This, of course, sounds puzzling, and both the negative and the positive claim need some comment. As to the negative claim, qualifying the emergentist terminology of “arising out of the potentiality of matter” by saying that nothing new arises denies the central claim of the theory of emergent properties— the claim that what arises out of the potentiality of matter has new causal powers. As to the positive claim, what Leibniz seems to have in mind is that motion takes away the continuity that is characteristic of matter without motion. Motion thereby produces boundaries between material objects, and continuous matter had the potentiality for being split up in this way. But forms, understood in this way, are nothing but shapes, and shapes by themselves do not have any active powers. It is perhaps no coincidence that this anti-emergentist claim is made in the context of Leibniz’s early revival of aspects of Stoic physics—it is exactly the Stoic theory of a material pneuma that is the target of the criticism of Alexander of Aphrodisias’s De mixtione, whose account of temperament Santorio accepts. Thus, one reason for why the early Leibniz maintains that minds could continue to be alive and active is that they are not bound to an intact material basis of emergence such as the structure of similar parts. It is exactly because he rejects the view that from material changes any new qualities could arise that he describes the material portion (or “kernel of substance”) conjoined with the mind after death as “subtle matter” or “spirit”—that is, matter of a kind that, in Santorio’s view, would be an inadequate material substrate for vital or cognitive powers. The view that no new causal powers can arise from material changes and that a fortiori no vital and cognitive powers can arise from matter is the first crucial aspect in which the metaphysics of the early Leibniz diverges from the natural philosophy implicit in Santorio’s medical writings.

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3   Natural Immortality and the Question of Emanative Causation A second crucial difference between Santorio and Leibniz derives from their diverging causal explanations of the power of reflection. Santorio analyzes this power as an emergent quality that is already present in the sensitive powers of brutes, while Leibniz holds that the power of reflection is an immanent quality that arises from the mind through emanative causation. This is why their different attitudes toward the question of emanative causation turn out to be relevant for their different attitudes toward the question of natural immortality. To get a grip on the early modern understanding of emanation, a brief look into Rudolph Goclenius’s Lexicon philosophicum (1613) will be helpful here. Goclenius characterizes emanative causation as follows: To emanate is to accompany immediately the essence, albeit without any respect to existence, and before existence, without any respect to an external cause. In the proper sense, it is to flow from something else, or to exist due to the principles of the essence of the subject, or to arise out of the essence of something by means of an indissoluble nexus and connection.84

One of the examples that Goclenius gives is the relation between the essence of a thing and its real properties.85 In particular, he applies the concept of emanation to the relation between the soul and its potencies.86 Moreover, he describes the relation between rational souls and their intellectual potencies as an instance of immanent action: Immanent action … in the most proper sense has one and the same proximate principle that is both active and receptive. It remains in the same substrate, and in the same potency, from which it is brought forth, such as thought and appetition. Here belong the emanations or results of the spiritual properties of the soul, such that intellect and will arise proximately from the soul and are in the soul.87

As Goclenius explains, an action is either immanent (immanens), in the sense that it is an action of an agent within the agent itself (actio … agentis intra se); or it is transitive (transiens), in the sense that it is an action of an agent outside of the agent itself (actio … agentis extra se); or it is “in the middle between immanent and transitive” (media inter immanentem et transeuntem).88 But in which sense can an action be “in the middle”

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between immanent and transitive action? A few lines later, Goclenius recognizes an intermediary kind of action that is immanent and transitive at the same time. This kind of action relates to the agency of vegetative and sensitive souls: “Natural life remains immanent in the soul, from which it emanates, and is received in the body.”89 Goclenius here observes that the potencies of the souls that convey life to organic bodies involve both immanent and transitive action. Moreover, he describes both types of action as instances of emanative causation. In particular, emanative causation allows him to claim that natural life remains immanent in the soul while at the same time also inhering in the body. Goclenius describes this kind of action as immanent and transitive at the same time because it is immanent with respect to the soul and transitive with respect to the body. This, then, is the concept that Santorio rejects and Leibniz adopts. Since Santorio believes that new powers do not depend immediately on substantial forms, he rejects the view, defended by his teacher Jacopo Zabarella, according to which powers result from substantial forms through emanative causation.90 In particular, Santorio analyzes cognitive powers as emergent qualities; most notably this holds for the power of reflection which plays a central role in Leibniz’s views concerning natural immortality. To begin with, Santorio argues that the power of reflection is present in non-human animals. For instance, he points out that when a dog with hanging ears hears something, he lifts up his ears; this indicates that he notices that he hears something. Generally, this points to the conclusion that sensation always involves being aware of sensation (animadvertere se sentire).91 This task, as Santorio goes on to argue, cannot be performed by the sensory organs themselves, for it is impossible that an organic power can reflect upon itself. Otherwise, they would have to be able to sense what takes place in them; for example, the eye would have to see the colors that are in it, and the organ of touch would have to sense qualities that are in it.92 From the observation that the processes in the sensory organs are not part of the contents of experience, Santorio infers that in every animal there must be an additional power, similar to the estimative and cogitative powers.93 This is why he holds that sensation is not well described as a genus under which two different species—inner sensation and outer sensation—fall: [B]ecause it is in fact not a univocal genus but comprised within a single power: since as a comprehensive power, it is in the first place said about the

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internal power, and in the second place about the external sensitive power that is perceived by the internal powers. … [W]hen the mind is injured, humans neither see nor sense nor smell nor have any feeling of touch, nor can they imagine something rightly.94

Santorio describes the difference between sensation as it is found in simple animals, the power of estimation that is found in higher animals and humans, and the powers for discourse that is found in humans as a gradual difference. It is a difference between whatever degree of apprehension that is found in all brutes and a more complete apprehension that is found in the beings capable of estimation or discourse.95 Although Santorio does not work out the details, this suggests a view according to which more complete forms of awareness characteristic of higher animals and humans develop out of more rudimentary forms of awareness characteristic of all kinds of animals. If the difference between reflection in humans and reflection in non-human animals is a matter of degree, then the forms of reflection specific to humans is understood as much as an emergent quality as the awareness characteristic of any act of sensation. This implies that these powers can remain intact only as long as the similar parts of the brain remain intact. This is why, from a medical point of view, Santorio holds that curing impaired higher cognitive functions, such as the estimative power, requires healing the similar parts in which cognitive functions such as imagination and memory inhere, on which the higher cognitive functions depend.96 By contrast, Leibniz develops an interpretation of the sense in which emanative causation remains internal to the being from which effects originate that is not bound to the theory that the ultimate constituents of matter are natural minima. That Leibniz regards the relation between mind-like entities and the operations of the organic bodies that they individuate as an emanation relation is suggested when, in the letter to Duke Johann Friedrich of May 1671, Leibniz says that the passive principle in a corporeal substance “is diffused” by the mind and that the mind acts “without being diminished.”97 To judge from what Goclenius says on this issue, the view that the mind emanates activities into the organic body without itself being diminished seems to characterize the relation between minds and the organic bodies animated by them as involving transitive emanation. The relation between mind and body is also central for the question of diachronic identity. As Leibniz points out, in bodies themselves there is no

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sufficient principle of individuation: “For since we have said that a body is actually divided into parts, each of which is agitated with a different motion, and since for the same reason each part is again divided, then certainly if we consider matter alone, no point will be assignable that will remain together with another, nor a moment at which a body will remain identical with itself.”98 This is why Leibniz believes that only together with a soul can a body constitute a living being with diachronic identity.99 At the same time, Leibniz claims that created minds are never without a body: A mind is either separate or united to a body. Separate, such as God; united, such as our soul. There are also other minds, which are called Angelic, more perfect than ours, which nevertheless the ancients believed to be united to some bodies, which are much subtler; so that, if it were true, we could see that also our soul, being incorporeal in itself, gives up only the more gross body in death. And no creature would be destitute of an associated body.100

As we have seen in the passage from Leibniz’s letter to Duke Johann Friedrich, one of the reasons why Leibniz introduces the kernel of substance hypothesis seems to be some facts about perception that are felt as if they were located in organs that no longer exist. Leibniz’s explanation of phantom pain seems to be that the vital spirits, which caused sensations while the body part was still in place, are still extant after the destruction of the body part, albeit in an invisibly small magnitude and at a different location. Moreover, these spirits continue to cause sensations that feel as if they were located in the place where the spirits were located originally. The connection between natural immortality, the physiological function of “subtle matter” and perception is also confirmed in the following passage: It should be known that in each thing there is some seminal center that distributes itself, like containing a tincture and serving the specific motion of the thing. That this is the case is obvious from the regeneration of plants … through seeds, from the plastic force of the sperm in the uterus, from the essences of the chymists. Similarly, hence, there is hidden in bones, in our flesh … a subtler part concentrated in spirits. … This is obvious from the experience that those who have lost a hand or a foot often sense them …: For no other reason than that this subtle spirit in which the substance of the member was contained remains and exerts now the same motions.101

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Thus, for Leibniz subtle matter functions as the instrument by means of which the soul has sensations. In this sense, the activities of the soul depend on information provided by subtle matter. This dependence of activities of the soul on motions of subtle matter explains why Leibniz maintains that souls are never entirely separated from matter. Activity dependence, however, does not amount to emergence. This is why Leibniz regards reflection as a kind of activity that is purely immanent to the soul. The issue of reflection is a prominent theme in his Paris years, connected with the issue of diachronic identity of souls and with the analysis of sensation.102 Already in the Outline of the Catholic Demonstrations (1668–1669?), Leibniz outlines the plan for several chapters of the second part, which would contain a “proof of the immortality and incorporeal nature of the soul.” The first chapter would prove the immortality “from the immediate sense of thought”; the second chapter “from the infinite repeatability of reflection, such that all sensation is an enduring reaction […]”103 Likewise, according to On Memory and the Reflection of the Mind on Itself (April[?] 1676), “the perception of perception to infinity is what is perpetually in the soul, and is what constitutes the per se existence of a mind and the necessity of its continuation.”104 Leibniz is clear that becoming aware of the reflexive structure of sensation is what gives rise to the consciousness of the mind’s diachronic identity: In our mind there is a perception or sense of itself, as of a certain particular thing. This is always in us, for as often as we use a word, we recognize that immediately. As often as we wish, we recognize that we perceive our thoughts; that is, we recognize that we thought a short time ago. Therefore, intellectual memory consists in this: not what we have perceived, but that we have perceived—that we are those who have sensed. And this is what we commonly call “the same,” this faculty in us which is independent of external things.105

As Leibniz adds, he does not see “how the mind could die or be extinguished while these reflections last.”106 Thus, what matters for the immortality of the soul is the capacity of performing immanent activities, and in Leibniz’s view this capacity does not depend on the body. Due to the immanent character of their activities, minds are not only naturally indestructible; they also can be associated with bodies of no matter what size. This is why, according to Leibniz, humans can persist as long as the subtle matter persists that constitutes the “kernel of substance.”

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4   Conclusion Leibniz’s strategy of using the results of Santorio’s experiments in support of his thesis of natural immortality can best be understood against the background of metaphysical assumptions that diverge from Santorio’s metaphysical assumptions. Read in the context of Leibniz’s early metaphysics, Santorio’s experiments in fact could lend support to the view that diachronic identity is not bound to the continued presence of the largest part of our body. Together with the assumption that no new causal powers can emerge from the potencies of matter and the assumption that souls are immaterial beings that emanate their own powers, Leibniz can radically reinterpret these experiments as confirming his conjecture that the continued identity of a human being can be secured through the presence of a portion of matter that is not bound to the limits that minimism imposes on natural particulars. By contrast, Santorio’s view that all natural powers, including vital, sensitive, and intellectual powers, are nothing but powers of the temperament of similar body parts leads to the view that these powers depend for their existence on the continued existence of natural minima whose essence is constituted by the temperament. In his view, this is so because the emergence of new causal powers depends on the persistence of natural particulars of a minimal size. Leibniz’s interpretation of Santorio’s experiments is innovative because he reads them from the standpoint of theoretical assumptions that are contrary to Santorio’s. In this sense, the relation between Santorio’s and Leibniz’s views could be characterized as an instance of innovative appropriation of Santorio’s experiments. Both Santorio and Leibniz took it as an implication of the quantitative analysis of exhalation that some material parts remain in the body throughout a human lifetime. But while Santorio regards this very fact as an explanation of natural mortality of humans, Leibniz regards it as an experimental support for the possibility of natural immortality. Acknowledgments  Work on this article was supported by a research position at the Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt, funded by the Austrian Science Fund (P-33429).

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Notes 1. As for example in Marsilio Ficino; see Paul Oskar Kristeller, “The Theory of Immortality in Marsilio Ficino,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 1 (1940): 299–319. On Leibniz’s relation to Neoplatonic accounts of immortality, see Stuart Brown, “Soul, Body and Natural Immortality,” The Monist, 81 (1998): 573–90. 2. Leibniz to Duke Johann Friedrich of Hannover, 21. May 1671, in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1923) [henceforth: A], II, 1, 175–176: “Nemblich ich bin fast der meinung, daß ein ieder leib, so wohl der Menschen alß Thiere, Kräutter undt mineralien einen Kern seiner substantz habe, der von dem Capite mortuo, so wie eß die Chymici nennen ex terra damnata et phlegmate bestehet, unterschieden. Dieser kern ist so subtil, daß er auch in der asche der verbrandten dinge ubrig bleibt, undt gleichsamb in ein unsichtbarliches Centrum sich zusammen ziehen kann. Wie mann dann auff gewisse maase sich der asche der gewächse zum saamen gebrauchen kann, undt in dem foetu oder frucht der Thiere, das punctum saliens den Kern des gantzen Cörperß bereits in sich begreifft. Nun glaub ich ferner, daß dieser Kern der substantz in einem Menschen weder ab noch zu nehme, obgleich sein Kleidt undt Decke in stetem fluß begriffen undt bald weg raucht, bald wiederumb auß der lufft oder speise sich vermehrt. Daher wann ein Mensch vom andern verzehrt wirdt, bleibt der Kern eineß jeden wer undt wie er gewesen, undt wirdt also niemahlß die substantz deß einen durch die substantz deß andern ernehrt. Wirdt nun einem Menschen ein gliedt abgeschnitten, so ziehet sich dieser Kern der substantz zurück zu seinem brunnquell undt behält auff gewisse maase die bewegung, alß wann das gliedt noch da wäre. Wie dann Leute denen [ein] arm abgehawen, sagen, daß ihnen offt düncke sie hätten ihren arm noch undt fühleten alle finger, welches von den zurück bliebenen spiritibus, oder Kern der substantz herrühren muß. Kann nun das geschehen wann ein Gliedt abgeschnitten wirdt, so kann eß auch geschehen wann sie alle gelöset undt zerstöret werden, dann sich nichtß desto minder der Kern deß gantzen Cörperß in eine solche subtilität zusammen ziehen wirdt, daß ihm weder fewer noch wasser noch einige sichtbahre gewalt schaden könne. Wann nun dieser Kern der substantz in puncto physico consistens (proximum instrumentum et velut vehiculum Animae in puncto mathematico constitutae) allezeit bleibt, so ist ja wenig ahn gelegen, ob alle grobe materie so ahn unß ist, die doch ohne das in steter veränderung, undt täglich entweder außrauchet, oder wo sie sitzen bleibt, in sordes so mann abspülen muß, coagulirt wirdt, ubrig bleibe: Maasen clar, daß solche exuviae wohl fast alle Jahr gantz new sein,

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sonderlich wann mann Sanctorii experimenta so er in medicina statica beschrieben, etwaß genauer ahnsiehet. Können wir sie nun in diesem Leben salva identitate corporis nostri verändern, viel weniger werden die verklärte leiber darann gebunden sein.” The reference is to Santorio Santori’s Ars de statica medicina (1614). In what follows, references are to Santorio Santori, Opera omnia, 4 vols (Venice: F. Brogiolo, 1660), except for references to Santori Santori, Commentaria in Artem medicinalem Galeni (Venice: I. A. Somaschus, 1612). Unless where otherwise noted, translations are my own. 3. Andreas Blank, “Sennert and Leibniz on Animate Atoms,” in Machines of Nature and Composite Substances in Leibniz, edited by Justin E. H. Smith and Ohad Nachtomy, 115–130 (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011), 117–121. 4. The same holds for Robert Boyle, who a few years later, in his Physico-­ Theological Considerations on the Possibility of the Resurrection (London: H. Herringman, 1675) makes a similar interpretation of Santorio’s experiments—of which, as Leibniz’s reading notes on Boyle’s text indicate, Leibniz was aware; see A VI, 3, 238. On Boyle’s conception of natural immortality, see Udo Thiel, The Early Modern Subject. Self-Consciousness and Personal Identity from Descartes to Hume (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 87–89. 5. On emergentism in Alexander of Aphrodisias and Galen, see Victor Caston, “Epiphenomenalisms, Ancient and Modern,” Philosophical Review 106 (1997): 309–363. On the early modern reception of these ideas, see Andreas Blank, “Daniel Sennert and the Late Aristotelian Controversy over the Natural Origin of Animal Souls,” in Animals. New Essays, edited by Andreas Blank, 75–99 (Munich: Philosophia, 2016); id., “The Question of Emergence in Protestant Natural Philosophy, 1540–1610,” Hungarian Philosophical Review, 61 (2017): 7–22; id., “Antonio Ponce de Santacruz on Nutrition and the Question of Emergence,” in Nutrition and Nutritive Powers in Aristotle and the Aristotelian Tradition, edited by Giouli Korobili and Roberto Lo Presti, 355–377 (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 2021). 6. For an overview of contemporary approaches to this notion, see Cynthia Macdonald and Graham Macdonald, “Introduction,” in Emergence in Mind, edited by Cynthia Macdonald and Graham Macdonald, 1–21 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). 7. For example, Santorio, Commentaria (1612), cols. 241–42. 8. For example, Santorio, Commentaria in primam Fen (1660), coll. 237, 967. 9. Ibid., col. 245: “temperatura sit quinta simplex qualitas, quae resultat ex aggregato quatuor primarm qualitatum, ita ut quatuor primae non cor-

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rumpantur, sed in mixto, et in ipsa temperatura conserventur.” See Santorio, Commentaria (1612), col. 135. 10. See Abraham D. Stone, “Avicenna’s Theory of Primary Mixture,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 18 (2008): 99–119. 11. Santorio, Commentaria in primam Fen (1660), col. 233. On Santorio’s marginalia concerning this point, see Fabrizio Bigotti “A Previously Unknown Path to Corpuscularism in the Seventeenth Century: Santorio’s Marginalia to the Commentaria in Primam Fen Primi Libri Canonis Avicennae (1625),” Ambix, 64 (2017): 29–42 (40–1). 12. Santorio, Commentaria in primam Fen, (1660) col. 234. 13. Ibid., coll. 235–236. 14. Ibid., col. 236: “minimum tangere plurimum alterius minimi supposita mutua actione, et passione contrariarum qualitatum, in qua multiplicatur qualitas, quia semper aliqua nova temperatura virtute qualitatum educi potest e potentia materiae, et haec nova ex Avicenna est quinta qualitas: aliis quatuor non corruptis.” 15. Ibid., col. 247. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid., col. 252: “Pugna elementorum eo usque progredi donec abiectis contrarietatum excessibus una qualitas resultat.” See Robert B.  Todd, Alexander of Aphrodisias on Stoic Physics. A Study of the De Mixtione with Preliminary Essays, Text, Translation, and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 158 (De mixtione 233.2–5). 20. Alexander of Aphrodisias, De l’âme, edited and translated by Martin Bergeron and Richard  Dufour (Paris: Vrin, 2008), 104 [De anima 25.2–8]. Alexander of Aphrodisias, On the Soul. Part I: Soul as the Form of Body, Parts of the Soul, Nourishment and Perception, trans. Victor Caston (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), 51. 21. Caston, “Epiphenomenalisms,” 348–9; see Donald Davidson, “Mental Events,” in his Essays on Actions and Events, 207–225 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980). 22. Caston, “Epiphenomenalisms,” 349–50. 23. Santorio, Methodi vitandorum errorum...libri XV (1660), 418: “[A]dmittimus, sub quantiate rara, et densa, et sub aliis situs differentiis formas delitescere, quae sunt substantiae, quaeque a materia emergunt dispositionum opificio; dicimusque disponi materiam ab octo differentiis positionis, unde raritates, et densitates variae, unde caliditates, et frigiditates, asperitates, et lenitates innumerabiles finunt, unde meatus varii; pro infinita horum omnium varietate variae, et infinitae formae enascuntur, quas Democritus non admittebat.”

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24. Ibid., 410: “potentias non insequi substantiam, vel emanare per se a substania, sed a proportione et harmonia partium, scilicet ab earum figura, situ, et meatibus.” 25. Santorio, Commentaria in primam Fen (1660), col. 238; see also Commentaria (1612), col. 136. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 28. Santorio, Commentaria in primam Fen (1660), coll. 237, 967. 29. On Zabarella’s views concerning the emergence of substantial forms, see Andreas Blank, “Zabarella and the Early Leibniz on the Diachronic Identity of Living Beings,” Studia Leibnitiana 47 (2015): 86–102 (89–95). 30. Santorio, Methodi (1660), 410. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid., 420. 34. Ibid., 421. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid., 422. 38. Ibid. 39. Santorio, De remediorum inventione (1660), 11; Commentaria in primam Fen (1660), col. 238. 40. Ibid. 41. Santorio, De remediorum inventione (1660), 11: “unde resultat novum esse, seu nova forma quae dicitur forma totius partis viventis …”; see Commentaria in primam Fen (1660), col. 238. 42. Santorio, Commentaria in primam Fen (1660), col. 238. 43. Santorio, De remediorum inventione (1660), 11: “hoc temperamentum mixtum immediate, & complete edit omnes operationes”; see also Commentaria in primam Fen (1660), col. 237. 44. Ibid. 45. Giacomo Zabarella, De naturalibus rebus libri XXX (Cologne: Ciotti, 1590), 231–232. On Zabarella’s mortalism, see Branko Mitrovic, “Defending Alexander of Aphrodisias in the Age of the Counter-­ Reformation: Iacopo Zabarella on the Mortality of the Soul according to Aristotle,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 91 (2009): 330–54. 46. On innate heat in ancient and medieval medicine, see Peter H. Niebyl, “Old Age, Fever, and the Lamp Metaphor,” Journal of the History of Medicine 26 (1971): 351–68; Michael McVaugh, “The humidum radicale in Thirteenth-Century Medicine,” Traditio, 30 (1974): 259–83. On the reception of Avicenna’s views on mortality in his late medieval com-

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mentators, see Karine van’t Land, “Long Life, Natural Death. The Learned Ideal of Dying in Late Medieval Commentaries on Avicenna’s Canon,” Early Science and Medicine, 19 (2014): 558–83. 47. Michael Stolberg, “Die Lehre vom ‘calor innatus’ im lateinischen Canon medicinae des Avicenna,” Sudhoffs Archiv 77 (1993): 33–53. On Avicenna’s emanationist views on the origin of souls, see Herbert A.  Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes on Intellect: Their Cosmologies, Theories of the Active Intellect, and Theories of Human Intellect (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), Ch. 4; Michael Marmura, “Some Questions Regarding Avicenna’s Theory of Temporal Origination of the Human Rational Souls,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 18 (2008): 121–38. 48. Santorio, Commentaria (1612), col. 175. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid. 51. Ibid., col. 176. 52. Ibid. 53. Santorio Santori, Commentaria in primam sectionem Aphorismorum Hippocratis (Venice: M. A. Brogiolo, 1629), In Decimumquartum Aphorismum, 324: “dum generatur, generatur per veram elementorum transmutationem, ita ut resultet virtus nova, et ab elementis formaliter diversa.” 54. Ibid., 330. 55. Ibid., 317. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid., 338. 58. Ibid., 318. 59. Ibid., 333: “quae constitutio est totum esse partium similarium.” 60. Ibid., 335. 61. Ibid., 336. 62. Ibid., 340. 63. Ibid., 336. For a comprehensive list of occurrences of this concept in Galen’s writings, see Brian P. Copenhaver, “A Tale of Two Fishes: Magical Objects in Natural History from Antiquity through the Scientific Revolution,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 52 (1991): 373–92, note 25. 64. On these two interpretations, see Andreas Blank, “Sixteenth-Century Pharmacology and the Controversy between Reductionism and Emergentism,” Perspectives on Science, 26 (2018): 157–84. 65. Santorio, Methodi (1660), 420: “[O]ccultae a Galeno vocantur totius substantiae, quia ille gradus ultimus non pendet ab unica qualitate illius, sed ab omnibus, videlicet a tali situ, raritate, densitate partium, a tali numero, figura et magnitudine, vel a tali calore, frigiditate, siccitate, et humiditate, ut nulla determinata qualitas illius susbtantiae sit, quae non

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conspiret in huius occultae potentiae productionem …; quilibet enim gradus harum qualitatum potest novam potentiam incognoscibilem, si alii totius illius substantiae qualitatibus misceatur, efficere.” 66. Commentaria in primam Fen (1660), col. 514. 67. Ibid., col. 516. 68. Ibid., col. 529. 69. Ibid., col. 518. 70. Ibid., col. 520. 71. Ibid., col. 517. 72. Ibid., col. 522. 73. Leibniz to Oldenburg, 28. September 1670, A II, 1, 104–105: “Hypothesis consistit in circulatione aetheris cum luce seu sole circa terram, circulationi Terrae contraria, ex qua gravitatem et elaterem, et magnetis verticitatem, et ex his, omnes rerum antipathias et sympathias, et solutiones, et praecipitationes, et fermentationes, et reactiones derivo.” 74. Leibniz, Hypothesis Physica Nova, A VI, 2, 246. 75. Kenelm Digby, A Discourse Concerning the Vegetation of Plants (London: John Dakins, 1661), 12–15, 28–30. 76. Leibniz, A VI, 1, 489–490. 77. Ibid., 490. 78. Ibid., 492. 79. Leibniz, A VI, 2, 435. 80. Ibid. On this understanding of form in the seventeenth century, see Norma Emerton, The Scientific Reinterpretation of Form (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1984). 81. Leibniz, A VI, 2, 435: “cum figura sit terminus corporis; ad figuras materiae inducendas, opus erit termino. Ut igitur varii in materia termini oriantur, opus est discontinuitate partium.” 82. Ibid., 435–436. 83. Ibid., 436: “Dicimus enim formas oriri ex potentia materiae, non aliquid novum producendo, sed tantum vetus tollendo.” 84. Rudolph Goclenius, Lexicon Philosophicum (Frankfurt: Petrus Fischer, 1613), 146: “Emanare est immediate essentiam comitari, tamen sine respectu existentiae, et ante existentiam, et sine respectu causae externae. Proprie est fluere ab alio, seu ex principiis essentiae subiecti existere[,] ab essentia alicuius indissolubili nexu vinculoque proficisci.” 85. Ibid.: “Sic emanant reales proprietates.” 86. Ibid.: “Sic ex anima emanant potentiae.” 87. Ibid., 40: “Actio immanens … maxime propria, habet unum idemque principium proximum et Activum et Receptivum. Manet in eodem supposito, et in eadem potentia, a qua elicitur, ut Cognitio et Appetitio. Huc

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pertinent emanationes seu resultantiae proprietatum spiritualium animae, ut, Intellectus et voluntas sunt proxime ab anima et in anima.” 88. Ibid. 89. Ibid.: “Vita naturalis immanet in anima, a qua manat, & recipitur in corpore.” 90. Santorio, Methodi (1660), 410. See Zabarella, De rebus naturalibus, 294–5. 91. Santorio, Commentaria (1612), col. 177. 92. Ibid., col. 176. 93. Ibid., col. 177. 94. Santorio, Commentaria in primam Fen (1660) col. 1083: “quia non est revera genus univocum, sed ab uno; quia comprehensiva per prius dicitur de interna, et per posterius de sensitiva externa, quae per facultatem internam percipitur … [M]ente existente laesa, homines nec videre nec sentire, nec olfacere, nec audire, nec tactu aliquid percipere, nec recte aliquid imaginari posse.” 95. Ibid., col. 1095. 96. Ibid., col. 1096–1097. 97. Leibniz A II, 1, 113. 98. Leibniz, Definitiones cogitationesque metaphysicae, A VI, 4, 1399: “Cum enim corpus dixerimus divisum esse in partes actu, quae diverso singulae motu cientur, et ob eandem rationem quaelibet pars rursus divisa sit, sane si solam materiam spectemus nec punctum assignari poterit quod cum altero maneat, nec momentum quo idem corpus maneat secum ipso; et nunquam ratio erit dicendi aliquod corpus esse unum ultra punctum, et idem ultra momentum.” Translation from The Labyrinth of the Continuum. Writings on the Continuum Problem, 1672–1686, trans. Richard Arthur (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 245. 99. Ibid. 100. Leibniz, De mundo praesenti, A VI, 4, 1507: “Mens est, aut secreta aut corpori unita. Secreta ut Deus; unita, ut anima nostra. Sunt et aliae mentes, quae Angelicae dicuntur, nostris perfectiores, quas tamen corporibus quibusdam sed longe subtilioribus unitas esse veteres credidere, quod si verum esset, videri posset anima quoque nostra licet in se incorporea tamen non nisi crassum corpus morte deponere. Nec ulla esset creatura corporis adjuncti expers.” Translation from Leibniz, Labyrinth, 283. 101. Leibniz, De resurrectione corporum, A II, 1, 185: “Sciendum est enim in omni re esse centrum quoddam seminale diffusivum sui, et velut tincturam continens motumque rei specificum servans. Constat hoc ex plantarum regeneratione … ex seminibus, ex vi plastica seminis in utero, ex essentiis Chymicorum. Similiter ergo in ossibus, in carne nostra … pars subtilior in spiritibus concentrata latet. Quae resecto membro, aut putrefacto ad fontem vitae, cui ipsa anima implantata est, redit. Constat hoc,

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vel eo experimento quod ii quibus manus pesve abscissus est, saepe eos sentire …: nulla alia ratione, quam quod Spiritus ille subtilis quo membri velut substantia continebatur, superstes eosdem nunc quoque motus exercet.” 102. On Leibniz’s early views on reflection, see Andreas Blank, “The Analysis of Reflection and Leibniz’s Early Response to Spinoza,” in The Philosophy of the Young Leibniz, edited by Mark Kulstad, Mogen Laerke and David Snyder, 161–175 (Stuttgart: Studia Leibnitiana Sonderheft 34, 2009). 103. Leibniz, A VI, 1, 494–495. 104. Leibniz, A VI, 3, 517: “perceptio perceptionis in infinitum est perpetuo in anima, inque ea consistit eius per se existentia, et continuationis necessitas.” Translation quoted from De Summa Rerum. Metaphysical Papers, 1675–1676, trans. with an introduction and notes by George. H. R. Parkinson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 75. 105. Leibniz, A VI, 3, 509: “In mente nostra est perceptio seu sensus sui, ut certae cuiusdam rei particularis, haec semper in nobis, quia quoties vocabulum adhibemus, tunc id statim agnoscimus. Quoties volumus agnoscimus nos cogitationes nostras percipere, id est cogitasse paulo ante. Ergo memoria intellectualis in eo est, non quid senserimus, sed quod senserimus: quod simus ii qui sensimus, et hoc est quod vulgo appellamus idem, haec in nobis facultas independens ab externis.” Translation from Leibniz, De Summa Rerum, 61. 106. Ibid.: “Non video quomodo … mens mori seu extingui possit durantibus illis reflexionibus.”

CHAPTER 8

Santorio Santori on Plague: Ideas and Experience Between Venice and Naples Vivian Nutton and Silvana D’Alessio

In this chapter we will deal with the aphorisms that Santorio Santori wrote after the plague of 1630–1631 in Venice. In the first part, Vivian Nutton describes the original elements of this contribution to the study of the causes and the dynamics of the disease; in the second, Silvana D’Alessio focuses on Geronimo Gatta and his treatise on the plague in Naples in 1656 (Di una gravissima peste, 1658), in which he quotes these aphorisms as a precious vademecum for facing the invisible enemy. The section De peste, in the 1634 edition of Santorio’s Ars de statica medicina, is very short, a mere fifteen Aphorisms in five small pages but it

V. Nutton (*) Centre for the Study of Medicine and the Body in the Renaissance, Pisa, Italy e-mail: [email protected] S. D’Alessio University of Salerno, Fisciano, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Barry, F. Bigotti (eds.), Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614–1790, Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79587-0_8

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contains many surprises.1 Their format is unusual in plague texts, and their content is vastly different from that of the only other similar collection, that of the Bolognese physician, Leonardo Fioravanti (1517–1588) in his Del reggimento della peste (1565).2 Not only does this Paracelsian writer include many more aphorisms, but he spends much time on enumerating the miraculous remedies at his disposal, something roundly condemned by Santorio. Santorio’s plague aphorisms are not included in the 1614 edition, but appear first in the second edition of 1634, where they may reflect some of his experiences in the plague of Venice in 1630, and as well as incidents in the even earlier and more dramatic one of 1576. The section is self-­contained, with its own heading, although its aphorisms are numbered consecutively from the end of Section I as Aphorisms 126–140. One might have expected them to come at the end of Section II, on air and water, both traditionally involved in plague, but when they do talk about air, they do so in a way that is very different from Book II and from that of the standard plague tract. The reason is probably that Santorio considered plague as in some way caused by halitus, exhalations, something already discussed elsewhere in Section I. Santorio’s experience with plague in both 1576 and 1630 was a harrowing one, and his choice of aphorisms can be properly appreciated only against the background of these two tragic events. The 1576 plague in Venice has been well chronicled by Richard Palmer and others and its main events can be briefly described.3 Plague broke out in 1575, causing 3696 deaths, a relatively small number, probably reached every eight or nine years in a city as large as Venice. It followed the typical pattern of infection, beginning in late spring and early summer, and disappearing with the onset of winter. It was dealt with by the Health Board simply by quarantine, with apparent success. The ‘epidemic’ began again in May 1576, and this time it became clear to the Venetians that this was likely to be no ordinary epidemic. By the beginning of June, 25,000 Venetians had fled the city, and 850 were in quarantine. The Health Board instituted its normal procedures, banning public meetings, and imposing restrictions on movement. On June 7 it also called in for advice several of the leading professors at Padua, most notably Girolamo Mercuriale and Girolamo Capodivacca, who participated in a debate, along with Venetian physicians, before the Maggior Consiglio. Opinion was divided; some, including the official physician to the Health Board, were convinced that this was true plague, but the majority, including a physician shut up in his house, disagreed. Whatever this was, and whatever its cause (and opinion

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was divided), this was not plague, even if, the more cautious asserted, it might turn into plague. Mercuriale, Capodivacca, and the Venetian physician Boccalini were convinced that this was not plague, for the number of deaths reported was far below what might have been expected—Mercuriale asserted there were only two or four a day in later May, Boccalini put the figures slightly higher, claiming that, since most of those affected were the poor, their illness had been caused in part by poor diet and drinking salt water. Mercuriale and Capodivacca were so convinced that this was not plague that they offered to examine some of the sick personally, on condition that the authorities relax the plague orders, allowing medical personnel to go about their business, abandoning sending people to the lazaretto, unless at least four persons had died in the house, or shutting others in their houses unless at least two had died. They demanded formal notices that this was not plague. After a few days back in Padua, the professors returned to Venice to a hero’s welcome, having obtained most of their demands, and set about their task of examining the sick. But the Health Board and the Venetian College of Doctors were not satisfied, and the Board, without the authority of the College, reintroduced regulations on June 22 for isolating anyone with tumours behind the ears, or in the armpits or groins. The professors, however, and their assistants continued to examine patients, despite further protests from the Board, until by the end of the month deaths began to rise steeply, 32 in the penultimate week in June, 95 in the next including some of Mercuriale’s assistants, 171 in the next. The plague regulations were quickly reintroduced. The professors became the scapegoats instead of the heroes, being forced themselves to undergo an eight-day quarantine before being allowed to return to Padua. Their claims that the disease was pestilential fever, not true plague, were derided, although Mercuriale justified them the following year in his plague treatise, asserting that the disease had undergone a sudden change in mid-July (after his return to Padua). One might compare Santorio’s assertion in 1630 that the buboes he examined were not enough by themselves to decide, for he believed that what he saw was not ‘true plague’, exactly the same justification as given by Mercuriale. Not everyone was convinced, not least the relatives of the more than 50,000 Venetians who had died, perhaps a third of the population, or of the 10,000 who had died at Padua. Indeed, only a few years later, the Venetian scribe placed the whole blame for the disaster on the professors, whose visits had only spread the disease while undermining the authority of the Health Board, convinced from the beginning that this was plague.

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What happened in Venice was soon public knowledge, and Santorio, beginning his medical studies in Padua, was probably among those forced to leave the city for a while.4 Sam Cohn has argued that this epidemic marked a turning point in the production of plague literature, and that, in Italy at least, it became the most celebrated outbreak since the onset of the Black Death.5 It spawned a considerable amount of literature, and Mercuriale’s defence of his and his colleagues’ decisions was widely cited.6 The view from the Padua senior common room was firmly against that of the Venetians. Their famous professors had been maltreated and their reputations attacked by a Board of laymen, who failed to recognise the expertise of those whom they had so eagerly summoned. The parallel with events in the later plague is remarkably close, but this time it was Santorio, not Mercuriale, who played the leading role. He was already in Venice when the first signs of the plague manifested themselves in June 1630. In August, the Board summoned him to deliver his opinion on the plague,7 which was reproduced in the 1843 Paduan thesis of Paolo Dolfin based upon documents preserved in a seventeenth-century manuscript, entitled Opinioni medichi sul contagio di Venezia 1630. In it Santorio reported that he had seen ‘tumors’ in the groin and other parts of the patients, but he did not believe they had been caused by the plague, for several reasons. It would be pointless to list them analytically. It is enough to underline that, according to Santorio, buboes by themselves could not be taken as a clear sign of the disease. In the account written by another physician, who was summoned on the same occasion, Cecilio Fuoli, we read that the Health Board had warned all physicians to be cautious when speaking about the plague, as this could obviously affect both public and private businesses.8 Santorio’s initial judgement fitted with the Health Board’s wishes. But, as time went on, he refused to change his opinion, even though some of his colleagues and the officials themselves demurred, wishing to introduce strict plague measures.9 Indeed, it was Santorio’s authority that prevented them, for they were unwilling to introduce such draconian and expensive measures until they could be sure that their expert agreed. When the measures were put in place, they were too late, and once again a Paduan professor stood accused of causing around 60,000–70,000 deaths. But as Geronimo Gatta shows, that did not mean that Santorio did not possess solid opinions on how the plague originated, spread, or developed, even if, perhaps deliberately, he passed over any personal experiences in favour of general points of universal application. How unusual these were can be judged against some long-standing traditions of explanation,

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advice, and intervention. Plague offered a challenge to the standard view of humoral medicine that saw disease as something brought about by changes in the bodily, humoral balance of each individual. Plague, defined as a widespread and sporadic condition, could not easily be attributed to some alteration within an individual as a result of individual mixture, but must have some more universal cause in the atmosphere and the environment. By the fifteenth century, doctors were agreed that plague was the result of bad air, but there was no clear consensus as to what that bad air was or how it brought about the disease. For some it acted like a poison, working through its combination of qualities to attack all and sundry; for others it produced a sort of putrefaction within the body; for still others it was the air itself that had become putrefied as a result of planetary changes or of exhalations from deep inside the earth released by earthquakes or escaping from deep caves.10 (It is not for nothing that Jan Baptist van Helmont, much later, entitles his treatise, The Tomb of the Plague, or begins it with a metaphorical descent of Galen, Avicenna, Paracelsus, and Van Helmont himself deep into a fume-filled cave from which even the most intrepid explorer can escape only with difficulty.)11 But, according to many doctors, there was a way in which they could combat plague and epidemic disease successfully. Knowing the atmospheric conditions likely to occur as well as the way in which the diseases affected the humours could allow the learned doctor to predict, forewarn, and strengthen the body by diet and, some believed, specific remedies, so that the bad air did not result in a bodily imbalance, disease, or death. It is against this background that one should consider the most famous of all Renaissance theories of plague, that of Girolamo Fracastoro (1483–1553), poet, physician, and philosopher. Fracastoro’s interests in diseases, and contagious diseases in particular, cover some twenty-five years or more. His most famous book, Syphilis, an epic in verse about a shepherd Syphilus, who becomes infected with the French disease, was begun in the early 1520s, but was not published until 1530, while his book on contagious diseases went through several drafts before its publication in 1546.12 The latter book had classical precedents. Fracastoro’s argument is influenced by Lucretius’ poem De rerum natura, which not only contains an influential account of a plague in cattle but also describes the building blocks of his Epicurean universe as semina rerum. Fracastoro’s term is seminaria, which conveys both the notion of little seeds but also the seed bed from which things grow. He was not the first to think of contagious diseases as a class, or to link the spread of plague with contagion, let alone to

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think of it as in some way being carried by the air, but he introduced several novelties. He was the first to suggest that this class of disease is spread by seeds, of phthisis or of plague, for example, which can multiply and are attracted to an individual by some form of sympathy, and once in the body produce an antipathetic reaction. Without the seminaria there can be no disease. He distinguishes these agents from the causes of putrefaction, for in diseases like rabies there is contagion, but not putrefaction. His second innovation was to posit a third method of infection, by fomites, seeds transmitted along with objects, clothing, for instance, often at some distance or time from the original sufferer.13 Medical historians, particularly from the late nineteenth century onwards, praised this insight as a prefiguration of germ theory, with its notion of specific diseases and its explanation of the way in which persons could become infected: contemporaries, when they troubled to notice this treatise, interpreted it in a very different way. Fracastoro’s seminaria were for them merely another way of expressing the infective agent contained in and transmitted by the bad air.14 Julien Le Paulmier (1520–1588), for instance, in his 1578 treatise on contagious diseases uses, very occasionally, Fracastoro’s vocabulary, but continues to follow the traditional paradigm of receptivity, contagion, and bad air in his discussions.15 He was not alone. Although Fracastoro’s ideas seem to have created a stir when first published, they quickly were subsumed into the general understanding of plague, and by 1600 they were rarely mentioned, although they were not entirely forgotten. Santorio knew Fracastoro’s work, but in the plague aphorisms he rejects, with one small exception, the idea that plague is spread by contagion. In one aphorism he writes that infected poultry might pass the disease on to others who might subsequently touch them.16 The evidence of nunneries showed that plague did not arise spontaneously, but involved a process of transmission, but not necessarily that of something spread by contact. This medical account of plague intersected with another, much older, explanation that emphasised the role of the gods or God in sending an epidemic as some form of punishment for an offence. Homer’s Iliad begins with a plague, sent by the God Apollo on the Greeks in response to the prayers of his priest, Chryses, whose daughter had been seized by Achilles. For Homer, as later for Thucydides in his account of the Athenian plague, the response of those affected could be either medical or religious, the one demanding the help of a doctor, the other of a seer or priest.

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Pacifying the divinity with prayers, offerings, or an apology was thus an appropriate action for both individuals and often city governments to take, if the cause lay in divine anger. Christians and Muslims likewise saw no difficulty in accepting divine anger as a cause of epidemic disease. So, for example, in both Christian and Muslim texts we find discussions about whether or not it is sensible to seek flight from the plague, if it has been sent by God as punishment for sin. Some theologians argued that it was if God intended to chastise a whole community, for he might allow some individuals to escape, but was foolish if God in his wisdom took account of the sinfulness of the individual, for he or she would undoubtedly be struck down.17 Such explanations were common in the sixteenth century, with public prayers and masses organised so that a whole community could repent of its sins and invoke the aid of God and his Saints.18 No Venetian could fail to notice the new Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore at the mouth of the Grand Canal, built as a thank-offering for divine assistance in staying the plague of 1575–1576. Santorio was sceptical, if not hostile to such explanations. In a trenchant aphorism he explained that plague lasts for a long time because assemblies of the people in church are not forbidden.19 It was an opinion that might at first sight be shared with a third group of actors in the battle against epidemic disease and plague, the Health Boards, which over the previous two and a half centuries had spread to many of the major towns of Western Europe (although not across the Channel). They originated in the small maritime city of Ragusa (Dubrovnik), which in 1377 was the first place to introduce a quarantine (of thirty days, later extended elsewhere to forty, hence the name). Those coming to city were not just prevented from setting foot in it—that had already happened elsewhere in the first outbreak of the Black Death in 1348, some authorities, as in Milan or Messina, even threatening to shoot those trying to enter—but all ships and those on board were sent to one of the many offshore islands until they were considered free of plague. A subcommittee of the town council to supervise these arrangements makes its first appearance in the town records in 1390 (although it may have been instituted earlier)—and it became permanent from 1397 onwards. The example of Ragusa, a small trading city, run by a large and coherent oligarchy, with literate citizens accustomed to the administration of trade, was followed only slowly elsewhere—first by ad hoc boards to deal with individual outbreaks—Milan 1424, Pavia 1450, Venice and Siena 1462, Florence only in 1496—and later with permanent boards—Milan 1448,

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Pavia 1485, Venice and Siena, 1486, and Florence 1527.20 Some towns, like Cremona, never found it necessary or affordable to have permanent Boards who employed doctors just as they employed street cleaners, guards, or grave-diggers, but convened them only in emergencies.21 By 1630 the Health Boards were common throughout Italy, with roughly similar procedures. Many trading cities, like Milan, had established information outposts some way away to give advance warning of an approaching plague. As well as demanding to see a health pass, guards had the right to turn away and even to shoot any suspected person coming from an infected region. When cases were identified in the actual city, a draconian procedure swung into operation: the sufferers, and often their whole household, were shut up or transported to an isolated Lazaretto— Venice was particularly lucky in having two islands where these unfortunates might be incarcerated.22 Their houses might be fumigated, and their furniture tossed onto bonfires lit to purify the air. The city gates were shut, but often not before many inhabitants, particularly the wealthy, had fled to the countryside and their rural retreats. Public meetings were banned, including religious services as well as the theatre. Those inside the gates could continue their lives as normal, but as economic life came to a standstill, even the healthy faced a period of dearth, if not actual starvation. Food was scarce, and the resources of the community frequently too weak to provide food for all its citizens. The consequences for a city and its inhabitants were often disastrous, whatever the decision of the Board. Inaction might lead to a major outbreak, imposition of plague rules to debts that might take years to pay off, and both might result in the collapse of a town’s main occupations. Nor did these draconian measures always meet with enthusiastic acceptance.23 Faced with these views of plague and how best to resist it, Santorio takes a pessimistic or fatalistic—one might even say an honest—view of what anyone might be able to achieve. Plague comes and goes like a clock; it ends when the proximate or distant cause goes away, just as a clock does not move when it loses one of its gear teeth (Aphorism 126). It is always attended with high mortality, perhaps over thirty per cent, if one believes what grave-diggers say; and it is largely incurable, save by flight (Aphorisms 130, 138). Those who say otherwise are either ignorant or see a way of making money. Remedies do not work, and indeed are worse than useless—the wealthy still die during treatment, while many of the infected poor recover without them (Aphorism 139). It is not a contagious disease in the strict sense, but one spread almost entirely by breathing in

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pestilential air or the halitus, in John Quincy’s English version ‘steams’, from furnishings (which could include bedding as well as beds,24 Aphorism 127). The infected air, once taken into the lungs, coagulates the blood to produce swellings and carbuncles. Infection does not arise spontaneously, but from others—enclosed nunneries are likely to remain healthy (Aphorism 129). He has a simple solution for reining in plague; separating the sick from the healthy, and allowing those infected to have fresh air, not by confining them in places where they do not wish to be or by burning their furniture (Aphorism 140). Although he does not make the point himself, this was very much against the standard procedures of Health Boards, who regularly shut up all the inhabitants of a house together, transported the sick to a crowded lazaretto and burned household goods. Quincy, in his English version, expressed himself baffled by the ban on these bonfires, suggesting, perhaps rightly, a link with the ‘exhalations’ of infected furnishings already mentioned, which might be released and spread about by the wind generated by the flames.25 The final aphorism, 140, continues this attack on the Health Boards, blaming them and patients for the continuation of any outbreak. They bring out furnishings to air in the street, which are consequently stolen by thieves and thus the outbreak spreads. While the infected are forcibly removed, others do not properly take fresh air, and religious ceremonies, which should take place in the open air, are held inside where there is likely to be more infected air. The procedure of shutting up the still healthy along with those infected only increases the plague. Finally, they employ surgeons from outside, who only spread the plague further as its ravages increase—a dig both at a reliance on surgeons and on the use of outsiders. But pity the poor administrator, who, as Paolo Zacchia (1589–1659) noted, in the absence of an experienced physician, or even a retired physician, to deal with plague, might be forced in an emergency to employ a recent graduate or even a medical student who had completed at least one year of medical school, before passing on to surgeons, barbers, and even pharmacists with at least one year of training.26 The individualism of Santorio in these aphorisms on plague is best seen in what he does not talk about: there is nothing on the remoter causes of plague that cause the air to become infected, nothing on prophylaxis (save flight), nothing on therapies that might allow the coagulated blood to escape, all topics on which other writers had expended pages, if not books— on prophylaxis and therapy in particular. Simone Simoni (1532–1602) had

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derided years earlier those who believed that they could forecast the arrival of a plague, or who would most likely fall victim, but he then devoted the rest of his tract to explain how to cure it in an individual.27 Santorio scarcely allows even that, save for the opening of the plague buboes (Aphorism 133), which might occur naturally. This is a curiously fatalistic section, very different from what might be found in a typical plague treatise, and it is not surprising that these aphorisms are rarely cited. Geronimo Gatta’s use of Santorio is thus remarkable, not the least because he draws on Santorio’s aphorisms to comment his own experience with the 1656 plague in Naples.28 The plague began in January and reached its peak in June-July, spreading in Naples and to many towns and villages in the South of Italy, and causing more than 200,000 victims just in Naples itself.29 The Spanish viceroy, the Count of Castrillo, wasted some precious time before confronting the disease, being too busy sending Spanish and Neapolitan soldiers to Pavia to resist a French offensive. He ignored the early warnings. Further to that, we know from several sources that the first or one of the first physicians to speak of a plague, Giuseppe Bozzuto, was locked away in a dark cell and died after a few weeks.30 Since the disease first took hold in the neighbourhoods where the populace lived, it was easy to disseminate among them the belief that the plague had been spread by the Spanish authorities to punish the people of Naples for the revolt of 1647–1648, which had turned into a rebellion against the Spanish government.31 To counter this rumour, another one was circulated according to which the disease had been introduced by plaguespreaders who were enemies of the Crown. The viceroy encouraged the latter opinion by some official acts, one of which was the sentencing to death of several men, including Vittorio Angelucci from Rome and Antonio Battaglia from Paris, who was executed on June 12. Both were officially declared to be plague-spreaders (exactly like the more renowned Gian Giacomo Mora and Guglielmo Piazza, who had been executed in 1630, during the plague in Milan).32 Meanwhile, the population gathered daily in churches and in processions. One procession led up to the hill where the convent of Suor Orsola presently stands, whose construction— previously interrupted—was begun again in June 1656. Mortality increased after the procession of June 11, a clear sign that the disease was immediately contagious and that isolation was the only means to stop it from spreading. Very probably for this reason, health officials issued a ban on June 14 ordering the population not to leave their homes, because it was known ‘from experience that the contagion of the current disease is by

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all means passed from one person to the next, because those infected with it walk around the city and frequent several churches and public places’.33 Gatta was one of the very few physicians who left their testimonies on the plague. Marco Aurelio Severino (1580–1656) died in July.34 Others abandoned the city. Gatta’s treatise was published in Naples in 1659.35 It is dedicated to a noblewoman, Beatrice Caracciolo, who shared with him an authentic interest in the causes of the plague. According to Gatta, she joined meetings organised to discuss the causes of the disease.36 She was connected with some noblemen who sponsored the Accademia degli Investiganti, which was particularly devoted to the study of natural phenomena and whose members included scientists such as Giuseppe Donzelli, Tommaso Cornelio, and Leonardo di Capua.37 Gatta was in Naples in February 1656, when he visited an inmate in the prison of Vicaria and realised that this man had contracted the plague. After a few days, the man died and Gatta left Naples to go to Sala (about 80 km from Salerno), where his wife and children were. There he learned from some fugitives from Naples that people there said that the plague was attributed to powders spread around the city by enemies of the Crown. This rumour—he writes—made him weep and laugh at the same time. ‘I could not help weeping for the future harm which the plague would do; […] but, on the other hand, I laughed on hearing the paradoxes which some flatterers reported to the Viceroy’s deputies.’ He knew perfectly well that the plague could not have been introduced with powders or unguents; neither—as he subsequently argues—could it have been caused by the corruption of water or air or food. The plague was spread by corpuscles, ‘living, very tiny, and invisible to us’ (‘corpicelli’ or ‘atomi’, as he calls them).38 Gatta quotes Aphorism 129 from 1634’s ‘Of the Plague’: Peste non sponte inficimur sed fertur ab aliis. Patet experimento monalium,39 literally: ‘The plague does not originate spontaneously but is carried by others. This is evident from the case of the nuns.’ Indeed nuns, being completely isolated, did not get sick. It was through contact between people, notably at gatherings in churches or processions, that the plague spread. Gatta therefore invites his future readers to avoid any contact, even with those who do not show any clear signs of the disease. This is quite new in the context of early-modern treatises on the plague written in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, where a common idea was that the seeds of the disease were spontaneously generated from corrupted water or air, or from filth,40 and then spread through contact. Gatta instead agreed with Santorio that only an infected person

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could transmit the disease. His approach is purely corpuscularian, but not necessarily anti-Galenic: rather, he tries to demonstrate that Galen did not rule out the corpuscularian hypothesis, since in his De differentiis febrium he refers to the plague in Athens saying that the seeds of it were brought from Ethiopia.41 In Naples, where the miasmatic hypothesis had a larger following than the corpuscularian one, Gatta tried to demonstrate the former to be unfounded by many arguments and examples. First of all, neither places with stagnant waters nor unburied bodies had been seen in Naples before the plague. Furthermore, Gatta notes that there were places which ‘because of the filth lying there and the marshy land one would expect to have experienced the plague, but had not’.42 Besides, if the corruption of the air had truly been the cause of the plague, then ‘keeping people inside their homes […] would not bring any benefits’ or if ‘the air were the real problem, this [the plague] would not differ from place to place and would affect everyone, including those people who had decided to remain inside their homes’. Gatta also displays an innovative perspective on the ways by which the contagion occurred. He admits that the plague could be spread by fomites and at a distance, but not necessarily by contact. Here Gatta quotes another aphorism of Santorio’s, Peste non tactu, sed inspiratu aeris pestiferi vel halitu suppellectilium inficimur (‘we are not infected with the plague because we touch an infected person, but from the attraction of the pestilent air or the exhalation of the furniture’). According to Gatta, there is only one case when it is possible to speak of contagium by contact, namely, when a skin with wounds and ulcerations comes into contact with an infected person. He derived this conviction from personal experience, having ascertained that in Naples many children of plague-infected mothers had survived. One case had made a particular impression on Gatta: a three-year-old girl had slept for several days besides the dead body of her mother without contracting the disease.43 Gatta also dwells on Fracastoro’s theory of sympathy between the disease and the diseased, which he firmly rejects on the basis of his experience: ‘In the current plague, no analogy or antipathy can be observed, as the people infected are [indifferently] friends or enemies, with different predispositions and ages; children who nursed from their diseased mothers have survived them’. This implies that nobody could feel untouchable by the disease and that the only possible way to avoid the plague was to avoid gatherings and crowded places. For this reason, he once again appreciates the essence of Santorio’s theory and, in particular, Aphorisms 140 (Cur diu durat pestis? … Quia non prohibent populi cursum ad templa. Sub dio

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sacra essent exercenda) and 138 (Qui aliud remedium pro vitanda peste instituunt quam fugam, vel sunt homines ignorantes, vel volunt eruscare). There were no other certain remedies and those who do not take flight put their lives at risk. In his quoting of the latter aphorism, Gatta also seems to be justifying his own decision to leave Naples rather than stay there and cure his patients, as other physicians, for example, Severino, had done.44 What Santorio’s Aphorism 138 stresses is indeed the helplessness of individuals in the face of such a formidable disease: like Giovanni Filippo Ingrassia, Gatta claims that only the political authorities can, through their directives, prevent the spread of the plague by applying the most powerful instruments in their possession (including the gallows for administrators who fail to enforce the norms issued to fight the plague).45 But what should one do after having contracted the disease? Gatta addresses specific issues, such as the diet that the infected person should follow, whether taking purgatives could be recommended or not, whether buboes that appear beneath the armpits and in other delicate spots should be cut open and cleaned or not. According to Gatta, only rarely did a patient manage to survive, and the reason for this was that the pestilent humours did not achieve concoction—the process whereby the bad humours are separated from the good ones. Gatta believed that it was necessary to expel those bad humours through surgery without waiting for the full ripening of the bubo, because the bad humours threatened to ‘retreat to the main parts’. Santorio seemed to encourage this choice in his Aphorism 132: Si paucus sanguis, ob corruptum spiritum vitalem sit trombus, hic si totus expurgetur per bubones et carbones sanantur, si non totus moriuntur, ut in nigris papulis (If a small amount of blood by the infection of the vital spirits coagulates, and is wholly discharged through buboes and carbuncles, [people] recover; but otherwise they die, as in the black spots). So the patient should be helped to expel the venom still remaining in circulation by means of ‘attractive magnetic remedies’ that would make him sweat. Here Gatta’s distance from Santorio’s pessimistic medical outlook on plague is at its greatest, because Gatta offers to his readers an antidotary where he not only indicates remedies that have some effect against the disease but explains how to prepare them, showing remarkable competence, possibly reflecting his debt to the Neapolitan tradition and particularly to the local alchemic and chemical lore of the last decades.46 Elsewhere, Gatta quotes Santorio’s question ‘once the contagion had ceased, should household furniture be burnt?’. Contrary to the opinion of

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some physicians, Gatta believed that it was enough to expose it to the wind. Both his learning and experience gave him the right answer. If the seeds of pestilence, he explains, ‘could survive in the place in which it develops, the plague would be eternal; and this does not happen and never happened; the plague has its proximate and remote causes, removed which it ceases, like the wheels of a clock that always retains its movement unless one of their tooths breaks; then every movement ends and the clock does not tick anymore’.47 This ‘fine’ analogy by ‘the most learned Santorio’ (il dottissimo Santorio) is actually a reference to Santorio’s Aphorism 126 which opens the section De peste: Res peste infectae inficiunt quousque; durant proximae, et remotae causae; unica tamen deficiente cessat virus ad instar motus horologij, dum rotarum unico dente irrito quiescit.48 Gatta also agrees with Santorio on the fact that the wind is enough to purify the furniture and other belongings (such as coins).49 Gatta’s use of Santorio’s aphorisms can now be briefly summed up. Gatta (like Santorio) rejects Fracastoro’s thesis that the body is predisposed to receive the disease through a relationship of sympathy with it. Moreover, in both authors experience takes precedence over theory: ‘The plague does not originate spontaneously but is carried by others, as is apparent from the case of the nuns’ (Aphorism 129), ‘and does not affect all who come into contact with the afflicted, such as grave-diggers’ (Aphorism 130). Gatta recalls his own direct experience, especially when deciding about whether to practise bloodletting. After having mentioned the physicians who praised phlebotomy (like Galen), he expresses his disagreement with them on the basis of his own observations: ‘Even if the diseased person appears strong, this apparent strength is nothing but the efforts made by the person to recover his health. At any rate, we have seen that phlebotomy makes his heartbeat slow down. For this reason, it would paradoxically kill the diseased person more quickly than the disease alone would do.’50 Approaching a conclusion, two questions remain unanswered: how did Gatta know about Santorio and his work? And is he the only one of those writing about the plague to cite Santorio? Certainly, Gatta had done a lot of research before writing about the plague. Evidence of this comes from some parts of his work where he cites various physicians (Mercado, Mercuriale, Massaria, Paré, Mondella, Cardano, van Foreest, Heurnius, Fonseca, Settala, and many others).51 He probably had already read Santorio’s Medicina statica before deciding to

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follow Santorio’s indications concerning the plague. He was also familiar with Santorio’s De remediorum inventione,52 as well as with Santorio’s Commentaria in primam sectionem Aphorismorum Hippocratis.53 Although Gatta published no other work, in his treatise on the plague he informs us that he had written an essay entitled De pestilente faucium tumore. We also know from various sources that he also wrote a sort of commentary to Conradus Schuler’s Discursus philosophicus de veris causis lapidis philosofici (1612).54 In Naples, Santorio was one of the authors read by Severino.55 Moreover, Gatta certainly had a vast family library: Francesco Antonio Gatta, probably his grandfather, had taught anatomy with great success at the Neapolitan Studio from 1564 to 1566. One of his pupils, the already mentioned Leonardo Fioravanti, refers to him as a ‘man of great value, a great anatomist’, even ‘divine’ in surgery.56 It is also possible that Geronimo Gatta knew Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (even if he does not mention him). We know that in his Delle cagioni de le febbri maligne (1649), Borelli cites Santorio’s Medicina statica and that he was very close to Tommaso Cornelio.57 Certainly, like Borelli, Gatta insists on the value of observation and the testing of theoretical hypotheses, an approach that appeared more necessary than ever after the great tragedy of the plague. In concluding this paper, we would like to offer to the reader a sense of Santorio’s approach to the plague by quoting the section De peste in full. The English translation is taken from S. Sanctorii, Medicina statica being the Aphorisms of Sanctorius, translated into English with large Explanations, second edition, J. Quincy, M.D., London, 1720, pp. 116–122.

Of the Plague Aph. CXXVI Whatsoever is infected with the Plague, that Infection will be propagated, as long as its proximate and remote causes remain, but either of them being taken away, the Malignancy ceases, as the Motion of a Clock upon the Loss of one of its Wheels. Aph. CXXVII The Plague is communicated not by any immediate Contact, but either by drawing in Infectious Air, or by the Steams of tainted Furniture; and it is thus. The Vital Spirits are first infected by Air, and from the infected Spirits the Blood is coagulated which produces black Spots, Carbuncles, and Buboes; and if not sufficiently discharged, it will occasion Death, but if it be all thrown out, they escape.

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Aph. CXXVIII If the whole Infection be forced out into Buboes and Carbuncles, it is well; otherwise fatal. Aph. CXXIX The Plague is not produced in us, but arises from external Causes, as is manifest from such who are shut up in Cloysters. Aph. CXXX All do not die of a Plague, but about a third Part, which may be known by those who view the dead Bodies. Aph. CXXXI They who think black Spots and Carbuncles denote an Adustion of the Humours are mistaken; for very often old People, both externally and internally cold, and without any Fever, in the Space of two Days go off with the same Symptom, from a Stagnation of the Blood. Aph. CXXXII If part of the Blood by the Infection of the Vital Spirits coagulates, and be wholly discharged by Buboes and Carbuncles, they recover; but otherwise they die, as in the black Spots. Aph. CXXXIII Where the Buboes and Carbuncles are opened, and the tainted Matter is wholly discharged, they recover; but otherwise they die. Aph. CXXXIV There are two ways of checking a Pestilence; one is by removing those who are found to distant Places, and the other by giving room to the Infected, to Air themselves; the latter likewise is to be done two Ways; but not confining the Infected to Places disagreeable to them; and not by burning their Household Stuff. Aph. CXXXV They are soonest infected who have weak Lungs; they who have sound ones the contrary: And it is a sign of weak Lungs, when upon drawing in the Breath with the greatest force, the strength of the Pulse abates. Aph. CXXXVI The Pestilence is not as a Fire which increases according to its supply of Fuel, for the Pabulum of the former remaining the same, it will decrease. Aph. CXXXVII Pestilential Steams are carried away by Currents of Wind, but not all by the lucid Part of the Atmosphere. Aph. CXXXVIII

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They who seek for any other Remedy for the Plague than fleeing from the infected Place are either such as are very ignorant, or else expect some private Advantages. Aph. CXL Why does the Plague continue for a long time? First, Because while it rages, Persons air their tainted Furniture, which being stole by Thieves, spreads the Infection whereas when the Plague is abated they would not in themselves be infectious; otherwise the Plague would continue for ever. Secondly, because the infected being expelled from the Town, the others do not take care to Air themselves enough, by which the Infection spreads. Thirdly, Because the People are not forbid to assemble together in the Churches, for at such time they ought to perform their Devotions in the open Air. Fourthly, Because they choose foreign Surgeons, who the greater the Plague is, the better they are pleased. Fifthly, Because they do not remove the Infected into other Houses, separate from those who are well. Sixthly, Because they use internal Medicines in the Plague, whereas there are none but what are fruitful. Seventhly, Because they suffer the buying and selling of Poultry, which by being handled by infected Persons communicate the Contagion to those who are well.

Notes 1. Santorio Santori, Ars de medicina statica, (Venice: M.A. Brogiollo, 1634), fols. 17v–20r. 2. Leonardo Fioravanti, Del reggimento della peste, (Venice: A. Revenoldo, 1565). 3. This section summarises Richard Palmer, ‘Girolamo Mercuriale and the plague of Venice’ in Alessandro Arcangeli and Vivian Nutton, eds, Girolamo Mercuriale. Medicina e cultura nell’Europa del Cinquecento (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 2008), 51–66. See also Paolo Preto, Peste e società a Venezia nel 1576, (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1978). 4. For Padua, see Alessandro Canobbio, Il successo della peste occorsa a Padova l’anno MDLXXVI (Venice: G. Perchacino, 1577). 5. Samuel K. Cohn, Jr., Cultures of Plague. Medical Thinking at the End of the Renaissance, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 9–38.

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6. Girolamo Mercuriale, De pestilentia … in quibus de peste in universum, praesertim vero de Veneta et Patavina (Venice: P. Meietus, 1577). 7. Paolo Dolfin, Della peste, opinioni dei medici di Venezia nel 1630 (Padua: Tipografia Penada, 1843), 9–10. Dolfin intersperses extracts from Santorio’s reports with his own and others’ comments deriding Santorio’s inexpert view. 8. Ibid., 12–13, 21–23. 9. Ibid., 15–17, 29. 10. Cohn, Cultures, 161–206, stressing the variations on this agreed theme. 11. Jan Baptist van Helmont, Tumulus pestis (Sulzbach: J. H. Seyfrid, 1681). 12. Girolamo Fracastoro, Syphilis, sive morbus gallicus, (Verona: S. Nicolini da Sabbio, 1530); De sympathia et antipathia rerum. De contagione, et contagiosis morbis et curatione libri III, (Venice: Heirs of L. A. Giunta, 1546); Francesco Pellegrini, La dottrina fracastoriana del contagium vivum. Origini e primi sviluppi da autografi inediti conservati nella Biblioteca Capitolare di Verona (Verona: Tipografia Valdonega, 1950). 13. Concetta Pennuto, Simpatia, fantasia e contagio. Il pensiero medico e il pensiero filosofico di Girolamo Fracastoro (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2008). 14. Vivian Nutton, ‘The reception of Fracastoro’s theory of contagion; the seed that fell among thorns ?’, Osiris, 2nd series, 6 (1990): 196–234. 15. Vivian Nutton, ‘Understanding contagious diseases: Baillou’s notes on Julien Le Paulmier’s De morbis contagiosis’, Medicina & Storia, 11 (2011): 141–151. 16. Santorio, Ars (1634) c. 20r. Santorio may have a point here, but not necessarily relating to plague, if he is thinking of what we know as salmonella infection, less likely bird flu, both of which would not have been so easily transmitted in other types of market. 17. Lawrence I Conrad and Dominik Wujastyk, eds. Contagion. Perspectives from Pre-Modern Societies (Aldershot, Burlington, Singapore and Sydney: Ashgate, 2000), esp. section III. 18. Cohn, Culture, pp. 277–293. 19. Santorio, Ars (1634), c. 19v. 20. Zlata Blažina Tomić and Vesna Blažina, Expelling the Plague: the Health Office and the Implementation of Quarantine in Dubrovnik, 1377–1533 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015). 21. Carlo M.  Cipolla, Cristofano and the Plague. A Study in the History of Public Health in the Age of Galileo (London: Collins, 1973); Fighting the Plague in Seventeenth-Century Italy (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1971); Cohn, Cultures, passim; Alexandra Bamji, ‘Health passes, print, and public health in early modern Venice’, Social History of Medicine 32, 2019: 441–464.

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22. Jane L. Stevens Crawshaw, Plague Hospitals for the City in Early Modern Venice (London and New York: Routledge, 2016). 23. Carlo  M. Cipolla, Chi ruppe i rastelli a Monte Lupo? (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1977). 24. Santorio Santori, Medicina statica: being the Aphorisms of Sanctorius, translated into English, with Large Explanations, transl. John Quincy (London: W. and J. Newton, 1720), 116: ‘The Plague is communicated not by any immediate Contact, but either by drawing in Infectious Air, or the Steams of tainted Furniture; ad it is thus. The Vital Spirits are first infected by the Air, and from the infected Spirits the Blood is coagulated, which produces black Spots, Carbuncles, and Buboes; […]’. 25. Santorio, Ars (1634), cc. 17v-18r; Santorio, Medicina statica (1720), 121. 26. Paolo Zacchia, Quaestiones medico-legales, Lib. VI,1,6 (Lyons: C. Langlois, 1673–1674), 456–457. 27. Vivian Nutton, ‘It’s the patient’s fault’: Simone Simoni and the plague of Leipzig, 1575’, Intellectual History Journal, 18 (2008): 5–13. 28. I cite here only the most recent works: David Gentilcore, Tempi si calamitosi: Epidemic Disease and Public Health in A companion to Early Modern Naples, edited by Tommaso Astarita, 281–306 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013); I.  Fusco, La Grande epidemia. Potere e corpi sociali di fronte all’emergenza nella Napoli spagnola (Napoli: Guida, 2017). 29. Idamaria Fusco, Peste, demografia e fiscalità nel Regno di Napoli del XVII secolo (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2007), 103; ead., La grande epidemia. Potere e corpi sociali di fronte all’emergenza nella Napoli spagnola (Naples: Guida, 2017), 78ff.; Gentilcore, “Tempi si calamitosi”. 30. For an overview of this part of the story of the plague, see Silvana D’Alessio, ‘On the Neapolitan Plague of 1656: Expedients and Remedies’ in Disaster Narratives in Early Modern Naples. Politics, Communication and Culture, edited by Domenico Cecere, Chiara De Caprio, Lorenza Gianfrancesco, Pasquale Palmieri and Enrica Ferrari, 187–204 (Rome: Viella, 2018). 31. See especially Giulia Calvi, ‘L’oro, il fuoco, le forche: la peste napoletana del 1656’, Archivio storico italiano, 139 (1981): 405–458; Paolo Preto, Epidemia, paura e politica nell’Italia moderna (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1987), 59 ff. 32. Some of the main sources on these events are: Anonymous author, ‘Relazione della pestilenza accaduta in Napoli l’anno 1656’, ed. by Giuseppe de Blasiis, Archivio storico per le province napolitane, 1 (1871):  323–357 and id., ‘Le giustizie eseguite in Napoli al tempo dei tumulti di Masaniello’, ed. by Giuseppe de Blasiis, in Archivio storico per le provincie napolitane, 9 (1884):  104–54, especially 150. Angelucci and Battaglia had a similar fate to that of the barber Mora and of Piazza, the commissioner for public health in Milan, who were tortured and then exe-

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cuted as plague-spreaders. After Mora’s death, his house was demolished and a column was erected to bring shame on his name, as Alessandro Manzoni recounts in his Storia della colonna infame. 33. The ban was published by Salvatore  De Renzi, Napoli nell’anno 1656 (Naples: D. dei Pascale, 1867), 197. 34. Severino contracted the plague and died in July 1656, as recounted by Nicolò  Pasquale, in A’ posteri della peste di Napoli, e suo regno nell’anno 1656 dalla redenzione del mondo (Naples: L.A. di Fusco, 1668), 46. On Severino, see now Oreste  Trabucco, ‘Severino, Marco Aurelio’ in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 92, 2018, 32–36. 35. Geronimo Gatta, Di una gravissima peste che nella passata primavera e estate dell’anno 1656 depopulò la città di Napoli, suoi borghi e casali, e molte altre città e terre del suo Regno. Familiar discorso medicinale in tre libri diviso (Naples: L. A. di Fusco, 1659). 36. The book is dedicated to the ‘Illustrissima Signora D. Beatrice Caracciola de Signori Duchi d’Airola’; ‘eruditissima di varie scienze’. 37. Beatrice Caracciolo was duchess of Martina and countess of some villages near Salerno. She was also the widow of the uncle of Andrea Concublet, who hosted the Accademia degli Investiganti. The academy was already active before the plague, and was officially reopened after it. Among many essays on this subject, a fundamental one is Maurizio Torrini, ‘L’Accademia degli Investiganti. Napoli 1663–1670’, Quaderni storici, 16 (1981): 845–883. I elaborate on this aspect of Gatta’s treatise in Silvana D’Alessio, ‘L’aria innocente. Geronimo Gatta e le sue fonti’, Mediterranea, 15 (2018): 587–612. 38. Gatta, Di una gravissima peste, 10; on the conviction that the plague could be introduced with powders or be artificially generated, see now Samuel Cohn, Epidemics: Hate and Compassion from the Plague of Athens to AIDS (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 110 ff. 39. Gatta, Di una gravissima peste, 54, 104. 40. See Nutton, ‘The Reception’; John Henderson, “La schifezza madre della corruzione. Peste e società nella prima età moderna: 1630–1631”, in Medicina e Storia, 2 (2001): 23–56; and id., Florence under Siege. Surviving Plague in an Early Modern City (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2019), 53 ff. 41. Gatta, Di una gravissima peste, 53; Galen, De febrium differentiis, K VII,  289–291. The Neapolitan section of the Lincei, the heritage of Campanella (who wrote Apologia pro Galilaeo, 1616), and the Accademia degli Oziosi itself were only some of the ways through which corpuscularian theories took hold in the Neapolitan intellectual milieu. Fabio Colonna, Marco Aurelio Severino, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli are some of the scien-

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tists who followed the corpuscularian theory. A still useful synthesis can be found in Giorgio Cosmacini, Storia della medicina e della sanità in Italia, (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1998 - 1st ed. 1987), 160 ff; see also Antonio  Clericuzio, Elements, Principles and Corpuscles: A Study of Atomism and Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century (Dordrecht: SpringerScience Business Media, 2000), 206–211; on Santorio see Fabrizio Bigotti, ‘A Previously Unknown Path to Corpuscularism in the Seventeenth Century: Santorio’s Marginalia to the Commentaria in primam Fen Primi Libri Canonis Avicenna (1625)’, Ambix 64 (2017): 29–42. 42. Gatta, Di una gravissima peste, 59. 43. Ibid., 43. 44. Pasquale, A’ posteri 46, tells how Severino died of the plague; on Severino, see Trabucco, ‘Severino’. 45. He in fact considers fire, gold, and gallows as good remedies against the plague, in the wake of his teacher Giovann’Antonio Foglia or Giovanni Filippo Ingrassia, who taught in Naples (1544–52), before becoming ‘protomedico’ in Palermo: see Rossella  Cancila, ‘Salute pubblica e governo dell’emergenza: la peste del 1575 a Palermo’, Mediterranea-ricerche storiche, 37 (2016): 231–272. 46. A strong impulse to the study of alchemy and the conducting of chemical tests came from Giovan Battista Della Porta and the Investiganti: see Torrini, ‘L’Accademia degli Investiganti’, 849; see also Amalia  Perfetti, “L’alchimia a Napoli tra Cinquecento e Seicento: Leonardo Fioravanti e Giovan Battista della Porta” Giornale critico della filosofia italiana, 2 (1997): 171–183 and Lorenzo  Gianfrancesco, ‘Books, Gold, and Elixir: Alchemy and Religious Orders in Early Modern Naples’, Ambix, 65 (2018): 250–274. 47. Gatta, Di una gravissima peste, 229. 48. See the list of Santorio’s aphorisms, in their English version, at the end of this article. 49. He also quotes Santorio, Ars (1634), Aph. 137, c. 18r 137. 50. Gatta, Di una gravissima peste, 125. 51. On Gatta’s library, more information can be found in Silvana D’Alessio, ‘L’aria innocente’, 599. 52. Gatta, Di una gravissima peste, 154, quotes Santorio’s De inventione (ch. VI) on the various types of fevers and their causes. 53. Ibid., 109. 54. Luis Moréri, Le grand dictionaire historique, ou le mélange curieux de l’histoire sacrée et profane, t. IV (Paris, Chez les Libraires Associés, 1745) 510 ff.; Nicola Antonio Tura, Aborti poetici, Part II, (Venice: G. B. Catani, 1668–1669), 160 («Al dottor Fisico Girolamo Gatta»).

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55. Santorio is cited several times by one of Severino’s teachers, Antonio Santorelli, who in his Antepraxis Medica (Neaples: L: Scoriggium, 1721), 25 quotes Santorio’s Commentaria in Artem medicinalem Galeni (Venice 1612); he also quotes Santorio’s Methodus in his De sanitatis natura libri XXIV (Naples: editor unknown, 1643), 246. Santorelli was a lecturer of Philosophy and Medicine at the University of Naples: see Leonardo  Di Capua, Parere del Signor L. di Capua (Naples: A. Bulifon, 1681), 116. Severino refers to Santorio’s instrument for paracentesis (acus Sanctorii) in his De efficaci medicina libri tres (Frankfurt: J. Beyer, 1646), 215, and Santorio’s Commentaria in Artem medicinalem Galeni in his De recondita abscessuum natura libri VIII, libri VIII, (Leiden: J. Kerckhem, 1724), 11. It does not seem from his published works that Severino was familiar with Santorio’s Medicina statica. 56. See Leonardo Fioravanti, Dello specchio di scientia universale (Venice: Heirs of M. Sessa, 1683), pages not numbered; Moréri, Le Grand Dictionnaire, 510 ff. According to Moréri, Geronimo was also a physician at the University of Salerno in 1631. 57. Giovanni Alfonso  Borelli, Delle cagioni delle febbri maligne della Sicilia, (Cosenza: G. B. Rosso, 1649), 158. On this treatise, see Oreste Trabucco, “Delle cagioni delle febbri maligne di G.A.  Borelli. Una lettura contestuale”, Giornale critico della Filosofia Italiana, 20 (2000): 236–280 and Fabio Zampieri’s chapter in this volume.

CHAPTER 9

“An inquisitive man, considering when and where he liv’d”: Robert Boyle on Santorio Santori and Insensible Perspiration Salvatore Ricciardo

1   Introduction Over the seventeenth century, Santorio’s Ars de statica medicina (Venice 1614) went through more than twenty editions and various translations. It was one of the most widely read medical texts across Europe, and England was no exception. Although its first English translation appeared only in 1663, natural philosophers, Galenists, Helmontian physicians, and virtuosi often quoted it and its author in different context.1 As early as 1646, Browne in his Pseudodoxia epidemica invoked Santorio’s authority to disprove commonly held beliefs such as the poisonous nature of glass,

S. Ricciardo (*) University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Barry, F. Bigotti (eds.), Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614–1790, Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79587-0_9

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that dead bodies were heavier than living ones, and that animal spirits had no weight, or in the Aristotelian terminology, they were absolutely light: the “statick aphorism of Sanctorius” indicated that heat, cold, and sleep influenced the amount of spirituous exhalations issuing out from the pores of the skin.2 In his Micrographia (1665), Boyle’s former assistant Robert Hooke pointed out that thanks to his microscopic observations of the texture of the skin, which unveiled an “infinit [sic] of pores that every way pierce it,” Santorio’s experimental results appeared less paradoxical than before: “we may, from this discovery of the Microscope, plainly enough understand how the skin, though it looks so close as it does, comes to give a passage to so vast a quantity of excrementitious substances, as the diligent Sanctorius has excellently observed it to do, in his Medicina statica.”3 Helmontian physicians praised Santorio as a model of liberty in the medical profession since he had no scruple about placing under scrutiny the ancient medical learning. In his Medela medicinae (1665), Marchamont Nedham referred to Santorio’s discussion of Hippocrates’ aphorisms in Methodi vitandorum errorum omnium qui in arte medica contingunt libri XV (1603), stressing the fruitfulness of Santorio’s experimental approach to medicine that contrasted sharply with the bookish medical learning of the contemporary Galenists: “I am not alone […] others before me have taken the boldness to censure him [Hippocrates], I will bring in the learned Sanctorius.”4 Interestingly, Nedham quoted Santorio just before mentioning Robert Boyle as the most notable example of “the industry of this latter Age” that had detected ancient errors in medical practice.5 George Thomson, another Helmontian physician, referred to measurement of insensible perspiration in the context of his opposition to traditional evacuative remedies like bloodletting.6 In mid-seventeenth-century England, Robert Boyle (1627–1691) was a great admirer of Medicina statica. The very title of one of his last published separate works, Medicina hydrostatica (1690), betrays his admiration for this “Writing almost as small […] as ingenious.” Boyle declared his choice of the title was prompted by the example of “the famous and judicious Sanctorius,” who was the first to apply “the Ballance to Some Uses relating to the Medicinal Art, perhaps not More, than will be here found proposed of the same Instrument, improv’d by some Additions.” In the future, Boyle concluded, Santorio’s findings and his own work on the medical uses of hydrostatic will undoubtedly be developed by “the Sagacity of the Curious” who lived in “this Inquisitive Age.”7

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As an experimental philosopher, and perhaps the greatest experimenter of his age, Boyle highly appreciated the application of the quantitative method to hygiene, as is apparent from his most significant medical work, the first section of the second book of Some Considerations Touching the Usefulness of Experimental Natural Philosophy (1663). In this work, Boyle adopted the traditional five Galenic “Institutes of Medicine” (physiology, pathology, semiology, hygiene, and therapeutics); Santorio’s attempt to improve Galenic medicine by quantification forms the subject of the final section of the fourth essay on the utility of natural philosophy to the “Hygienal Part of Physick.” It mainly deals with chymical methods for preserving food and drinks, in particular those based on fermentation,8 but the “ingenious attempt of Sanctorius, in his Medicina statica” indicated that statics too was useful “to investigate the wholesomeness or insalubrity of Aliments.”9 Indeed, Santorio’s work stood out as the first work demonstrating that “the Staticks, which, though long known, were thought useless to Physick, may afford several important directions in reference to the preservation of Man’s health.” Furthermore, Santorio had also taught (in the second Section of his Medicina statica) “[…] how to estimate the healthfulness and insalubrity of the Air, by the weight of those Mens Bodies that live in it.”10 The quotations given in this section (Usefulness of Natural Philosophy II:1) are of particular interest also because they help us to identify the edition of Medicina statica Boyle used. Referring to the seemingly paradoxical nature of Santorio’s findings, Boyle quoted two aphorisms belonging to the section Santorio had added after the polemic with the physician Ippolito Obizzi. Capitalization and punctuation suggest that Boyle owned a copy of the edition published in Venice in 1634.11 To Boyle, Santorio had paved the way for new applications in medicine, mainly relating to the investigation of the relation between health and food. As we will see below, despite the marked difference between Medicina statica and his Medicina hydrostatica, Boyle thought he was breaking new grounds in a similar fashion. In his eyes, the method he devised for testing drugs was a development of Santorio’s original suggestion. Nonetheless, in a passage of New Experiments and Observations Touching Cold, the Baconian experimental history of cold published in 1665, Boyle voiced reservations about an experiment contained in Commentaria in primam Fen primi libri Canonis Avicennae (1625). It relates to Santorio’s attempt to measure the heat of moonlight by his thermoscope (Figs.  9.1 and 9.2): “meeting the other day in a Book-sellers

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Fig. 9.1  Santorio’s measurement of the heat of the moon. The source of light is indicated with the letter A, while the instruments used to perform the experiment are indicated as B: glass to reflect, concentrate, and direct the moonlight; C: thermometer; D: pulsilogium type D (Bigotti-Taylor classification); E: pulsilogium type B (Bigotti-Taylor Classification). From Santorio 1625: coll. 77–78

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Fig. 9.2  Santorio’s measurement of the heat of the moon. The engraving is only partially provided with letters. The source of light is measured with instruments A: thermometer; B (not shown in the engraving): pulsilogium type D (Bigotti-Taylor Classification); and C: translucent glass bulb to reflect, concentrate, and direct the moonlight. From Santorio 1625: col. 346

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shop, with the works of the Learned Physician Sanctorius (whom I look upon as an inquisitive man, considering when and where he liv’d) a Picture drew my eyes to take off an Experiment, whereby he thinks to evince the light of the Moon to be considerably hot.”12 As this passage seems to imply, Boyle was flipping through the collected edition of Santorio’s works published at Venice in 1660 when he ran into Santorio’s experiment. The latter referred to a commonly held opinion, according to which during a full moon the air is heated by its rays, and animals as well as shellfishes grew fat.13 Santorio had performed the experiment at Padua before his students. During a full moon, he projected moonlight onto his thermoscope by means of a burning glass, observing that the level of the water went down. At first sight, the result seemed to confirm the heating power of the Moon’s rays.14 Boyle repeated the experiment with his own thermometer or “weather-glass,” and with burning glasses “much better” than Santorio’s. Experimental evidence seemed to disprove Santorio’s conclusion, though Boyle refrained from taking a definite position, as he did dealing with other debated issues like the existence of an absolute vacuum in his air-pump, or the effects of the Cartesian subtle matter, just to mention Boyle’s most known investigations. He suspected that warm exhalations of the students’ bodies might have affected the outcome, “but because this is a conjecture,” Boyle concluded, “I intend, if God permit, to repeat the Experiment, when I shall have opportunity to do with a more tender Weather-glass, than I had by me.”15 As we shall see below, Boyle’s account of Santorio’s experiment reflects his views on the problem of contingency that affected experimental practice. This issue concerned the influence of unknown factors or unnoticed conditions on experimental procedures, which led to distorted or misleading results, and particularly affected medical experimentation. Starting from the references to Santorio and his Medicina statica scattered throughout Boyle’s works both published and unpublished, and correspondence, this paper documents the use Boyle made of Santorio’s fundamental discovery, namely that insensible perspiration was far greater than commonly believed. In Boyle’s views, it had a huge impact not only on medicine, especially on therapeutics and hygiene, but also provided physical evidence for the corpuscular philosophy, and even for one of the most debated theological issues of his day, the possibility of the resurrection of the same physical body. This, however, is not to say that Boyle blindly accepted the results of Santorio’s medical statics.

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2   Boyle’s Early Atomism and Santorio In 1651 Harvey’s disciple the physician Nathaniel Highmore published The History of Generation, a work in which he adopted the atomistic theory of matter to explain generation, embryo development, nutrition, and action at distance.16 Highmore’s History provides us with a notable example of the widespread adoption of the doctrine of effluvia to explain a vast range of natural phenomena relating to both manifest and occult qualities. The healing power of the weapon-salve, the fearsome effects generated by the basilisk’s glance, fascination, and more generally contagion were often considered as effects of corpuscles endowed with noxious properties.17 In the short tract “A Discourse of the Cure of Wounds by Sympathy” appended to The History, Highmore explained the healing power of Sir Gilbert Talbot’s powder by material transport of atoms, thus offering an instance of mechanistic reinterpretation of the occult qualities. He had recourse to the doctrine of effluvia, which is listed as the second of the “universal and general Laws of Nature” established at the outset of ‘A Discourse’: “there is a constant Effluvium or expiration of such Atomes from all bodies.”18 Along with microscopy, which revealed magnetic effluvia in the form of mist issuing out from the loadstone, and smells acting as “sure a guide to the persecuting Dog,” the existence and effects of streams of particles issuing out from all bodies, both animate and inanimate, are discovered by quantitative measurement, as “Sanctorius teacheth us too, that they are no lesse sensibly discovered by weight.”19 Highmore had worked with Harvey on embryology, and after the surrender of Oxford to the Parliament moved to Sherborne, Dorsetshire, where he practiced and lived until his death on 21 May 1685. He dedicated The History of Generation to Boyle, “my much Honoured Friend” who “sticks not to trace Nature in her most intricate paths, to torture her to a confession.”20 At that time, Boyle lived at Stalbridge in Dorset, only five miles from Sherborne. He communicated with his friend and neighbor, and also assisted him in anatomical dissections and microscopic examination of the developing chick embryo.21 Despite the adulatory tone, Highmore’s words witnessed Boyle’s active participation in the kind of natural investigations he was pursuing at that time. Boyle’s most substantial early scientific writing, “Of the Atomicall Philosophy,” bore traces of Highmore’s influence on Boyle’s early atomism, especially with reference to the kind of empirical evidence for the doctrine of effluvia. Emanations of corpuscles from minerals, plants, and animals form the subject of the

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third and most substantial section of “Of the Atomicall Philosophy.”22 There Boyle argued for the existence “of effluvia or steemes of Atomes issuing out of all bodies” producing powerful effects compared to the smallness of atoms. Like Highmore, he had recourse to hounds picking up the smell of their preys, microscopy, and Santorio’s “staticall experiments.” The latter provided tangible evidence of effluvial emanations from living bodies: “We need not goe far for Instances of the Effluvia in Animalls, for by the staticall Experiments of Sanctorius it plainly appears that sometimes whole pounds in a day of the assumed aliment steales out of the body by insensible perspiration.”23 “Of the Atomicall Philosophy” was written between 1652 and 1654. By that time Boyle had already read Medicina statica, perhaps thanks to his neighbor Highmore.24 Between 1647 and 1648 and the early 1650s, Boyle had come in contact with the works of Gassendi and Mersenne, and began his chymical investigation under the influence of Jan Baptist van Helmont’s Ortus medicinae (1648). By 1649 he had established his laboratory at Stalbridge. From there he exchanged information and recipes with prominent members of the Hartlib circle like Benjamin Worsley, George Starkey, and Frederick Clodius. He dealt with a number of chymical and medical issues, mainly relating to the preparation of remedies, and the quest for arcana. Nonetheless, Boyle was also interested in the theoretical aspects of chymistry, especially in connection with the theory of matter, as attested by a tacit reference to Daniel Sennert’s reduction to the pristine state contained in “Of the Atomicall Philosophy.”25 At this stage, for Boyle “atomists” included Sir Kenelm Digby, Johann Chrysostom Magnenus, Pierre Gassendi, and René Descartes. Notwithstanding the differences between those authors, which Boyle recognized and stated in later writings (especially with reference to Sennert, Gassendi, and Descartes), in Boyle’s view they had contributed to resuscitate the ancient atomism of Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus. This means that they believed in the existence of real, stable material invisible corpuscles, essentially different from mathematical points. Most importantly, Boyle conceived of atoms as endowed with chymical properties, and most importantly, as retaining the same nature of the whole they compose.26 Although in “Of the Atomicall Philosophy” there is no detailed discussion of the properties of atoms, it represents Boyle’s first attempt to provide evidence for the corpuscular theory of matter, which later become an integral part of what he called the “corpuscular” or “mechanical hypothesis.” Like the reduction to the pristine state and microscopic observations, Santorio’s measurement of insensible perspiration could

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make visible the invisible. The kind of proof involved was rather different from the empirical arguments listed by Christoph Meinel in his seminal paper on the “insufficiency of experiment” in early modern atomism. Indeed, evidence came from quantitative measurement, which both Boyle and Highmore regarded as a convincing proof of the doctrine of effluvia.27

3   The Doctrine of Effluvia and Boyle’s Corpuscular Philosophy Although, to my knowledge, Santorio is never mentioned in the Hartlib Papers, in 1650 Samuel Hartlib recorded Boyle’s hope that microscopy could reveal “the secret Operations or Effluvia of Things,” holding “a wonderful key to all Natural Philosophie.”28 In the “Theoretical Part” of the Origin of Forms and Qualities, the most systematic exposition of his corpuscular philosophy, Boyle claimed that natural bodies could act on each other “but by Local Motion (of the whole Body of its Corporeal Effluvia)”29 This work stemmed from his seminal “A Physico-chymical Essay, containing some consideration touching the differing Parts and Redintegration of Salt-Petre,” written around 1656 and published in Certain Physiological Essays (1661, 1669), in which the chymical analysis and synthesis of saltpeter was intended to illustrate the explanatory power of the corpuscular philosophy. During the second half of the 1650s, after he had moved from Stalbridge to Oxford in winter 1655–1656, Boyle conceived the project for compiling experimental history of qualities, which aimed at providing an account of both manifest and occult qualities according to the principles of the new corpuscular and mechanical philosophy, which were to be firmly based on experiments and empirical observations collected in Baconian natural histories.30 Boyle’s philosophical project was strongly based on the union of chymistry and corpuscular philosophy. Drawing on different traditions, like Sennert’s chymical theory of matter, Gassendi’s atomism, and van Helmont’s notion of semina rerum, in Origin of Forms and Qualities, Boyle formulated a corpuscular theory of matter based on a hierarchy of corpuscles, resulting from the aggregation of minima or prima naturalia. Unlike the seminal principle, a class of active corpuscles that God had provided with a formative power, minima are inert. Unlike the minima of “Of the Atomicall Philosophy,” the simplest corpuscles possessed only mechanical properties (size, shape, and motion). Corpuscles of higher order, which Boyle called “primitive concretions or clusters,” resulted from the close union of minima, and were endowed with mechanical as

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well as chymical properties. Their essential feature was the stability of their texture in most chymical reactions, or in Boyle’s words “though not absolutely indivisible by Nature into the Prima Naturalia […] they very rarely happen to be actually dissolv’d or broken.”31 By developing this classification, Boyle aimed at making his corpuscular philosophy capable of explaining chymical reactions as well as physiological processes like respiration, assimilation, digestion, the formation of blood, and visible and invisible excretion. In other words, natural phenomena that were not accountable purely by the “mechanical affections” of matter.32 Effluvia of corpuscles of higher order seemed to be also involved in phenomena included in the realm of occult qualities. Indeed, the doctrine of effluvia was one of the “three principal Keys to the Philosophy of Occult Qualities,” together with those “of Pores and Figures, and of Unheeded Motions.”33 As many of his contemporaries, Boyle did not reject the occult qualities, and sometimes retained the Aristotelian terminology of manifest and occult qualities, although his understanding of “manifest” was by no means Aristotelian.34 Occult qualities formed the subject of writings dating back to “Essay on Nitre,” the bulk of them published from the early 1670s onward. Essays of Effluviums (1673), Experiments and Considerations About the Porosity of Bodies, in Two Essays (1684), and An Essay of the Great Effects of Even Languid and Unheeded Motion (and the appended “Experimental Discourse of Some Little Observed Causes of the Insalubrity and Salubrity of the Air and its Effects,” 1685) were part of Boyle’s project for providing an intelligible account of occult qualities, to which also belong several unpublished papers written during the 1670s.35 Its beginning dates back to the “Notes upon ye Sections about Occult qualities,” drafted between 1658 and 1660, perhaps for publication in Origin of Forms and Qualities.36 Boyle redefined the meaning of “occult,” which denoted something not yet known. Some qualities were occult because “the way of deducing them from those more manifest affections” (i.e., size, shape, motion, and texture) was still unknown.37 Nonetheless, Boyle was confident that the corpuscular philosophy was bound to reduce the number of occult qualities, and the doctrine of effluvia provided the most suitable explanatory device: Simpathyes and Antipathyes and the effect of either, seems not to be Occult qualities in their owne Nature as the vulgar Philosophers would have them, since Nature produces them by the very same Catholique affections of matter and Lawes of motion whence the more common Phaenomena proceed.38

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The explanatory power of the doctrine of effluvia also extended to “medical qualities” like the healing effects of amulets and gems, the origin of diseases, and all those effects that were not proportionate to their causes: it would not be credible, if experience did not testifie it, what strange effects may be produc’d by steames and such seemingly slight agents when they meet a Body dispos’d to receave their impressions.39

On 9 March 1666, in a letter to Henry Stubbe dealing with the extraordinary cures performed by the Irish healer Valentine Greatrakes, Boyle endorsed Stubbe’s explanation of Greatrakes’ powers, though he strongly disagreed with the analogy drawn by Stubbe between Greatrakes’ gift and the miracles of Christ and the apostles reported in the Gospels. Despite that, Stubbe had recourse to active particles transpiring from Greatrakes’ body, and interpreted their action as an effect of fermentation. Boyle pointed out that to the extent to which Stubbe’s explanation was based on the doctrine of effluvia, it “will not much stuck at by a Corpuscularian.”40 Boyle reiterated the belief that internal heat of blood and spirits was the ultimate source of insensible perspiration in living organisms, the great plenty of which he inferred both from “the notable Observations of Sanctorius in his ingenious Medicina statica” and “my owne Tryalls to the same purpose.”41 Consistently with his experimental program, Boyle tried to produce experimental evidence for the doctrine of effluvia even in his mature works, as attested by the first of the Essays of Effluviums, “Of the strange Subtilty of Effluviums.” Among the empirical or “à Posteriori” proofs, there is “the small Decrement of weight or bulk that a Body may suffer by parting with great store of such Emanations.”42 This section focuses on the use of balance to disprove a common belief held by “divers Chymists and Physicians, otherwise no friends to the Corpuscular Philosophy,” namely that chymical remedies based on antimony could operate without any loss of weight, or consumption. Despite the difficulties involved in such a quantitative experiment, mainly due to the use of inaccurate instruments, weight loss gave evidence of effluvia.43 In the second and third essays (“Of the Great Efficacy of Effluviums,” and “Of the Determinate Nature of Effluviums”), Boyle dealt with the role of effluvial emanations in causing diseases and restoring health, a topic that figures prominently in “Suspicions about Some Hidden Qualities of the Air” (1674)—in which Boyle suggested that even celestial bodies emitted effluvia44—as well as in

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“Salubrity of the Air”—in which the plague and other epidemical diseases were ascribed to subterranean effluvia produced by fermentation of minerals and fossils.45 Poisonous particles seemed to be extraordinarily active compared to their bulk, as well as those issuing out from medical remedies. Boyle explained the disproportion by two factors, the nature of the particles and the structure of the human body. Morbific and sanative particles often retained the qualities of the body they belonged to, thus acting as vehicles of transmission. Effluvial particles were corpuscles resulting from the close union of minima naturalia.46 Furthermore, their action depends on the specific conformation of living bodies, which Boyle conceived of as machines working in ways unique. The human body, he argued, “ought not to be look’d upon merely as an aggregate of Bones, Flesh, and other consistent parts, but as a most curious and a living Engin, some of whose parts, though so nicely fram’d as to be very easily affected by external Agents, are yet capable of having great Operations upon the other parts of the Body, they help to compose.”47

4   The Human Body and Insensible Perspiration: Between Chymistry and Mechanics Boyle was a prominent member of the “Oxford Experimental Club,” the community of medical men and natural philosophers which flourished in Oxford from late autumn 1649 onward. From late 1657, the meetings were held in Boyle’s lodgings in Deep Hall. The members of the Oxford circle were also in contact with Harvey’s disciples like Highmore and Walter Charleton. They discussed a range of issues relating to anatomy, physiology, and embryology, such as vital heat, the use of respiration, and the nature of blood. These topics were placed in the new framework provided by chymistry and the corpuscular philosophy. Scientific instruments, such as microscopes and Boyle’s air-pump, were employed to carry out collaborative research based on careful experimentation, quantification, and empirical observation. In this milieu, Santorio’s Medicina statica attracted the attention both of young medical students like John Ward and John Locke, who recorded notes from it in their notebooks, and natural philosophers and physicians who were at the forefront on the new physiology inaugurated by Harvey.48 Charleton’s Natural History of Nutrition (1659) exemplified the combination of corpuscularianism, mechanism, and chymistry that

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characterized the medical investigations of the British physiologists in the generation after Harvey. Charleton explained nutrition and digestion in terms of chemical reactions involving the fluid parts of the human body. The human body’s “continuall Decay, or Depredation” was due to the vital heat, which dissolved the spirits contained in the blood. This process was necessary for the growth and conservation of the body, and like combustion it produced excrements in the form of volatile particles that are ejected through the pores of the skin. As far as the amount of exhaled substances is concerned, Charleton referred to “the acute Sanctorius,” whose “statique observations” demonstrated that “men commonly avoid as much by insensible perspiration, in one day, as by stool, in fifteen.”49 Similar views were expressed by Henry Power in his Experimental Philosophy. Power identified the matter of insensible perspiration with excrements produced by the vital heat through chemical processes, such as fermentation and volatilization. Like Charleton, he had recourse to Medicina statica to illustrate his theory: Now as in Minerals and Vegetables the colluctancy of these fermenting Spirits with the grosser matter, does both create a constant heat and evaporation of Atoms: So in Animals, the like is more eminently conspicuous, to with the vital heat, or calidum innatum, and those fuliginous effluviums which pass constantly out of us by insensible transpiration; which Sanctorius hath proved to exceed the bulk and weight of all our sensible Evacuations whatsoever.50

Like his Oxford colleagues, in his medical work Boyle attempted to combine chymistry, anatomy, and mechanics, as attested by his investigations of the use of respiration. Anatomical techniques he had learned from his friend Nathaniel Highmore were placed next to chymical investigations on the properties of niter, and evidence emerging from his pneumatic experiments. According to Boyle, only the union of chymistry, anatomy, and mechanics could provide a proper understanding of the internal workings of the body and its interactions with the environment. Since the human body consists of both fluid and solid parts, it resembles an “Hydraulicopneumatical engine.”51 Anatomy and mechanics reveal its structure: “the reason of the Origination, Shape, Bulk, Length, progress, and Insertion of each particular Muscle, can hardly be well accounted for, without some skill in the Principles of Mechanicks, and in the nature and properties of Leavers, Pulleys andc.” Chymistry focused on the composition and alterations of the fluid and subtlest parts like blood and the spirits.52

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Therefore, Boyle exemplified the attempt to combine iatrochemistry and iatromechanics. He did not rule mechanical analogies out but regarded purely mechanical notions as inadequate to account for every function of a living human body.53 In later years he undertook chymical investigations on human blood, and planned further works on other bodily fluids, such as urine and bile.54 Despite the adoption of the traditional subdivision of theoretical medicine, Boyle’s Usefulness of Natural Philosophy II.1 contains passages critical of the Galenic medical theory and practice, which were to be developed in later medical writings.55 Although Boyle disapproved of the Helmontians’ outright rejection of the humoral theory, he undertook a chymical reinterpretation of the notion of humors.56 Consistently with his rejection of the Aristotelian doctrine of qualities, Boyle put forward a chymical and corpuscular notion of humors: the generality of former Physicians have ascrib’d too much to the Humors, under the notion of their being hot and dry, cold and moist, or endowed with such other Elementary Qualities, and have taken a great deal too little notice of the saline (if I may so speak) and Sulphureous Properties of things.57

Like physiology, pathology had to be based on chymistry of bodily fluids: if the Juices of the Body were more Chymically examin’d, […] it is not improbable, that both many things relating to the nature of the Humors, and the ways of sweeting, acuating, and otherwise altering them may be detected, and the importance of such Discoveries may be discerned.58

Despite its antiquity, Boyle argued in the preface to Porosity of Bodies, the doctrine of insensible perspiration had not received yet the attention it deserved: I am not ignorant that even one of the most ancient and famous Physicians hath said, that a mans body is (almost every where) perspirable. But I judg’d that a Doctrine of such a moment, and which diverse things in the Theory and Practice of after Physicians may make one think they either disbelieved or disregarded, did not deserve to be slightly deliver’d, and in general terms, but to be more narrowly considered, and likewise made out by Particular Instances.59

Boyle dealt with insensible perspiration in “An Essay of the Porousness of Animal Bodies,” first of two essays aimed at providing evidence for the porous structure of almost all natural bodies. Perhaps referring to Hooke’s observations, Boyle argued that microscopy had revealed the

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microstructure of the skin. Furthermore, the latest anatomical discoveries on glands by Nicolas Steno (1638–1686) and Marcello Malpighi (1628–1694) suggested possible answers to the question on how insensible perspiration passed out through the skin.60 To Boyle, however, Santorio’s experiments on insensible perspiration provided additional, and perhaps more compelling evidence than microscopy. Considering the plenty of matter daily discharged by insensible perspiration, one cannot but conclude that the pores of the skin must be very numerous: For Sanctorius in his excellent tract De medicina statica affirms, that what is barely carried off by insensible perspiration does ordinarily amount to more, that is diminishes more the weight of a mans Body, than all the visible excrements (whether gross or liquid put together).61

Most importantly, to confirm Santorio’s aphorisms, Boyle referred to experiments: I have carefully made upon my self, added to some others of a very curious as well as great Prince, that made use of a like instrument, and did me the honour to acquaint me with the events.62

The “great Prince” was Charles II, who possibly possessed a steelyard chair. Considering the King’s admiration for Boyle, it is not surprising that Boyle had access to his weight measurements. On the other hand, the King’s experiments were also reported to the Royal Society during meetings of March and May 1664.63 Furthermore, Boyle’s own experiments indicated that insensible transpiration also took place in cold-blooded animals like frogs, hen eggs, and even dead animals “soon after they are strangled or suffocated, when their vital Heat being extinct, no more fumes are emitted by expirations at the wind-Pipe.”64 In the animal kingdom loss of weight might be caused by motion or other unknown factors, though for Boyle these latter remained the root cause of insensible perspiration, not least because life, both in warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals, was closely linked to a kind of flamma vitalis fueled by an hitherto unknown nitrous substance in the air: the parts of the humane body are much more perspirable than one would easily believe, partly because of the heat that is continually diffus’d from the heart, and partly because of the copious steams that are in perpetual motion, and keep the parts warm, moist, and supple.65

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As Santorio had pointed out in the first section of Medicina statica, insensible perspiration took place both through the skin pores and the lungs.66 Nonetheless, in Porosity of Bodies Boyle suspected that a greater part of insensible perspiration passed out through the lungs, and the pores of the pleura, than Santorio had supposed. Moreover, insensible perspiration took place not only through the windpipe, but also through membranes’ pores like those discovered in the pleura by William Harvey. In all likelihood, in Porosity of Bodies Boyle was drawing on his early experiments on animal respiration contained in Usefulness of Natural Philosophy II.1, and in New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects. The latter was published at Oxford in 1660 and contributed enormously to build Boyle’s reputation as a leading natural philosopher.67 Boyle’s investigation into the chymical and physical properties of the air partly stemmed from his interest in medicine, as attested by Gilbert Burnet’s notes on his own interviews with him, and Boyle’s epistle dedicatory to his nephew Charles Boyle. There Boyle confessed that he had dwelt upon pneumatic experiments “rather than any of the expected Chymical ones” because of the necessity of air for the maintenance of life.68 As attested by “A Digression containing some Doubts touching respiration” (the long section of Spring of the Air focused on the function of respiration and the motion of lungs), Boyle was persuaded that air also cherished the vital flame burning in the heart, as it did with the flame of a lamp. He recalled the Paracelsian theory that the lungs consumed part of a little vital quintessence contained in the air (identified with an aerial niter by the Paracelsians Alexander Seton and Michael Sendivogius) and proscribed the rest in the forms of fuliginous steams, as the stomach absorbed part of meat by concoction and rejected the rest in the form of solid excrements.69 In this context, Santorio’s quantification of insensible perspiration, combined with the results of pneumatic experiments, was crucial to reduce the number of competing theories on the use of air in respiration. Indeed, the latter was “the principal subject of our Engine,” as Boyle himself confessed in his “Digression.”70 Pneumatic experiments seemed to countenance the hypothesis of the ventilation of the blood “in its passage thorow the Lungs,” where “is disburthened of those Excrementitious Steams, proceeding, for the most part, from the superfluous Serosities of the Blood, (we may adde) and of the Chyle too.”71 The function of ventilation of the blood involved the expulsion of waste vapors from the lungs through the windpipe. Air could act either as a passive receptacle for the vapors of the blood or as an active

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body that carried them off. Experiments with the air-pump, Boyle argued, disproved the first claim, since in the exhausted receiver the space left for absorption of the waste corpuscles was greater than before. Rarefied air was unable to carry off the vapors because of the small number and size of its corpuscles, whereas thick air, being already overcharged with vapors, is unfit to join the waste vapors as “Water will dissolve, and associate to it self but a certain proportion of saline corpuscle.”72 Boyle tried to combine chymical and mechanical explanations, adding Santorio’s quantification of insensible perspiration to evidence from his own experiments. A bird closed in a small receiver died within three-quarters of an hour because of vapors expelled from the lungs and skin made air unfit to ventilate the blood, “which he will not much wonder at, who has taken notice in Sanctorius his Statica Medicina, how much that part of our Aliments, which goes off by insensible Transpiration, exceeds in weight all the visible and grosser Excrements both solid and liquid.”73 Consistently with his long-standing physico-theological project, Boyle turned his own experiments on insensible perspiration as well as Santorio’s to the defense of the possibility of the resurrection of the same physical body. This was the subject of the essay appended to Reason and Religion (1674), “Some Physico-Theological Considerations about the Possibility of Resurrection.” Besides the reduction to the pristine state, quantification of insensible perspiration provided a powerful argument to counteract the diffusion of irreligious tendencies and skepticism. Since the amount of matter expelled by insensible perspiration was far larger than hitherto realized, the human body was never the same. Despite their seemingly stable physical appearance, animal and human bodies are subject to continuous change by means of nutrition and excretion. Therefore, Boyle concluded, the identity between the deceased and arisen body is by no means irrational, or contrary to reason, but above reason. Properly speaking, the living human body itself was far from being a static body: A Humane Body is not as a Statue of Brass or Marble, that may continue; as to sense, whole ages in a permanent state; but is in a perpetual flux or changing condition […]; and since Men, as other Animals, […] must discharge a great part of what they eat and drink by insensible transpiration, which Sanctorius’s Statical Experiments, as well as mine, assure me to be scarce credibly great, as to Men and some other Animals, both hot and cold; it will follow, that in no very great compass of time, a great part of the substance of a Humane Body must be changed.74

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5   Experimenting on Insensible Perspiration As seen above, scattered references in Porosity of Bodies and Boyle’s letter to Stubbe clearly indicate that Boyle actively studied insensible perspiration and carried out experiments on it. Further passages in Boyle’s works witness his attempt to pursue Santorio’s investigations. The earliest reference is to be found in the fourth essay of Usefulness of Natural Philosophy II:1 devoted to hygiene, discussed above,75 which indicates that Boyle probably began to monitor insensible perspiration by way of weighing during the late 1650s, when the bulk of Usefulness II.I was composed.76 Another reference occurs in “An Examen of Antiperistasis,” the tract in dialogue form appended to New Experiments Touching Cold (1665). There Boyle commented on the Aristotelian interpretation of Hippocrates’ aphorism “Bowels are naturally hottest in winter” as a decisive argument in support of antiperistasis. Boyle carried out a number of experiments demonstrating that the water temperature had no influence on its freezing rate, then examined Hippocrates’ aphorism. Despite contrary evidence from cold-blooded animals, which showed that digestion is to some extent independent of heat, in warm-blooded ones the aphorism could hold true, but this was far from being an argument in favor of antiperistasis.77 In winter, the stomach is warmer than in summer since the body discharged a smaller quantity of invisible excretions than in summer. Santorio had repeatedly stressed the role of cold in hindering insensible perspiration, not least because the pores of the skin shrank in winter.78 Nonetheless “notwithstanding the affirmations of Sanctorius, nothing” Boyle claimed anything but my own Trials could have perswaded me, these warm steams finding the pores of the skin straitned and shut up, grow more and more copious in the body, and thereby heat the stomack, as well as the other internal parts of it.79

As Michael Hunter has pointed out, repeated references to his own notebooks, notably in Porosity of Bodies, show that Boyle must have recorded the results of his studies on the effects of insensible perspiration in one of his work diaries now unfortunately lost.80 There are, however, two surviving entries relating to this topic in Boyle’s “Workdiary 21,” which are endorsed “Insensible Transpiration at horse race.” Boyle compiled this notebook between the late 1660s and very early 1670s, noting down experimental observations, recipes, and accounts of natural and supernatural phenomena from travelers and virtuosi like Henry Stubbe,

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and also observations he had obtained from foreign riders. The entry “716” reads: Inquireing of some Persons addicted to Horse-raceing what they have observed about the decrement of the Weight of Men by the insensible Perspiration and Sweat causd by the vehement motion of their Horses and themselves in rideing races.81

Boyle apparently aimed at discriminating between variations in weight due to sweat and insensible perspiration, then providing exact quantification of the latter. The context of horse races was perhaps the most suitable for this purpose, since jockeys had to weigh themselves and their equipment before races to prevent fraud. Boyle carefully recorded initial and final weights, race length, and the jockey’s physical condition, noting that having “his Body of a loose and flaggy Texture as rideing a Heat, as they call it, over this 4 mile Race and weighing himselfe before he began and as soon as he had ended it, would loose two pound and an halfe of his weight”82.

6   Epilogue As seen above, Boyle believed that Santorio had paved the way for the development of quantitative methods in medicine. However, besides appreciation, Usefulness of Natural Philosophy II.I reveals that in Medicina statica Boyle detected a tendency to hasty generalization. Referring to aphorisms of the third section, he claimed that: it were not amiss, that before such Observations be fram’d into general and established Aphorisms, they were carefully made in Bodies of differing Ages, Sexes, and Complexions, and with variety of Circumstances.83

Boyle’s doubts about the accuracy of Santorio’s conclusions are undoubtedly linked to the methodology he placed at the core of his project for experimental histories of qualities. He repeatedly stressed the need of substantial experimental evidence before framing theories and principles. For Boyle “experimental evidence” comprised experiments as well as traveling reports, observations obtained from trusted sources, which had to be collected and organized in natural histories.84 Furthermore, this attitude might be connected with the style of Medicina statica, which is far from being an experimental essay as Boyle envisaged and implemented

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this model in his natural philosophical writings. Although different in content and style, works such as the Spring of the Air and its sequels, as well as the experimental histories on fluidity and firmness, colors, cold published in the 1660s, just to mention the most known, are full of detailed descriptions of the instruments and procedures Boyle and his assistants employed and followed in carrying out the experiments reported.85 Moreover, I believe Boyle’s reservations reflected his views about the difficulties affecting experimental practice, mainly relating to precision in measurement and the impact of unknown factors on experimentation. Boyle touched on those issues in Medicina hydrostatica, in which he illustrated his method for establishing the purity of a vast range of substances, including those used for medical purposes. Briefly, it consisted of two steps: determining the specific gravity of a given substance by weighing it in air and water; comparing the results against standards. Boyle pointed out that any little deviation could be ascribed to “a scarce evitable Imperfection of Hydrostatical and the Like Experiments” due to “some Contingency in this affair.”86 The “Hydrostatical Way” of weighing bodies could be applied for determining either the specific gravity of substances (solid or liquid) or the volume of a solid.87 In both cases, these methods were applied to the materia medica with the express purpose of establishing the purity of substances used in medicine; the first “directly tend to the Examen of Drugs, or Simples received into the Materia Medica,” while the “stereometrical” balance “may indirectly conduce to the knowledge of them; and help, in some occasions, to distinguish between Genuine Simples (especially Fruits), and those that are not so.”88 As far as Medicina hydrostatica is concerned, the implementation of the above-mentioned methods required only a traditional double-beam balance. As early as the late 1650s, however, Boyle had started developing a device for measuring the specific gravity of water for medical uses. Among the new methods for preserving health inspired by Santorio’s Medicina statica, Boyle mentioned “a small slight instrument” for detecting small amounts of water in wine. It could be adapted for medical purposes in view of a fundamental principle of the regimen sanitatis, according to which lighter water was purer, and consequently healthier than heavier: And whereas Physitians are wont to think Water, cæteris paribus, the better and purer the lighter it is, this Instrument presently manifests, without any trouble of weighing in Scales, what among any Waters propos’d in the heaviest, and which the lightest, and what difference there is of gravity betwixt them.89

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Boyle was clearly influenced by Santorio, in particular by the so-called principle of the aerometer enunciated in Medicina statica II.5 where this principle is clearly linked to water analysis by means of statics for the same purposes explained in Usefulness of Natural Philosophy II.1.90 The instrument mentioned there is a simpler version of Boyle’s hydrometer described in his article in Philosophical Transaction in June 1675. It consisted of a glass bubble with a long and slender stem to be put in liquids. The specific gravity was determined on the basis of the degree of immersion.91 Subsequently, Boyle touched on his own hydrometer in Short Memoirs for the Natural Experimental History of Mineral Waters (1685). There Boyle complained of the difficulty of making precise estimates of mineral water’s specific gravity “to weigh liquors any thing exactly there is requisite more Heedfulness, and more Skill, and better Instruments, then are easy to be met with together, and than we usually imagine.”92 His hydrometer provided “the accuratest way I know […] but this way […] requiring, besides good Instruments, skill in Hydrostaticks, is practicable but by few.”93 Boyle dealt with those problems in two essays published in Certain Physiological Essays written before 1657. Both address the issue of experimental repeatability and reliability. The first essay, “Of the Unsuccessfulness of Experiments,” focused predominantly on problems concerning materials used in experimental trials, notably in chymical experiments. Boyle’s methods and instruments for determining the specific gravity were intended to provide a solution for these problems, which included the fraudulent alteration of substances and the way materials were handled.94 The second, “Of Un-succeeding experiments,” is devoted to “Contingencies to which Experiments are obnoxious upon the account of Circumstances, which either are constantly unobvious, or at least are scarce discernable till the Trial be past.”95 As seen in the introduction, for Boyle unheeded factors affected the result of Santorio’s experiment on moonlight. “Of Un-succeeding experiments” expanded on this issue, noting that medical experimentation was especially affected by contingency: “in Physick it is much more difficult than most men can imagine, to make an accurate experiment.”96 Incidence of diseases and efficacy of remedies depend on a patient’s age, sex, and constitution, and remedies like the weapon-salve and amulets did not work on all occasions. However, unheeded contingencies are also involved in mixed mathematics, and this represented a limit to the application of quantitative methods: “certainty and accurateness,” Boyle said, “must be restrained to what they [Mathematical Writers] teach concerning those purely-Mathematical

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Disciplines, Arithmetick and Geometry, where the affections of Quantity are abstractedly considered.” The application of mathematics to matter and physical phenomena introduced an inevitable element of uncertainty, whose effect was multiplied in the medical field by factors pertaining to the individual constitution of the patient. In addition, “the Imperfection of the Instruments which he must make use of in the sensible observations whereon the mixt Mathematics […] are in great part built” made even more difficult the application of quantitative methods, including those developed by Santorio.

Notes 1. For a survey of the numerous editions and translations, see Lieta Stella Ettari and Mario Procopio, Santorio Santorio. La vita e le opera (Rome: Istituto Nazionale della Nutrizione, 1968), 70–4, but they are unaware of the first English translation: A New Art of Physick. Contained in Eight Sections of Aphorisms, Concerning Insensible Perspiration; […] By Doctor Sanctor chief professor of physick in Padua, and Abdiah Cole doctor of physick trans. A. Cole (London: P. Cole, 1663), identifying the first translation as Medicina statica, or, Rules of health in eight sections of aphorisms originally written by Sanctorius Chief Professor of Physick at Padua trans. J[ohn?]. D[avis?] (London: J. Starkey, 1676). 2. Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia epidemica, or, Enquiries into very many received tenets and commonly presumed truths (London: E. Dod, 1646), 85, referring to Santorio Santori, Methodi vitandorum errorum omnium qui in arte medica contingunt libri XV (Venice: F.  Bariletto, 1603), 185. The same quotation is in Boyle’s discussion of the relative nature of sensible qualities in The Origine of Forms and Qualities (The Works of Robert Boyle, edited by Michael Hunter and Edward Davis, 14 vols (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1999–2000), vol. 5, 312, hereafter Origin of Forms and Qualities), “to skip what is mention’d out of Sanctorius, of the Dysentery procur’d by the Fragments of it.” Like Browne, Boyle was discussing the poisonous nature of beaten glass reduced to fragments to demonstrate that glass had no intrinsic poisonous effects. 3. Robert Hooke, Micrographia, or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses: with Observations and Inquiries thereupon (London: J. Martin and J. Allestry, 1665), 161. 4. Marchamont Nedham, Medela Medicinae a Plea for the Free profession and Renovation of the Art of Physick, out of the Noblest and most Authentick Writers (London: R. Lownds, 1665), 348ff. Nedham referred in particular to Santorio’s discussion of Hippocrates’ aphorism “that if a woman take

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honey’d water, going to bed, and finding wringing pains thereupon in her Belly, it is an Argument that she hath conceived a Child.” Cf. Santorio Santori, Methodi vitandorum errorum omnium qui in arte medica contingunt libri XV (Venice: F. Bariletto, 1630), 66. For the controversy between Helmontians and Galenists in England, see Piyo  M. Rattansi, “The Helmontian-Galenist Controversy in Restoration England,” Ambix, 12 (1964): 1–23; Harold J. Cook, The Decline of the Old Medical Regime in Stuart London (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), Chapter 3. 5. Nedham, Medela, 362. Nedham referred to the medical part of Boyle’s Usefulness of Natural Philosophy. For discussion of the impact of this work and its relationship to Boyle’s later medical writings, and his attitude toward the polemic between Helmontians and Galenists, see Michael Hunter, “Boyle versus the Galenists: A Suppressed Critique of SeventeenthCentury Medical Practice and Significance,” Medical History, 47 (1997): 322–61, esp. 325–30. 6. George Thomson, Galeno-pale, or a Chymical Trial of the Galenists, that Their Dross in Physick may be discovered (London: Edward Thomas, 1665), 53. 7. Boyle, Works, vol. 11, 201. 8. Ibid., vol. 3, 350–61. 9. Ibid., 361. Hereafter Usefulness of Natural Philosophy II:1. 10. Ibid., 362. Interestingly, Boyle added that “by the late invention of Weather-Glasses, ‘tis easie to discern which of two Neighboring Houses, and which of two rooms in the same House is the colder.” This passage shows that he did not attribute the invention of the thermometer to Santorio. On the contrary, in the polemic followed the publication of Sprat’s History of the Royal Society (1667) and Glanvill’s Plus Ultra (1668), Stubbe insisted on Santorio’s priority: see Henry Stubbe, Legends no Histories, or, A Specimen of Some Animadversions upon The History of the Royal Society… Together with the Plus ultra of Mr. Joseph Glanvill Reduced to a Non-plus (London, n.p., 1670), 10. On Santorio’s thermoscope, see William E.K.  Middleton, A History of the Thermometer and Its Use in Meteorology (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1966), 8–14. 11. I refer in particular to Boyle’s quotations of aphorisms 99 and 100 (additi ab auctore). I compared the first edition of Usefulness, the 1999–2000 edition (the only work where direct quotations in Latin from Medicina statica are given), and three Latin editions of Medicina statica, 1634, 1642, and 1660 (published in Opera omnia) respectively. The reference Boyle gave in the margin of the 1663 edition of Usefulness of Natural Philosophy, that is, “Sect. 3, Aphorism 96,” was wrong. In fact, the quotation is from aphorism XCIX, immediately followed by another from aphorism C. The text in the 1999–2000 collected edition based on the first edition (1663) reiterates

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the mistake. Compare Some Considerations touching the Usefulnesse of Experimental Natural Philosophy (Oxford: R.  Davis, 1663), 113–14; Boyle, Works, vol. 3, 361–32, and Santorio Santori, Ars de statica medicina (Venice: M. A. Brogiolo, 1634), 41v. In the other editions consulted the two aphorisms display different punctuation and capitalization. 12. Boyle, Works, vol. 4, 421–2. Hereafter Cold. 13. See Galileo’s letter to Prince Leopoldo on the moon’s whiteness, in Galileo Galilei, Opere, edited by A. Favaro (Florence: Giunti Barbèra 1890–1909), vol. VIII, 532–3, where Galileo rejected this view. On the contrary, Geminiano Montanari seemed to accept it on an experimental basis: see L’astrologia convinta di falso (Venice: F. Nicolini, 1685), 5–6, where an experiment similar to Santorio’s is invoked. This tradition perhaps dated back to Aristotle’s Meteorologica and Historia animalium, as Montanari’s comments seems to imply. In 1781, the Italian astronomer and mathematician Paolo Frisi performed the same experiment, but more importantly, he provided a survey of the previous attempts to determine the heating power of the Moon’s rays. Frisi listed Hooke, Tschirnhaus, and Philippe de la Hire among those who concentrated the Moon’s rays through lenses on barometers and thermometers. However, he was skeptic about the results he and his predecessors obtained, mainly because of the influence of the atmosphere and seas. See Paolo Frisi, Opuscoli filosofici (Milan: Giuseppe Galeazzi), 1–26. 14. Santorio Santori, Commentaria in primam Fen primi libri Canonis Avicennae (Venice: G. Sarzina, 1625), 75–8, and Santorio Santori, Opera omnia in 4 vols (Venice: F. Brogiolo, 1660), 109–10. See also Raffaello Caverni, Storia del metodo sperimentale in Italia, 6 vols (Florence: Stab. G. Civelli, 1891–1900), vol. 1, 268. The same experiment was performed on the rays of Sun by the French abbot Nollet. See, Jean-Antoine Nollet, Leçons de physique expérimentale, 6 vols. (Paris: chez les freres Guerin), third edition, vol. 4, pp.  318–320. I wish to thank Fabrizio Bigotti for drawing my attention to Nollet’s experiment. 15. Boyle, Works, vol. 4, 422. 16. On Highmore’s atomism, see Robert G. Jr. Frank, Harvey and the Oxford Physiologists: a Study of Scientific Ideas and Social Interaction (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980), 97–101; For Highmore’s notion of seminal atoms, Antonio Clericuzio, Elements, Principles and Corpuscles: A Study of Atomism and Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000), 88–9. 17. For an overview, Silvia Parigi, Spiriti, effluvi, attrazioni: la fisica “curiosa” dal Rinascimento al Secolo dei lumi (Naples: Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, 2011), esp. 110–119.

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18. Nathaniel Highmore, The History of Generation (London: J.  Martin, 1651), 116. For Highmore’s theory of matter, see Clericuzio, Elements, 88–9. 19. Highmore, History, 117, and Santorio Santori, Ars de statica medicina (Venice: N. Polo, 1614), 13v. Highmore referred in particular to the first section of Medicina statica, quoting the aphorism LIX: “a Man in one nights space to be lighter by three pounds weight, then he was at the beginning of the night, cause onely by this insensible expiration.” Santorio ­indicated forty Venetian “subtle” ounces (25 grams): see Giuseppe Ongaro, “Introduzione,” in Santorio Santorio, La medicina statica, edited by Giuseppe Ongaro, 5–47 (Florence: Giunti, 2001), 46. 20. Highmore, History, sig 4r. 21. As attested by references in the third essay included in the first tome of Usefulness of Natural Philosophy, published in 1663 but composed between 1649 and the early 1650s, and by Boyle’s correspondence: see Boyle, Works, vol. 3, 236; William Petty to Boyle, 15 April 1653, Robert Boyle, The Correspondence of Robert Boyle, edited by Michael  Hunter, Antonio Clericuzio and Lawrence M. Principe, 6 vols (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2001), vol. 1, 143; Frank, Harvey, 93–4. 22. Ten out of the fourteen pages of the manuscript (BP 29, fols. 162–175) are concerned with the doctrine of effluvia. The work ends abruptly on fol. 175, with an incomplete paragraph on magnetic effluvia. The reference to Santorio quoted above occurs on fol. 171, in the third, last, and most substantial section (fols. 169–175, 166–167, 164–165). The manuscript is bound out of order in BP 26: see Boyle, Works, vol. 13, p. xli. 23. Boyle, Works, vol. 13, 230. 24. For dating, see Antonio Clericuzio, “A Redefinition of Boyle’s Chemistry and Corpuscular Philosophy,” Annals of Science 47 (1990): 561–89, 568–9; Boyle 1999–2000, vol. 13, xl-xlii. As suggested by the editors, “Of the Atomicall Philosophy” might be the result of Boyle’s essay “On Atoms,” already begun or written by January 1650, and a later essay included in Boyle’s inventory of writings of 1654, “Of Effluvia and Pores of Bodies.” See Boyle 1999–2000, vol. 14, 329–30. 25. See Boyle, Works, vol. 13, 228, and for discussion William R.  Newman, “The Alchemical Sources of Robert Boyle’s Corpuscular Philosophy,” Annals of Science 53 (1996): 567–85 and id., “The Significance of ‘Chymical Atomism’,” Early Science and Medicine 14 (2009): 248–64. For a survey of Boyle’s chemical and natural philosophical interests between 1647 and 1650, see Antonio Clericuzio, “Les débuts de la carrière de Boyle, l’iatrochimie helmontienne et le cercle de Hartlib” in La philosophie naturelle de Robert Boyle, edited by Myriam Dennehy and Charles Ramond, 47–70 (Paris: Vrin, 2009), 60–4 et passim. Boyle’s early intellectual

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evolution is still a matter of contention among Boyle scholars. According to Hunter (followed by Newman and Principe) a sudden and dramatic conversion to science from ethics occurred in 1649–1650, whereas Clericuzio has persuasively argued that Boyle’s interest in ethics does not exclude an active engagement in chymistry and natural philosophy. See Michael Hunter, “Robert Boyle’s Early Intellectual Evolution. A Reappraisal,” Intellectual History Review, 25 (2015): 5–19; William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). 26. See Boyle, Works, vol. 13, 227–8. Boyle never published this essay, but rather wanted it to be destroyed. On the top of the first page the manuscript bear a statement “These Papers are without fayle to be burn’t,” a clear sign of his later preoccupation with distancing himself and his theory of matter from Epicurean atomism. In the following years, Boyle shifted from a rather favorable view of atomism to strong criticism of those Epicurean doctrines that he perceived as a threat to Christianity, as attested by the fourth essay of the first part of Usefulness of Natural Philosophy (1663), entitled “A Requisite Digression, concerning those that would exclude deity from intermeddling with matter,” written after 1653–1654. For discussion, see Clericuzio, “Redefinition,” 571–2. For Boyle’s critique of the notion of subordinate form employed by Sennert, see “Free Considerations about Subordinate Formes,” in The Origine of Forms and Qualities (1666–1667), mainly devoted to discussion of Sennert’s explanation of spontaneous generation in Hypomnemata Physica. Boyle, Works, vol. 5, 457ff. 27. See Christoph Meinel, “Early Seventeenth-Century Atomism: Theory, Epistemology and the Insufficiency of Experiment,” Isis, 79 (1988): 68–103, esp. 76ff. Santorio is never mentioned by Meinel, who also claimed that “when Robert Boyle, only a generation later, began to establish his corpuscular philosophy […] he did not dwell on the trifling task of proving the existence of atoms or corpuscles first” (70), perhaps because of his ignorance of Boyle’s early essay on atomism, although Frank had called attention to it: see Frank, Harvey, 94–5. 28. Hartlib, “Ephemerides” 1650, October–December, HP 28/1/83A. 29. Boyle, Works, vol. 5, 321. 30. Ibid., vol. 2, 98 (hereafter “Essay on Nitre”). Certain Physiological Essays, comprise “Essay on Nitre,” the methodological essay “Pröemial Essay” and two other essays on issues relating to experimental practice, “Of the Unsuccessfulness of Experiments” and “Of Un-succeeding Experiments.” For the development of this program, Michael Hunter, Boyle: between God and Science (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), 112–19.

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31. Boyle, Works, vol. 5, 326. Boyle referred to corpuscles that retained their nature in chymical reactions, which “are as it were the Seeds, or immediate Principles of many sorts of natural Bodies, as Earth, Water, Salt, andc.” Corpuscles of mercury offered a notable instance of this kind of particles. 32. Clericuzio, Elements, 122–9; id., “Mechanism and Chemical Medicine in Seventeenth-Century England: Boyle’s Investigation of Ferments and Fermentation,” in Early Modern Medicine and Natural Philosophy, edited by Peter Distelzweig, Benjamin Goldberg and Evan R. Ragland, 271–95 (Dordrecht: Springer, 2016), 273–4 et passim. Of course, corpuscles of higher order are endowed with texture, then they have also mechanical properties. On this basis, William Newman has put forward a reductionist interpretation of Boyle’s mature corpuscular philosophy: Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientific Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 177–89. 33. See the “Advertisement to the Reader” to Essays of the Strange Subtility, Great Efficacy and Determinate Nature of Effluviums (hereafter Essays of Effluviums): Boyle, Works, vol. 7, 229. 34. See, for instance, “An Introduction to the History of Particular Qualities,” Boyle, Works, vol. 6, 268, and Keith Hutchinson, “What Happened to Occult Qualities in the Scientific Revolution?,” Isis, 73 (1982): 233–53, 246–8. For Boyle’s views on qualities, see Peter Anstey, The Philosophy of Robert Boyle (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), esp. 28–30. For the function of occult qualities in the theories of matter held by the English experimental philosophers before Newton’s introduction of non-­ mechanical forces, see John Henry, “Occult Qualities and the Experimental Philosophy: Active Principles in Pre-Newtonian Matter Theory,” History of Science, 24 (1986): 335–81. 35. Ibid.; Boyle, Works, vol. 10, 107, 253 and relating introductory notes. See also Hunter, Boyle, 174, 213–14. 36. The “Notes upon ye Sections about Occult Qualities” were published by Marie Boas Hall in 1987: Marie Boas Hall, “Boyle’s Method of Work: Promoting his Corpuscular Philosophy,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 41 (1987): 111–43, 124–43, and 117 for dating. 37. Ibid., 137. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid., 134. 40. Boyle to Stubbe, 9 March 1666, Boyle, Correspondence, vol. 3, 105. 41. Ibid., and Henry Stubbe, The Miraculous Conformist: or An account of severall Marvailous Cures performed by the stroaking of the Hands of Mr. Valentine Greatarick … In a Lettere to the Honourable Robert Boyle Esq. (Oxford: R. Davis, 1666), 10–11, 26. On Greatrakes and Boyle’s involvement in the debate over his healing powers, see Hunter, Boyle, 149–52;

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Peter Elmer, The Miraculous Conformist: Valentine Greatrakes, the Body Politic, and the Politics of Healing in Restoration Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 42. Boyle, Works, vol. 7, 245. 43. Ibid., 246–7. Boyle pointed out the general difficulty “of making exact Static tryals.” 44. Ibid., vol. 8, 135. 45. Ibid., vol. 10, 322ff. Boyle believed that his hypothesis concerning the subterranean origin of endemic diseases could offer a better explanation of the regional outbreak and continuance of plague than traditional theories invoking celestial influences, God’s wrath (Boyle did not rule God’s intervention out but claimed that supernatural explanations were not adequate in most cases), and climate conditions. 46. Ibid., vol. 7, 277–8. For an overview of effluvial action in Boyle’s work, see Barbara B.  Kaplan, Divulging of Useful Truths in Physick. The Medical Agenda of Robert Boyle (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1993), 105–14. 47. Thomas Sydenham, Boyle’s friend and neighbor after 1668, when Boyle moved from Oxford to London, adopted a similar theory. See Kenneth D.  Keele, “The Sydenham-Boyle Theory of Morbific Particles,” Medical History, 18 (1974): 240–8; Hunter, Boyle, 162–3, 174; id., “Boyle versus the Galenists,” 329–30, for Boyle’s influence on Sydenham’s empirical method. 48. Robert G. Frank, “The John Ward Diaries: Mirror of Seventeenth-­Century Science and Medicine,” Journal for the History of Medicine, 29 (1974): 147–79, 152; Robert G. Frank, “Medicine,” in The History of the University of Oxford. Vol. IV. Seventeenth-century Oxford, edited by N. Tyacke, 505–58 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 535–6. The most comprehensive treatment of the club, its composition and development, is still in Frank, Harvey. For a summary of Boyle’s involvement in it, see Hunter, Boyle, 95–6. 49. Walter Charleton, Natural History of Nutrition, Life and Voluntary Motion (London: Henry Herringman, 1659), 7–8, and Santorio, Ars (1614), 14 (Section I, aphorism LX). 50. Henry Power, Experimental Philosophy, in Three Books: Containing New Microscopical, Mercurial, Magnetical Experiments (London: J. Martin and J. Allestry 1664), 67, referring to Section I, aphorism IV, cf. Santorio, Ars (1614), 2r. On Glisson, Charleton, Willis, and Power as representative of the attempt to build physiology on chymistry and corpuscular theories of matter, see Antonio Clericuzio, “Chemical and Mechanical Theories of Digestion in Early Modern Medicine,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 43 (2012): 329–37, 334–5, and id., “The Internal Laboratory. The Chemical Reinterpretation of Medical Spirits in England (1650–1680),” in Alchemy and Chemistry in the 16th

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and 17th Centuries, edited by Piyo Rattansi and Antonio Clericuzio, 51–84 (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994). 51. This notion occurs in Final Causes (1688), Boyle, Works, vol. 11, 148. As Clericuzio has pointed out, Boyle’s conception of the human body entailed “agents and processes following rules other than those of the impact of corpuscles” as ferments and fermentation: Clericuzio, “Mechanism,” 272. For similar passages see Usefulness of Natural Philosophy II.1 310; Of the Reconcileableness of Specifick Medicines to the Corpuscular Philosophy (1685), Boyle, Works, vol. 10, 370; A Free Inquiry Into the Vulgarly Receiv’d Notion of Nature, ibid., vol. 10, 540; The Christian Virtuoso II (1744), ibid., vol. 12, 472–3. 52. Boyle, Works, vol. 3, 267. 53. As Clericuzio has recently pointed out, “Boyle by no means jettisoned mechanical explanations; he argued that in the investigation of living organisms they were to be integrated by taking into account agents and processes following rules other than those of the impact of corpuscles.” Clericuzio, “Mechanism,” 272 et passim. 54. See Michael Hunter and Harriet Knight, Unpublished Material Relating to Robert Boyle’s Memoirs for the Natural history of Human blood (London: Robert Boyle Project Occasional Papers No. 2, 2005). For discussion of Boyle’s Memoirs for the Natural History of Human Blood (1684) in the context of his Baconianism, Harriet Knight, and Michael Hunter, see “Robert Boyle’s Memoirs for the Natural History of Human Blood: Print, Manuscript and the Impact of Baconianism in Seventeenth-Century Medical Science,” Medical History, 51 (2007): 145–64. 55. For a comprehensive account of the links between Usefulness of Natural Philosophy II:1, Boyle’s suppressed writings against the Galenic medical practice, and medical works published in later years, see Hunter, “Boyle versus the Galenists,” 324–5 et passim. 56. Boyle, Works, vol. 3, 317: “Chymists are wont to speak somewhat too slightingly of the humors of the humane Body, and allow too little a share in the production of Disease.” 57. Ibid. 58. Ibid. 59. Ibid., vol. 10, 106. Boyle probably referred to an aphorism of Hippocrates, reiterated by Galen: Edward Tobias Renbourn, “The Natural History of Insensible Perspiration: A Forgotten Doctrine of Health and Disease,” Medical History, 4 (1960): 135–52, 135. 60. Boyle, Works, vol. 10, 110. Boyle only touched on this topic, without developing it. On Stensen’s and Malpighi’s work on glands, and the contemporary debate, see Domenico Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment, Disease: Marcello Malpighi and Seventeenth-Century Anatomy (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2011), 104–14, and Chapter 6.

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61. Boyle 1999–2000, vol. 10, 111–12, reference to Santorio, Ars (1614) I:4, 2r. Boyle reinforced his argument by quoting Aphorisms VI and XXI from Section I: “He adds, If the Meat and Drink, taken in one day, amount to the weight of eight pounds, the insensible Transpiration ordinarily amounts to five pounds or thereabouts. And elsewhere says, that sometimes in the space of 24  hours, in the Winter time, a healthy Body may exhale fifty ounces more”: Santorio, Ars (1614), 2v, 5v. 62. Boyle, Works, vol. 10, 111. 63. Boyle was the recipient of marks of favor by the King and named one of the Council of the Royal Society in 1662 and 1663 Royal Charters: Robert E.W. Maddison, The Life of the Honourable Robert Boyle, F.R.S. (London: Taylor and Francis, 1969), 99, 100, 112. At the Royal Society meeting of 9 March 1664, Sir Robert Moray reported on the King’s “curiosity of weighing himself very frequently, in order to observe the several emanations of his body before and after sleep, tennis, riding abroad, dinner and supper.” Two months later, on 4 May, Moray reported that the King had weighed himself and his clothes after one-and-a-half hour tennis match, finding a weight loss of three pounds, of which twenty-six ounces lost through insensible perspiration. Boyle was present at both meetings. See Thomas Birch, The History of the Royal Society of London for Improving of Natural Knowledge (London: A. Millar, 1756–7), vol. 1, 393, 420, 422. 64. Boyle, Works, vol. 10, 112. 65. “Salubrity and Insalubrity of the Air,” ibid., 314, where Boyle reported an experiment on a bladder of a dead animal, which allowed him to conclude that “the Porosity may be well suppos’d to be much less than it was in the Animal when alive.” See also “An Examen of Antiperistasis” in Cold, ibid., vol. 4, 474: “the vital heat lodg’d in the heart, always generating out of the blood and juices, that continually circulate through that part, great store of spirits and warm exhalations, which are wont to transpire through the pores of the skin in much greater quantities.” Later in his life, he refrained from accepting the theory of aerial niter held by contemporaries like Bathurst, John Mayow, and Thomas Willis: see Clericuzio, “Mechanism,” 286–9. For Hooke’s and Boyle’s experiments on respiration after Spring of the Air, see Frank, Harvey, 142–64. 66. Santorio, Ars (1614), 2v, Section I, Aphorism V: “Perspiratio insensibilis vel fit per poros corporis, quod est totum transpirabile, […] vel fil per respirationem per os factam” 67. Boyle, Works, vol. 10, 111–12. See also vol. 3, 300–1. On Harvey’s discovery of pores in the pleura illustrated in De generatione (1651), see Frank, Harvey, 33–4, 143–4. 68. “Burnet Memorandum” in Michael Hunter, Robert Boyle by Himself and his Friends, with a Fragment of William Wotton’s Lost ‘Life of Boyle’

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(London: Pickering and Chatto, 1994), 29; Boyle, Works, vol. 1, 158 (hereafter Spring of the Air). 69. Boyle, Works, vol. 1, 287; Douglas Mckie, “Fire and the Flamma Vitalis: Boyle, Hooke and Mayow,” in Science, Medicine, and History: Essays on the Evolution of Scientific Thought and Medical Practice Written in Honour of Charles Singer, edited by Edgar A. Underwood, vol. 1, 469–88 (London: Oxford University Press, 1953), 471–2; Allen G. Debus, “The Paracelsian Aerial Niter,” Isis, 55 (1964): 43–61. 70. Boyle, Works, vol. 1, 281. 71. Ibid., 281–2. 72. Ibid., 283. For full discussion of Boyle’s “Digression touching Respiration,” especially in connection with Ralph Bathurst’s lectures on respiration at Oxford and the contemporary theories of respiration, see Frank, Harvey, 142–8. 73. Boyle, Works, vol. 1, 284, a clear reference to Section I, Aphorism IV, Santorio, Ars (1614), 2v: “Perspiratio insensibilis sola solet esse longe plenior, quam omnes sensibiles simul unitæ,” though Boyle gave no direct quotation. 74. Boyle, Works, vol. 8, 304–5. For a study of the place of “Possibility of Resurrection” in Boyle’s physico-theological project, see my “Robert Boyle on God’s “Experiments:” Resurrection, Immortality and Mechanical Philosophy,” Intellectual History Review, 25 (2015): 97–114. Interestingly, Richard Baxter had recourse to Santorio’s measurement of insensible perspiration for the same purpose: if the human body “transpire as much as Sanctorius saith,” Baxter, The Reasons of the Christian Religion (London: R. White, 1667), 570, argued: “certainly a few dayes leave him not the same as to those transitory parts”. The Church of England clergyman and classical scholar Humphrey Hody also referred to Santorio to defend the possibility of resurrection of the same physical body: see The Resurrection of the (Same) Body Asserted, from the Traditions of the Heathens, the Ancient Jews, and the Primitive Church with an Answer to the Objections Brought Against it (London: A. and J. Churchill, 1694), 186–7. 75. Boyle, Works, vol. 3, 362. 76. Ibid., xx–xxii. 77. Ibid., vol. 4, 473–4. See Aphorisms I, XV, in Hippocrates, Nature of Man. Regimen in Health. Humors. Aphorisms. Regimen 1–3. Dreams. Heracleitus: On the Universe, trans. by William Henry  Jones (London: William Heinemann, 1959), 105. 78. See for instance Santorio, Ars (1614), I.50, c. 11v: “Quodvis frigus minimum quidem, quod noctu dormiendo patimur, impedit perspirationem”; id., Ars (1634), I.116, c. 16r: “Si corporis pars hyeme valde frigescat, ita totum corpus consentit, ut coctio et totius perspiration minor fiat”; id., Ars

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(1614), II.7, cc. 21v–22r: “In aere frigido salubri prohibetur quoque perspiratio, densantur meatus, sed roborantur fibrae, et perspirabilis retenti pondus nec laedit, nec sentitur 79. Boyle, Works, vol. 4, 474. The theory of antiperistasis taught that hot water froze quicker than cold because hot and cold were contrary q ­ ualities; as such, each was endowed with the power of restore itself when surrounded by its contrary. 80. Hunter, Boyle, 214, and Michael Hunter, The Boyle Papers: Understanding the Manuscripts of Robert Boyle. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 150–1. 81. “Workdiary 21,” BP 27, p.  147, under the head “A Continuation of Promiscuos Entrys”. 82. Ibid., p. 148, entry “717.” Both are marked “Tbd,” that is, “Transcribed.” To my knowledge, however, these passages do not appear in any works of Boyle, published and unpublished. 83. Boyle, Works, vol. 3, 361. In particular, Boyle paraphrased the content of aphorisms XXIII–XXVI: “he, by the weight of Bodies, after having fed on such and such Meats, findes that Swines Flesh, Melons, and some other things he names (in the third Section) do much hinder insensible Perspiration, and consequently are unwholesome.” See Santorio, Ars (1614), cc. 36r–36v. It is worth noting that in the letter of 9 February 1615 Santorio sent to Galileo with a copy of his newly published Medicina statica, he claimed his aphorisms were based on trials on more than ten thousand individuals performed over a period of twenty-five years. See Galileo, Opere, vol. XII, 142. 84. “Pröemial Essay,” Boyle, Works, vol. 2, 11–13. 85. For the development of Boyle’s Baconianism, see Michael Hunter, “Robert Boyle and the Early Royal Society: a Reciprocal Exchange in the Making of Baconian Science,” British Journal for the History of Science, 20 (2007): 1–23; Peter Anstey and Michael Hunter, “Robert Boyle’s ‘Designe about Natural History’,” Early Science and Medicine, 13 (2008): 83–126. For Boyle’s adoption of the essay genre for his scientific works, see Scott Black, “Boyle’s Essay Genre and the Making of Early Modern Knowledge,” in Making Knowledge in Early Modern Europe: Practices, Objects and Texts 1400–1800, edited by Pamela H. Smith and Benjamin Schmidt, 178–95 (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2007). 86. Boyle, Works, vol. 10, 204. Specific gravity is defined as the ratio between weight in air and weight loss in water. This is an application for the Archimedean principles, as Boyle himself pointed out: ibid., 215, 229–30, 243. 87. Boyle called the latter “Hydrostatical Stereometry,” that is, the method Boyle employed in “A Previous Hydrostatical Way of Estimating Ores,” the essay appended to Medicina hydrostatica: see ibid., 211ff, 229ff, 241ff.

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88. Ibid., p. 241. 89. See Usefulness of Natural Philosophy II.1, vol. 3, p. 362. 90. Santorio, Ars (1614), cc. 21 r–v: “Quanta sit aquae ponderositas, facile intelligitur, si grave perpendatur in aqua: illa enima est levior, et per consequens salubrior, in qua grave magis gravitat: illa vero, in qua minus, est ponderosior et insalubrior.” 91. “The first section. Shewing the occasion of making this new Essay-­ Instrument, together with the hydrostatical principle ‘tis founded on,” Philosophical Transactions, 10 (1675), pp. 329–48, in Boyle, Works, vol. 8, esp. 532–3, 540. As Partington had pointed out, Boyle’s instrument was possibly an improved version of van Helmont’s specific gravity bottle: see James R. Partington, A History of Chemistry, 4 vols (London: Macmillan, 1961–70), vol. 4, 220, 512. 92. Boyle, Works, vol. 10, 235. Not surprisingly, the instrument advertised in Philosophical Transactions aimed at preventing forgery. 93. Ibid., and note c. 94. Ibid., vol. 2, 39–40. For dating, ibid., 5. 95. Ibid., p.  57. For an overview of the problem of contingency in Boyle’s experimental philosophy see Rose-Mary Sargent, The Diffident Naturalist. Robert Boyle and the Philosophy of Experiment (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), 165–70. For a study of its presence in Boyle’s Experiments and Considerations Touching Colors (1664), Tawrin Baker, “Color and Contingency in Robert Boyle’s Works,” Early Science and Medicine 20 (2015): 536–61. 96. Boyle, Works, vol. 2, 73.

CHAPTER 10

Giovanni Alfonso Borelli and Santorio on the Explanation of Fevers Fabio Zampieri

1   Introduction: Borelli’s Life and Work Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608–1679), Italian mathematician, physicist and physician, is considered one of the most prominent scientific figures of the seventeenth century, whose achievements can be compared to those of Galileo Galilei (1564–1642).1 In some respects, Borelli’s achievements were even more extended than Galileo’s, because he introduced quantitative and experimental method not only in physics but also in the life sciences.2 Indeed, Borelli is considered the father of the so-called iatromechanic school, an approach which adopts geometry and mathematics to study and understand living beings, which animated scientific and medical communities from the second half of the seventeenth century up to the end of the eighteenth century, with the work of Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682–1771).3 Borelli provided iatromechanics with a method

F. Zampieri (*) University of Padua, Padua, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Barry, F. Bigotti (eds.), Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614–1790, Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79587-0_10

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and a reference model. With regard to method, Borelli advocated and extensively practiced the experimental approach inspired by Galileo, but he coupled it also with a theoretical analysis which framed all his empirical work. These principles took the form of a mechanic-corpuscular model by which explaining and understanding the function of both inanimate and animate matter. Other than Galileo, two other sources of inspiration are traditionally considered fundamental to Borelli, namely the Italian physician Santorio Santori (1561–1636)4 and the French philosopher and scientist René Descartes (1596–1650). To them, may be added William Harvey (1578–1657), because his demonstration of blood circulation was crucial, as I will mention below, for explaining both physiological and pathological processes in mechanistic and corpuscular terms. Although the topic of this paper is Borelli’s inheritance of Santorio’s work, particularly in relation to Borelli’s theory of fevers, it is important to spend a few words about the influence that Galileo and Descartes had on Borelli. There is no agreement among scholars on the role played by their methods and principles in Borelli’s achievements. Some understand Borelli as more Galilean than Cartesian, describing his iatromechanics as a model for demonstrating that physiological processes can be quantified and understood in mathematical terms, without pretending to reduce biological phenomena to mechanical processes. Others think that with Borelli we observe a fundamental move away from iatromechanism, and that mathematics is understood by Borelli as a way not only to describe but also to understand natural phenomena. According to the former interpretation, Borelli’s natural philosophy was closer to Galileo than to Descartes, while according to the latter it was more Cartesian-like. The role of Descartes in inspiring Italian late seventeenth-century medicine is unfortunately not yet completely explored, so for the time being is not possible to resolve this dilemma, although we may safely state that Borelli’s mechanical philosophy had a methodological rather than an ontological nature, and that the purely mechanic essence of organic phenomena was often left undetermined at the background of his researches. Borelli was born in Naples on 28 January 1608, to Laura Borriello, wife of a Spanish soldier, Miguel Alonso “de Varoscio”.5 Of his early life and career little is known. At some point, he moved to Rome, where he was a student of the mathematician Benedetto Castelli (1578–1643), by whom he was introduced to mathematical studies and Galilean method. Probably after Castelli’s recommendation, Borelli was called as a lecturer of

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mathematics at the University of Messina in 1639 after having proved his skills in science before the Senate of Messina.6 There are no original documents about Borelli’s scientific and didactic activities at the University of Messina, except his first scientific publications, the Discorso on a mathematical problem directed against the ecclesiastic Pietro Emanuele7 and the book Delle cagioni delle febbri maligne della Sicilia negli anni 1647 e 1648 (‘On the causes of Malignant fevers occurred in Sicily in the years 1647 and 1648’),8 on which we will focus our attention in this paper. In 1656 Borelli obtained the chair of mathematics at the University of Pisa, replacing Famiano Michelini (1604–1665), whom he had known since his time in Rome as part of Castelli’s circle. Michelini, a lay member of the order of Piarists, moved to Florence in 1629 at the new school of the order, then became professor of Mathematics at the University of Pisa in 1648. He was interested also in medicine, developing a mechanistic approach according to which the body was a “clock, or semi-moving machine”. He was thus called “padre staderone” (big steelyard father) because of his obsessive routine of weighting himself before and after meals, both to measure his health and to verify Santorio’s experiments.9 Thanks to the assistance of Borelli and Vincenzo Viviani (1622–1703), he published in 1664 a treatise on rivers’ direction, his main work in hydraulics.10 In Pisa, Borelli became a member of the Accademia del Cimento, a group of natural philosophers working under the protection of Prince Leopoldo de Medici (1617–1675) with the express goal of conducting experiments,11 who also attempted to verify and further Santorio’s achievements. For instance, in the only publication of the Academy, which describes many experiments, there are some with the thermometer, others with an instrument for measuring air humidity and others using a pendulum for time-measurement.12,13 The ten years Borelli spent with the Medici Court were the most productive of his career. He wrote several physico-mathematical treatises ranging from classic geometry14 to celestial mechanics, anticipating Newton’s theory of gravity.15 Moreover, he led a group of mechanistic anatomical and physiological scholars such as Lorenzo Bellini (1643–1703) and Marcello Malpighi (1628–1694).16 Through them, the Italian iatromechanic school emerged, which extended his influence all around Europe.17 If Bellini’s focus was on clinics and Malpighi’s on anatomy, Borelli was specifically focused on the understanding of animal and human physiology, based on a conception of matter as composed of corpuscles and of life as a set of coordinated movements that could be described mathematically. The most important achievement resulting from the

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researches of that period is surely the book De motu animalium (On the Movement of Animals, 1680–1681).18 In 1667, Borelli came back to Messina. It seems he had left Pisa due to disagreements with some of the Cimento members, particularly with the mathematician Vincenzo Viviani (1622–1703).19 It is not clear whether Borelli took back his chair in mathematics, but he continued his research in physics, astronomy and physiology, also studying an eruption of Mount Etna and publishing one of the first scientific works on volcanology.20 In 1672, he was expelled from Sicily for having participated in a conspiracy against the Spanish governor of the island. He then moved to Rome, where he contributed to the foundation of the Giornale de’ Letterati and became a member of the academy of Queen Christina of Sweden (1626–1689). In the last years of his life, because of financial difficulties, he accepted the hospitality of the Piarist fathers in their house close to Saint Pantaleon Church, where he died in 1679. Borelli’s De motu animalium features prominently in the history of medicine as his most important contribution.21 Borelli himself considered this book to be the crowning achievement of his career,22 though it was preceded by two fundamental works describing terrestrial motion, the principles of which are used for the understanding of animal mechanics.23 From a methodological point of view, in this book Borelli attempted to combine Galileo’s physics with Descartes’ “man-machine”, all the while extending and elaborating upon the model he had described in his work Delle cagioni delle febbri maligne,24 wherein he combined Harvey’s theory of the blood circulation with Santorio’s notion of insensible perspiration. Chapter XV, for instance, was dedicated to “insensible perspiration”, where Borelli stated and demonstrated that this “famous theory of Santorio” was “confirmed with experiments”. Indeed, perspiration was so fundamental to Borelli that he made it the base of the entire physiology of the body: The life of the animal consists of a continuous movement of its particles. […] These motions are carried out by the animal’s liquid and solid particles, either inside the animal, by fermentation or circulation, or rather by diffusion, by transmitting food to particular elements and by expelling harmful and useless excrements. The excrements which are expelled through the pores of the skin are said to perspire. […] Such perspiration is absolutely necessary to maintain life. […] The elements of the animal are rather

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c­ omparable with a stream or a flame or a marching legion of soldiers the component of which are arranged in a certain order but are not quiet and move continuously. Such movement is possible in the animal only if some elements successively part and leave, i.e. if they perspire, and if others arrive to replace them, filling the spaces left empty. Perspiration thus is necessary for two reasons: to eliminate the useless elements so that they do not corrupt the organic structure by the foulness and to make possible the subsequent arrival of nutritive juice to restore the lost parts.25

In the last quarter of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth centuries, most European medical schools were guided by the teachings contained in Borelli’s De motu animalium.26 As we shall see in the next section, this model was already elaborated in Borelli’s earlier work Delle cagioni delle febbri maligne.

2   Borelli’s Work on Pestilential Fevers If Borelli’s work on pestilential fevers ranks among the first examples of iatromechanics, a sort of “iatromechanical manifesto” as it were,27 then Santorio and Harvey can be viewed as the principal inspirers of such a manifesto because on their theories rests Borelli’s explanation of fever and his theory of living beings. In the years 1646–1648 an epidemic of typhoid fevers occurred in Sicily with a high mortality. The Senate of Messina asked the advice of experts on the characteristics of the disease and a possible cure. Borelli’s relation appeared so original and insightful to deserve to be published.28 Assuming as valid the Socratic principle “unum scio, quod nihil scio”,29 Borelli begins his scientific investigation by lying down some general principles: 1. Sicilian fevers were truly “epidemic” and “universal” because they affected people of any “complexion”, age, gender and style of life. Therefore, they arose from a “universal cause”; 2. universal causes depended on nothing but air, which penetrated into the vital parts by “breathing” and “perspiration”. This concept of perspiration represents, from the first pages of Borelli’s work, a clear reference to Santorio. As a universal cause, air could become pestilential for three causes:

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1. celestial, consisting in the malignant influences of Mars, Saturn and other stars “opposite to human nature”; 2. terrestrial, that is corrupted vapours exhaling from cadavers, lagoons, caves or putrefied materials; 3. elementary, related to the Aristotelian four “elementary qualities” (hot, dry, cold and humid).30 Borelli analyzes the first cause showing that astrological explanations lack logical consistency. Then, he moves on to consider the terrestrial causes only to exclude them from the list of possible causes: Sicilian territory was free from unburied cadavers that could be the sources of pestilential exhalations and there had been no earthquake in Sicily that could have opened “chasms” responsible for morbid vapours.31 He then dwells on the most favoured theory of his time, according to which the “air, altered and corrupted by first qualities only, could cause pestilences”32 and denied the possibility that an air excessively hot, dry or humid could be, per se, the cause of any kind of fever. Borelli’s refutation was backed up with proofs drawn from everyday experiences. He points out that in Germany houses are heated with stoves and the air never becomes pestilential due to heat. Another case in point is Egypt, whose air is always dry, and yet does not cause fevers, neither among the general populace nor among the merchants, who only dwell in the country for a short period of time.33 In Venice, where houses are humid because of the surrounding lagoon and rooms need to be heated by fireplaces, the humid-­hot air does not cause fevers or pestilences.34 Further corroboration to his claim is sought by Borelli with a resort to a practical test. This consist in filling a pitcher with the vapours from boiling water and then, closing it hermetically, in maintaining its content’s warmth for several days. He then shows that, should someone decide to open the pitcher and breathe in it, they would never develop a malignant fever, for the air inside the pitcher neither putrefies nor stinks.35 Now, taking for granted the logical premise according to which the effect follows the cause (posita causa ponitur effectus), if we suppose that the humidity of the air is the cause of pestilence—Borelli argues—then the same effect should occur regularly everywhere, yet the examples of Germany, Egypt and Venice do not support this conclusion.36 But Borelli goes even further and, seeking support from classical sources, he demonstrates that neither Hippocrates nor Galen have ever supported the view that the qualities of air per se could explain the onset of pestilential fevers:

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As you can see, neither Hippocrates nor Galen support the idea that air alone, by virtue of its hot or dry temperaments, without the addition of the principles of corruption or pestilential seeds, can cause malignant fevers.37

This is the first place in that work where Borelli uses the term “pestilential seeds” (semi di pestilenza), which links back to both classical tradition and the theory of contagion proposed by Girolamo Fracastoro (1478–1553). However, semi is a term conceptually equivalent to two other expressions Borelli uses commonly in his later works, namely “particulae” and “machinae”38 with the corpuscular meaning of Borelli’s semi clearly emerging in the following pages of this same work. Borelli dedicated much attention throughout his career to the corpuscular structure of air. He believed that air was composed of “small machines” provided with an “elastic virtue” able to account for its chief movements of compression and expansion.39 The corpuscular nature of air represented a prerequisite to Borelli’s theory of fevers as it provided an explanation as to how air could mix with pestilential exhalations which constituted the specific cause of fevers. Using quotations from Hippocrates and Galen to dismantle theories that claimed to be based on their works represents a strategy that was frequently adopted by Borelli’s disciples, and especially by Marcello Malpighi, who used classical sources extensively in order to demonstrate that his rivals based their theories on a misunderstanding of Hippocrates and Galen.40 According to Borelli, then, there remains only one way in which the humidity of the air can cause fevers, that is, by obstructing pores and favouring internal putrefaction. However, this process would come about slowly, while the Sicilian fevers, which Borelli was concerned with, affected people abruptly.41 Given that neither heat nor humidity of the air are per se pestilential, Borelli postulates the existence of some exhalations which, joined to the air, makes it pestilential, in the same way that arsenic mixed with bread makes it poisonous.42 Thus, Borelli advanced three possible explanations for such a phenomenon, namely that: 1. heated by sirocco wind, the humidity of the air corrupts and putrefies to the point that the air acquires a new pestilential power; 2. the corruption of the air is caused by evil influences of the stars; 3. “Pestilential and poisonous exhalations” are mixed with the air.43 The first hypothesis is proved wrong by the above-mentioned experiences. To the second hypothesis, Borelli dedicated the whole second

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part of his work and Although he deeply “abhorred”44 astrology, he showed a detailed understanding of it. To dismantle astrological theories, he compares the opinions of ancient and modern astrologers so as to demonstrate their contradictions. At the end of this part, Borelli concludes that “[…] astrologers can predict both good and bad occurrences from whatever constellation, according to their convenience”.45 This part deserves a special place in the history of astrology, as one of the clearest seventeenth-century attempts at separating astrology from science.46 Interestingly, Santorio used exactly the same argument in 1625, criticizing astrologers as quacks, and then in his reply to Obizzi in 1634.47 Having discredited all the then current theories on the cause and nature of pestilential fevers, in the third part of the work Borelli delineates his own theory. He assumes that the earth contains a great amount of plants, animals, minerals and metals on which the influence of the sun induces a chemical reaction producing exhalations both useful and poisonous. Borelli advanced the example of lightning, which was still not yet understood as an electric phenomenon. These exhalations could then elevate in the sky according to their relative density and “gravity”. As with clouds, however, these exhalations could be dissipated and transported into other places. Again, lightning offered a good example of “inflaming exhalations” bursting in different places during a storm.48 Borelli’s principal explanation of malignant fevers rests on this hypothesis. According to him, in the sky of Sicily a great number of “pestilential seeds” were accumulated, generated by the action of the sun on mines and other poisonous places during the good weather which characterized the region in the period preceding the outbreak of pestilence. Then, through the action of rains or simply of the cold during night times, these seeds could have precipitated on the ground, concentrated in the narrow streets of Sicilian towns and, breathed in by people, caused pestilential fevers.49 And yet, this explanation poses two potential difficulties, which Borelli analyses in detail. First, this mechanism should have produced pestilential fevers much more frequently than it was observed, because the sun, shining all around the world, would produce pestilential exhalations everywhere. The difficulty was solved taking into consideration the whole of Europe and not only Sicily. It was easy to demonstrate that across this large territory several pestilences occurred in different places in any year.

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Second, the Sicilian pestilence first affected young people, who were normally stronger than the older ones. This could be explained by the fact that these poisonous exhalations acted in the same way as other natural poisons or corrosive substances, rather than through primary qualities. Vinegar, for instance, corroded strong materials such as marble, but did not harm soft matter such as apples.50 Finally, Borelli makes use of the same “anatomical experience” to support his theory. Dissection of people deceased by pestilential fever showed that, while the lungs were inflamed, brain, liver and heart were unaffected. These findings showed that pestilential seeds entered in the organism through respiration and affected primarily the lungs. They could be diffused also in the body by the action of blood circulation as “demonstrated by Harvey”.51 Then Borelli turns to Santorio and he recalls that, in De remediorum inventione, Santorio had demonstrated, against the opinion of Galen, that malignant fevers could occur without humours being corrupted, for instance when there was an internal inflammation or gangrene.52 Although this is the only passage of the main text where Santorio is openly acknowledged by Borelli, in the Appendix, where Borelli lies down the outlines of his theory on the functioning of living beings which underlies his theory of fevers, Santorio and Harvey feature prominently from the beginning. It is in the context of this Appendix and with reference to Santorio and Harvey that we find the first statement of the principle which Borelli would fully develop in his famous On the Movement of Animals, namely that “life is movement”.53 According to Borelli, all the natural operations of life are accomplished by a movement of spirits and humours, through which solid parts, introduced via the aliment, are reduced into “minimal particles” and used to build and maintain the animal body. These particles are normally used to replace those which constantly transpire through the skin, “as demonstrated by Santorio’s medical statics”. The continuous movement by means of which the organism substitutes and replaces its own particles is made possible by the circulation of blood put in motion by the heart in its capacity as the “principle of all bodily movements”.54 This model is applied by Borelli also for explaining the nature and purpose of the digestive function. The food is broken into minute particles in the stomach and intestines. These particles, passing through the “thigh canals” of the mesentery, are used to replace all those which are continuously sweated out through the skin pores.55 Fevers are thus determined by a disequilibrium in the distribution or in the material composition of the humours and are almost always accompanied by an obstruction of the pores. As a result, in order to restore an

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healthy balance, the organism must produce a vehement motion by means of which it can regulate the distribution and composition of humours, and this movement can be produced only by the heart.56 As Borelli highlights, while in “specific fevers” there is a pouring of blood, pushed by the heart in the part affected so as to remove the pathological cause, in “universal fevers” the increase of circulatory blood movement is meant to dissipate the cause of diseases.57 In both cases, the diseased particles are expelled through the pores of the skin under the pressure of blood. Fever is thus the direct consequence of this increased circulation and therefore must be regarded as part of the process of healing, rather than as a pathological factor. This observation is immediately underpinned with a reference to Santorio’s medical statics, in fact: […] according to the statics it is clear that transpiration is increased during sleep. Therefore, soporific drugs, by inducing sleep, would favour transpiration and elimination of the obstruction in the pores.58

But Borelli’s use of Santorio’s findings goes deeper than this, for he adopts medical statics as the fundamental model for his rational therapeutics. It is worth mentioning that, in describing his theory, Borelli initially used the term “pestilential seeds” which has a direct derivation from the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius (99–55 BC) and his philosophical poem De rerum natura. Lucretius has been called the “hidden Auctoritas of the Cimento Academy”, and, in general, Lucretian atomism played an important role in the rise of early modern corpuscularianism.59 Borelli probably encountered Lucretius by reading the 1647 edition of De rerum natura edited by the Florentine physician Giovanni Nardi (1585–1654).60 He was definitely an admirer of Lucretius, because he encouraged one of his pupils, Alessandro Marchetti (1633–1714), to translate Lucretius’ poem into Italian.61 The introduction of the new mechanistic and corpuscular philosophy within the University of Pisa had to be achieved gradually and literature seemed a convenient means. It is important to note that atomism could be different from corpuscularism. The first views nature as composed of material indivisible particles in a void, which either interacted at a distance or were moved by a “vis

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intrinseca”,62 while the second did not necessarily involve the belief in a vacuum. That Borelli was an atomist is clear from his researches on capillarity, that is the capacity of a fluid substance to flow in a narrow space without the assistance of, or even in opposition to, any external forces like gravity, a pheomenon which he explained by conceiving fluids in terms of a series of particles separated by a “necessary vacuum” and moved by their own kinetic power.63 His atomism is further confirmed by his disciple Marcello Malpighi. In a statement made towards the end of his life, recalling the period spent in Pisa and Borelli’s teaching, Malpighi said that Borelli “was kind enough to introduce me to the study of free and Democritean philosophy”.64 Experiments by members of the Academia del Cimento later collected by Lorenzo Magalotti (1637–1712) in Saggi di naturali esperienze, some of them probably carried out by Borelli himself, were devoted to demonstrating that capillarity also occurred in the void.65 Moreover, in the De motionibus naturalibus, Borelli dedicated a chapter to De vacui necessitate.66 The question as to how to interpret vacuum and capillarity became an object of controversy between Borelli and his disciple Malpighi, in particular, as it related to the mixing of blood particles in the lungs (but also in studies of kidneys and tongue).67 Malpighi denied the necessity of void as well as the theory that corpuscles making up fluid substances could be moved by their own force. Malpighi’s corpuscularism was founded on a system of analogies between visible and invisible phenomena, being uncommitted to any strict ontological implications, while for Borelli atoms or corpuscles are not indivisible units of matter as much as the necessary outcome of a general model of nature whereby mathematical principles require corpuscles and their physical properties in order to be implemented successfully.68 The explanation of fevers made by Borelli can thus be interpreted as a synthesis of atomism and corpuscularianism, which is a combination of Lucretius’ and Santorio’s authorities. In particular, the idea of pestilential exhalation came from Lucretius’ poem, while the model for explaining their mixture with air and diffusion through the sky was clearly inspired by Santorio.69 While, on the one hand, Lucretius stated that “[…] there are seeds of many things that are vital for us and others flying which cause disease and death. When these latter collect and perturb the sky, the air became unhealthy”; on the other Santorio, with his rejection of elementary qualities in the explanation of the origin of natural phenomena was a fundamental source of inspiration for Borelli’s analogous critique of their role in causing pestilential fevers.70 Moreover, Santorio explained the transformation of matter with quantitative and geometrical properties, in particular

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through the parameters of rarity and density of matter. Borelli was keen to adopt this idea as he explained the diffusion of pestilential seeds exactly through their relative cohesion, namely their relative rarity or density within air. Moreover, all the later studies carried out by Borelli on the corpuscular structure of air show their intimate debt to Santorio’s conceptions. Borelli tried to explain the behaviour of air and many other natural phenomena with a mechanical model based on the oscillatory motions of corpuscles, a measurable oscillation that he compared to that of pendulums, on whose properties Santorio had built his pulsilogia.71

3   Conclusion Santorio’s corpuscularism and his concept of insensible perspiration played a fundamental role in Borelli’s explanation of fevers, as well as in his theory on the basic functioning of living beings. Borelli’s work on pestilential fevers contains a wealth of ideas and theories which he developed in his later studies, thus representing a sort of “iatromechanical manifesto”, even if the explanations proposed on the origin and diffusion of pestilential fevers were not further developed by him.

Notes 1. Luciano  Boschiero, “Introduction” in Giovanni Alfonso Borelli’s On the Movement of Animals—On the Force of Percussion trans. by Paul Maquet (New York: Springer, 2015), ix. 2. Ugo Baldini, “Giovanni Alfonso Borelli e la rivoluzione scientifica,” Physis, 16 (1974): 97–128, 98. 3. Fabio Zampieri, Alberto Zanatta and Gaetano Thiene, “An Etymological ‘Autopsy’ of Morgagni’s Title: De Sedibus et causis morborum per anatomen indagatis (1761),” Human Pathology, 45 (2014): 12–16; Fabio Zampieri, Il metodo anatomo-clinico fra meccanicismo ed empirismo. Marcello Malpighi, Antonio Maria Valsalva e Giovanni Battista Morgagni (Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 2016). 4. See: Fabrizio Bigotti, Physiology of the Soul. Mind, Body and Matter in the Galenic Tradition of the Late Renaissance (1550–1630) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019), 226–251. 5. Ugo  Baldini, “Borelli, Giovanni Alfonso,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani (Rome: Treccani, 1971), vol. 12, 318. 6. Luciano  Boschiero, Experiment and Natural Philosophy in SeventeenthCentury Tuscany: The History of the Accademia del Cimento (New York: Springer, 2007), 61–2.

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7. Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Discorso nel quale si manifestano la falsità e gli errori contenuti nella difesa del problema geometrico risoluto dal R.P. Emanuele (Messina: Heredi di Pietro Brea, 1646). 8. Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Delle cagioni delle febbri maligne in Sicilia negli anni 1647 e 1648 (Cosenza: Gio. Battista Rosso, 1649). 9. Federico Favino, “Michelini, Famiano,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani (Rome: Treccani, 2010), vol. 74, 61. 10. Famiano Michelini, Trattato della direzione de fiumi (Florence: nella stamperia della Stella, 1664). 11. Boschiero, Experiment. 12. Lorenzo Magalotti, ed., Saggi di naturali esperienze fatte nell’Accademia del Cimento sotto la protezione del Serenissimo Principe Leopoldo di Toscana e descritte dal Segretario di essa Accademia (Florence: G. Cocchini, 1667). 13. Fabirizo Bigotti, “The Weight of the Air: Santorio’s Thermometers and the Early History of Medical Quantification Reconsidered”, Journal of Early Modern Studies, 7, 1 (2018): 73. 14. Jean Itard, “L’angle de contingence chez Borelli,” Archives interationales d’histoire de sciences 56–57 (1961): 201–24; Cesare Vasoli, “Fondamento e metodo logico nella geometria dell’Euclides Restitutus di Borelli,” Physis 11 (1969): 571–98. 15. Ugo  Baldini, “Giovanni Alfonso Borelli biologo e fisico negli studi recenti,” Physis, 16 (1974): 234–266. 16. Howard B. Adelmann, Marcello Malpighi and the Evolution of Embryology (New York: Cornell University Press, 1966), vol. 1, 152–60; Domenico Bertoloni Meli, “The New Anatomy of Marcello Malpighi,” in Marcello Malpighi Anatomist and Physician, edited by Domenico  Bertoloni Meli, 31–39 (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1997). 17. Theodore M. Brown, “The College of Physicians and the Acceptance of Iatromechanism in England, 1665–1695”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 44 (1970): 12–30; Anita Guerrini, “The Varieties of Mechanical Medicine: Borelli, Malpighi, Bellini, and Pitcairne,” in Marcello Malpighi edited by Bertoloni Meli, 111–28. 18. Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, De motu animalium (Rome: Angelo Bernabò, 1680–1). 19. Tullio  Derenzini, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, fisico: Celebrazione dell’Accademia del Cimento nel tricentenario della fondazione (19 giugno 1957) (Pisa: Domus Galilaeana, 1958), 52–6. 20. Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Historia, et meteorologia incendii Aetnaei anni 1669 (Reggio: Dominici Ferri, 1670). 21. Emilio  Balaguer Perigüel, “La introduction de la metologia moderna en biologia: el De motu animalium de J.  A. Borelli,” Episteme, 5 (1971): 243–62.

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22. Guerrini, “Varieties,” 113. 23. Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, De vi percussionis liber (Bologna: Giacopo Monti, 1667); id,. De motionibus naturalibus a gravitate pendentibus liber (Reggio di Calabria: Dominici Ferri, 1670). 24. Guerrini, “Varieties,” 113. 25. Paul Maquet, ed. Giovanni Alfonso Borelli. On the Movements of Animals (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1989), 400–1. 26. Modestino  Del Gaizo, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli e la sua opera De motu animalium (Naples: Tip. Cav. A Tocco e Salvietti, 1908), 1. 27. Luigi Belloni, “De la théorie atomistico-mécaniste à l’anatomie subtile (de Borelli à Malpighi) et de l’anatomie subtile à l’anatomie pathologique (de Malpighi à Morgagni),” Clio Medica, 6 (1971): 99–107, 101; Guerrini, “Varieties,” 112. 28. Baldini, “Borelli,” 319. 29. Borelli, Delle cagioni, 3. 30. Ibid., 4–6. 31. Ibid., 6. 32. Ibid., 12. 33. Ibid., 13–14. 34. Ibid., 47–8. 35. Ibid., 53–4. 36. Ibid., 35. 37. Ibid., 23–24. 38. Stefania Montacutelli, “Air ‘Particulae’ and Mechanical Motions: From the Experiments of the Cimento Academy to Borelli’s Hypotheses on the Nature of Air,” in The Academia del Cimento and its European Context, edited by Marco Beretta, Antonio Clericuzio and Lawrence M. Principe, 59–72 (Sagamore Beach: Science History Publications, 2009). 39. Borelli, De motionibus, 193. 40. Zampieri, Metodo, 96–140. 41. Borelli, Delle cagioni, 62–3. 42. Ibid., 55. 43. Ibid., 65. 44. Ibid., 67. 45. Ibid., 89. 46. Baldini, “Giovanni Alfonso Borelli biologo e fisico,” 249. 47. Santorio Santori, Commentaria in primam Fen primi libri Canonis Avicennae (Venice: G. Sarzina, 1625), coll. 80E–82A. 48. Borelli, Delle cagioni, 107–12. 49. Ibid., 114. 50. Ibid., 125. 51. Ibid., 128.

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52. Ibid., 130. 53. Ibid., 158. 54. Ibid., 158–9. 55. Ibid., 208. 56. Ibid., 171. 57. Ibid., 172–4. 58. Ibid., 187. 59. Marco Beretta, “Lucretius as Hidden Auctoritas of the Cimento,” in Beretta et alii, Academia del Cimento, 1–16. 60. Lucretius, Titi Lucretii Cari De rerum natura libri sex (Florence: Typis Amatoris Massae Forolivien, 1674); Marco Beretta, “Gli scienziati e l’edizione del De rerum natura,” in Lucrezio la natura e la scienza, edited by Marco Beretta and Francesco Citti, 177–224 (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2008), 189. 61. Beretta, “Lucretius,” 12. 62. Susanna Gómez López, “Marcello Malpighi and Atomism” in Marcello Malpighi, edited by Bertolini Meli, 175–189, 176–7. 63. Ibid., 180. 64. Marcello Malpighi, Memorie di me Marcello Malpighi ai miei posteri fatte in villa l’anno 1689, edited by Cesare Zanichelli (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1902), 2; see also Gómez López, “Marcello Malpighi”, 175. 65. Magalotti ed., Saggi, 26–30. 66. Borelli, De motionibus, 319–29. 67. Gómez López, “Marcello Malpighi,” 180. 68. Luigi  Belloni, “Introduzione” in Marcello Malpighi, Opere scelte di Marcello Malpighi, edited by Luigi Belloni (Turin: UTET, 1967), 16. 69. On this see the contribution of Vivian Nutton and Silvana D’Alessio in this volume. 70. See: Santorio Santori, Commentaria in Artem medicinalem Galeni (Venice: G.A. Somascho, 1612); Fabrizio Bigotti “A Previously Unknown Path to Corpuscularism in the Seventeenth Century: Santorio’s Marginalia to the Commentaria in primam Fen primi libri Canonis Avicennae (1625),” Ambix, 64 (2017): 29–42. 71. Montacutelli, “Air ‘Particulae’,” 69.

CHAPTER 11

Bodies in Balance: Santorio’s Legacy in Baglivi’s Medicine Luca Tonetti

1   Introduction One of the main representatives of iatromechanics, the Croatian physician Giorgio Baglivi (1668–1707) strongly supported and practised Santorio’s principles in his medicine. His Canones de medicina solidorum (1704), a commentary on Santorio’s Medicina statica, was repeatedly printed throughout the eighteenth century.1 Canones, however, are something completely different from an ordinary line-by-line commentary: Baglivi A preliminary and abridged version of this paper was presented at the Conference “Humours Mixtures and Corpuscles. A Medical Path to Corpuscularism in the Seventeenth Century” organised by Fabrizio Bigotti and Jonathan Barry (Domus Comeliana, Pisa, 2017) as a recipient of the Santorio Fellowship for Medical Humanities and Science. L. Tonetti (*) Department of Philosophy and Communication Studies, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Barry, F. Bigotti (eds.), Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614–1790, Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79587-0_11

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rather tries to corroborate his views in physiology and pathology by means of an original and new-fashioned interpretation of Santorio’s work. 1.1  Formation and Organization of Canones Baglivi’s Canones de medicina solidorum ad rectum statices usum was published in 1704, as a part of a newly edited reprint of Santorio’s Medicina statica.2 This period was a crucial step in Baglivi’s life. In 1703, he had witnessed one of the strongest earthquakes in eighteenth-century Italy.3 The data he then recorded in his short dissertations on that issue are still today considered an important source for the history of earthquakes in Italy.4 The effects were at that time of such importance that he decided to study earthquakes also from a medical point of view, as they were assumed to be responsible for the outbreaks of pestilential diseases.5 These issues continued to be significant in the following years.6 But other key events marked the year 1704: in a famous letter to the French physician Philippe Hecquet (1661–1737), dated 1 April 1704, Baglivi defended himself from the accusations of plagiarism received after the publication of De fibra motrice et morbosa, wherein he had failed to mention the anatomist Antonio Pacchioni (1664–1726)  and his studies on the dura mater, despite these being a source for his own theory of fibres.7 Furthermore, in that same year, the Lyon printers and booksellers Anisson and Posuel published the first edition of the complete works of Baglivi. Whilst fostering the spread of his medicine throughout Europe, the systematization of all his writings, originally published for diverse purposes, emphasized the need to find a synthesis among Baglivi’s multiple research interests. It is noteworthy that the 1704 edition of Opera omnia did not include the Canones. However, this need for “unity,” suggested by the publication of the complete works, could in some way also explain the main peculiarities of Baglivi’s commentary on Santorio. In a letter to the Venetian senator Giovanni Francesco Morosini (1658–1739), serving as the preface to the Canones, Baglivi provides some background as to how his work was originally conceived.8 Baglivi used to recommend the reading of Santorio’s Medicina statica to his students during his lectures at the Archiginnasio in Rome. Since this text was out of print and difficult to find, a bookseller—probably, Nicolò L’Hulliè (1647–1703)—invited Baglivi to write some additional annotations to be added to a future reprint of that work.9 After some hesitation, Baglivi agreed and completed his commentary in only a few days, which was then issued by Nicolò’s heirs with the title Sanctorii Sanctorii Justinopolitani

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De medicina statica libri octo, accedunt Georgii Baglivi philosophi, et medici Canones de medicina solidorum ad rectum statices usum10 (see Fig. 11.1). It is likely that, in writing his annotations, Baglivi looked at some secondary sources, including Martin Lister’s commentaries, just appeared in 1701.11 In an unpublished letter dated 25 June 1703, Baglivi asked the botanist William Sherard (1659–1728) to send him a copy of that book (“cum notis lister”) as soon as possible: As earthquakes continue here, I go on drawing histories of them, which will be republished in Leiden. Write to me often, dearest Sherard. I will be very grateful if you could send me a copy of Santorio’s Statica cum notis lister through some friend […].12

Fig. 11.1  Santorio’s De medicina statica libri octo … (Rome: Typis Bernabò, 1704). Title page and inscription by Giorgio Baglivi. (Courtesy of Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, Call 42. 2.B.18)

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Moreover, Baglivi’s testament, which I discovered in the State Archive in Rome, reveals the existence of both a (probably) revised version of Santorio’s Medicina statica, maybe for a further edition in the Opera omnia, and a second book on the “canons of the solids,” of which, however, there remain no traces: I want my heir to have my manuscripts copied as soon as possible—that is the epistolary treatise with nine letters, Santorio’s Statics, the second book of the canons of solids, which my heir already has in his hands—and I want him to deliver them to Tommaso Curti, agent in Rome of Mr. Alison [recte Anisson], publisher in France, so that he can print them.13

The letter to Morosini is a sort of great celebration of science and medicine in Italy, in which Santorio inevitably plays a pivotal role, because he was considered the first to prove, thanks to his quantitative experiments on the insensible perspiration, that human life “is like a continuous motion, and an eternal flow of matter.”14 This awareness allowed him to detect “the true sources of diseases, and the certain principles of an healthy and unhealthy life which are of use to human beings.”15 Similarly, at the very beginning of the first chapter of De fibra motrice et morbosa (1702), Baglivi affirmed that “the human body is like a continuous motion, which has no beginning and no end.”16 Baglivi’s Canones consists of fifty-one aphorisms (also called “canons”), followed by a final section with nine additional aphorisms or medical rules: if we consider its position in Baglivi’s works, it does not add anything totally new to what has been already claimed in his previous works. Baglivi’s analysis of Santorio’s Medicina statica is entirely outlined in the more general framework of his fibre theory. 1.2  Santorio and Baglivi In explaining Santorio’s role in the making and development of iatromechanics, especially in Italy, nineteenth-century historians of medicine like Salvatore De Renzi, Francesco Puccinotti and Charles Daremberg have inevitably also considered Baglivi’s role. Daremberg, in particular, did not merely identify the limits of Santorio’s contribution but questioned much of the consistency and importance his views had for the development of iatromechanics:

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It is true that the insensible perspiration theory is part of iatromechanism, but only as an appendage. Iatromechanism has a very different generality than medical statics; this doctrine proceeds from a whole body of physiological knowledge that was unfamiliar to Santorio, whose writings date earlier than the publication of Harvey’s book, and long before the great discoveries in anatomy and physiology in the second half of the 17th century. […] Here are the main propositions from Santorio’s book; if we compare them with iatromechanism, we easily realise that it is difficult to derive Borelli, Bellini, Baglivi, Pitcairn, Cole, etc., from the scale of the professor of Padua. […].17

Moreover, since Santorio had taken no notice of the new discoveries in physiology, most notably blood circulation, Daremberg confessed not to be able to share Baglivi’s enthusiasm for Santorio, which he found a bit overblown: You see, Sirs, following these excerpts, that we cannot share the outbursts of enthusiasm that Baglivi, Boerhaave and many other 17th- and 18th-century physicians had for medical statics. Nor do I believe that for this single work [i.e. Medicina statica] there would be a marble statue erected to Santorio today as it was done shortly after his death. Santorio is almost forgotten: we don’t even read him anymore. The whole edifice of his Ars statica rests on the old physiology.18

However, this approach to Baglivi, and more generally Daremberg’s interpretation of Santorio’s merits, reflects an outdated and unhelpfully positivistic approach to the history of medicine, according to which authors should be considered on the grounds of their contribution to the progress of a specific medical field alone. In the case of Baglivi, we should ask ourselves: why are his Canones so important? We can address this question in three ways. First and foremost, Baglivi updates Santorio’s Medicina statica, in order to make it compatible with the new discoveries of modern physiology. This implies that his commentary provides us with a valuable means to assess not only Santorio, but also the ways in which Santorio’s methods and principles had been recovered and disseminated throughout seventeenth- and eighteenth-­century medicine. Secondly, the Canones represents a key work to understand the evolution of Baglivi’s medicine, which is articulated in two only apparently unrelated fields of research, that is clinical methodology and fibrillary

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theory. In this context, Santorio’s medical statics serves as a “joint” bridging the reform of medical practice promoted in the De praxi medica (1696) against the spread of systems in medicine, to the foundation of a fibrillary “system” as outlined in the Specimen quatuor librorum de fibra motrice et morbosa (1702) by means of which physicians can interpret normal and pathological conditions. Thus, Santorio’s authority enables Baglivi to demonstrate how a system, if informed by natural and bed-side observations as well as by experiments in vivo, can be useful and plausible in medical practice. Baglivi reads the aphorisms of Santorio in the light of both his clinical methodology and his mechanistic physiopathology, arguing that only those who know the “statics,” that is the balance between solids and liquids in the body, can properly treat a disease: Santorio’s conception of humoral eukrasia, of Hippocratic lineage, is now interpreted as a “dynamic equilibrium” of forces interacting between solids and fluids of the body. Finally, and from a strictly editorial standpoint, from 1704 onwards many eighteenth-century editions of Santorio’s work include both Baglivi’s and Lister’s commentaries. In this sense, Baglivi’s Canones played an instrumental role in the transmission of Santorio’s medical statics during the eighteenth century.

2   A New Interpretation of Santorio’s Statics: Towards a Fibrillary Conception of Human Body Santorio’s key principle in the Medicina statica—the equilibrium of the body is obtained by the additio et ablatio of the same quantity—persists as a starting point also in Baglivi’s analysis. Indeed, Canon V reminds us that the practice of adding what is missing and removing what is in excess, especially when involving insensible perspiration, is a necessary condition for life prolongation and disease treatment.19 This principle, however, cannot be accepted unconditionally. While basically correct, it must be revised in the light of the new anatomical and physiological discoveries which were unknown to Santorio. Baglivi’s reference is most notably to the discovery of blood circulation (1628) by William Harvey (1578–1657): “Had Santorio known the doctrine of blood circulation, how much easier would it have been for him to describe his statics?”20 Thus, Santorio’s medical statics and blood circulation are both “the two poles on which the bulk of true medicine rests.”21 In this sense,

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Baglivi’s aim seems to be twofold: (1) providing an updated interpretation of Santorio’s Medicina statica and, consequently, (2) identifying the true mechanism underlying Santorio’s principle in order to explain why and how it works. Clinical evidences do not reveal exactly what is to be added or removed from the body so as to restore its balance, but they show that, when applied to the six non-naturals, Santorio’s aphorisms work properly.22 This inevitably raises many issues to a late seventeenth-century physician like Baglivi: what is really at stake in restoring the balance of the body? And does the concept of Hippocratic eukrasia still appropriately fit within the new “physiology”? Baglivi believes that his physiopathology, geared around the role of “the fibre,” as described in the De fibra motrice et morbosa, allows physicians to correctly understand Santorio’s medical statics:23 Whosoever knows the statics of the oscillating solids and the flowing fluids, because he learned it from others, or from us through our books De medicina solidorum or De fibra motrice et morbosa, masters Santorio’s very statics and thus the key to disclose and remove the nature of many difficult diseases.24

For Baglivi, however, the use of medical statics is not confined simply to the question of how to approach and accomplish clinical practice: it is concerned with the very meaning of “balance,” however revised to mean the equilibrium of bodily fluids and solids. So what is actually at stake in understanding the body balance? The answer to these questions lies in Baglivi’s conception of the fibre body, which he identifies with the true meaning of Santorio’s medical statics: The balance of solids and liquids, the distinction of fibres into a system of flesh and membraneous; the strength, the origin, the effects, the oscillation and the mechanics of the solids of the animated body—that many years ago I discussed for the first time in the Roman Anatomical Theater from the chair in the Archiliceo, and that I finally published under the title De fibra motrice et morbosa, as promised in our practice [i.e. De praxis medica] printed nine years ago—they seem clearer and more useful than the other hypotheses used to understand the statics of Santorio and detect the hidden indications of diseases.25

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His fibrillary theory—that is the idea that fibres are the main and ultimate constituents of the body and its processes—is thus the “most plausible hypothesis” to understand Santorio’s medical statics and exploit its potential for medicine. This means that the true balance to be restored involves the fibres and their relationship with the bodily fluids, afar from the Hippocratic concept of eukrasia as a balanced blending of humours. Alternative hypotheses, such as those positing a “cardimelech” or “archeus” or even those stressing the acid-alkali distinction, are deemed groundless by Baglivi.26 To explore why he thought so, it may be useful to briefly explore the main features of Baglivi’s physiopathology.27 2.1  Human Body is a “machina ex fibris mire contexta” As suggested in Canon XLI, the idea of a fibre body is already implied in the De praxi medica, where the body is represented as a fasciculus fibrarum, that is a “bundle of strictly interrelated fibres.” While it is worth remembering that this work was conceived by Baglivi not as expounding a new physiology, but rather to reform and improve clinical methodology,28 he seems to be already assuming some idea of a fibrillary structure of the body, although not fully developed yet. For example, it is significant that, in explaining the importance of observing the injuries of the main parts and functions of the body so as to detect the proximate causes of the onset of a disease,29 Baglivi quotes a passage from Hippocrates’ De alimento: The human body is a bundle of fibres variously interwoven and corresponding to one another, which are bended this way or t’other by the fluid that moves within, as by a spring: and from thence proceeds that great sympathy and united consent of the parts.30

The close connection between the parts of the body allows, in fact, a communication not only of functions, but also of diseases. This aspect is evidently also related to the problem of “the order of appearance of diseases” (successiones morborum) which Baglivi was particularly interested in: not unlike the bodily functions, morbid states “migrate” throughout the body manifesting themselves in new forms and symptoms, either by proximity and communication of parts (i.e. vessels), or by sharing the same substance, depending on how the bodily parts relate to each other.31 It is clear

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that such a “migration” is possible only by postulating the particular fibrillary structure of the body Baglivi upholds.32 However, a more accomplished version of Baglivi’s fibrillary theory is provided only in the Epistola ad Alexandrum Pascoli, a short dissertation included in Il corpo umano (1700) by the anatomist Alessandro Pascoli (1669–1757). This work was the result of the influence exerted on Baglivi by Marcello Malpighi (1628–1694), especially the latter’s emphasis on the study of microstructures and anatomical dissections.33 In describing the muscles of a thirty-year-old man with one kidney only (the right one), Baglivi decided to address the problem of muscle motion, by focusing on three main aspects: First what is the structure of the fibres of any kind, and the way muscles and their parts are composed. Then, how they move—in our opinion—according to the rules of the trochlea, or rather of scytale and axis in the peritrochio; finally, record the main affections to which fibres are subjected in healthy and morbid states of the body.34

Baglivi’s description is not limited to the mere explanation of muscle contraction: the action of fibres can in fact explain all bodily processes, even those involved in pathological conditions. The fact that fibres themselves are deemed likely to be affected represents a direct challenge to Malpighi’s assumption that the body is a glandular machine.35 Baglivi points out that there is also a pathology of the fibres to be considered. Baglivi distinguishes between two types of fibres, motor/muscular fibres and membraneous fibres, which, upon microscopic observation, show different origin, structure and function, as follows. Muscular fibres, which make the substance of each muscle of the body, are characterized by a bundle of thin fibrils joined together and parallel to each other. Bundles of fibrils intersect perpendicularly, thus creating a structure that prevents the muscle from dilating excessively. Membraneous fibres are, conversely, composed of fibrils that do not follow any specific order, “as we see through the microscope in trees’ leaves or wet papyrus.”36 Moreover, muscular and membraneous fibres belong to two different but strictly interrelated systems, whose origins are, respectively, the heart and the dura mater. While in the first system, it is blood circulation enacted by the heart that directs muscles, tendons and bones, which consist of muscular fibres, in the second one, controlled by the dura mater, all vessels, glands and viscera are seen as depending on it because of their material and

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structural proximity to it. In this latter case, since all the parts are composed of the same membraneous substance, the movement of the dura mater is transmitted to them by pure contact. There seems to be a mutual correspondence between these two systems, so that the heart can be considered as a model for the functioning of the dura mater. In the De re anatomica (1559), Matteo Realdo Colombo (1515–1559) had already stated that the dura mater plays the role of a “second heart” to the brain, insofar as it shares the heart’s movements of systole and diastole.37 However, for Baglivi, the dura mater is not simply a thick membrane surrounding the brain for its protection; rather it does play a pivotal role in sense perception. According to Baglivi, in fact, sense perception takes place only in the meninges of the brain, whose rhythmic contractions grant the body with a regular circulation of nervous fluid. This nervous fluid features both a centrifugal and centripetal movement that ensure the connection between the soul and the body: as an excretion of the brains which receives the impression of the soul, the nervous fluid immediately reaches the peripheral parts of the body, in the manner of light rays. This “outward movement” is called “systalticum, seu successivum.” The external sensory impressions can be perceived by the soul by an opposite movement which reaches the dura mater from the peripheral parts. This “inward movement” is termed “systalticum reflexivum:”38 This only I mention in passing, that two movements can be recognised here, one running from the meninges to the parts, another then from these to the meninges. I would call the first systaltic or successive; the other instead systaltic and reflective. In order for every command of the soul to instantly reach the parts, the nervous fluid and the meninges receive the impressions of that direction which is determined by the soul and transmit them to the parts by means of the aforementioned systaltic motion. On the contrary, if the impressions made by the external objects on the external senses are perceived by the soul, it is necessary that from the senses they reach the brain through the nerve fluid and the meninges which extend into the sensitive parts. This must be achieved by yet another motion, which we call reflexive, because, by reflecting from the parts, it reaches the dura mater almost in a moment.39

Between these two movements there must be a balance40 without which different disorders in the head and in the sensory/motor operations would ensue. Moreover, Baglivi supposes that the two meninges of the brain, the pia and dura mater, process sensory “information” differently: they have

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been produced by Nature in such a way that, while one receives the commands of the soul so as to transmit them to the senses, the other receives the sensory impressions generated by the contact with external objects in order to transfer them to the brain. If sensation belongs to the dura mater, motion belongs to the heart: what allows muscles to contract is the blood flow between the fibrils (tomentum sanguineum). However, the relation between meninges, sensation and heart motion is not transitive. In fact, although the two systems seem to perfectly match and complete each other, the system originating from the dura mater and reaching every part of the body (including muscles) by means of its membranes, exerts control over the entire body. That includes the heart, which receives its motory stimuli from the dura. In the light of what it has been previously said, it is clear that a problem of balance between solids and fluids is at stake here: seeking a balance between solids and fluids, Baglivi’s conception of bodily processes seems to be by definition unbalanced. 2.2  Beyond the Humoral eukrasia From this standpoint, it looks as though Baglivi is suggesting focusing primarily on the relationship between the dura and the heart and, through it, on the bodily parts depending on their systems. Just as every affection of the dura mater immediately affects the function and the fluids of the heart, the same should apply to the heart. And yet, the dura mater is inevitably stronger than the heart. Thus, while the heart enacts the blood circulation by means of a series of physical aids (i.e. the pressure exerted by the air on the lungs, the vessels’ structure and diameter, the action of valves, the muscles’ contraction, etc.), that all oppose and reduce the resistance of solids, the dura mater acts contrariwise. Its fibres act by contracting a solid substance like the brain and make the nervous fluid circulate throughout the body, without the need of external supports. Due to its particular structure, the dura aims at preserving and perpetuating the oscillatory motion, which the body possessed since its conception; in so doing it acts just like a clock, that “without any impulse of liquid, but only for a particular configuration of wheels, springs and other solid parts perpetually performs proper and ordered motions.”41 We can then imagine the body as crossed by a “perpetual flow of oscillations” that, once triggered from the sperm, are propagated throughout the solids and liquids.42

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Any interference in this “chain” of oscillations generates disease. What is required for life to be maintained is this “perpetuus fibrarum ad contractionem nisus,”43 by which the fluid flow throughout the body is permitted. Although it is a natural and innate property of the fibres, resulting from their structure, contraction varies with the system involved. The contraction of the membraneous fibres depends on the perpetual oscillations and elasticity of the dura mater, while that of the motor fibres derives from the oscillations of the heart. In short, whenever the natural tone of fibres is altered, a disease occurs in such a way that, by recovering Santorio’s theory of matter and, through it, the ancient methodistic doctrine of the strictum et laxum, Baglivi can explain all diseases in terms of constricted or relaxed fibres.44 Restoring the balance between solids and fluids, therefore, involves this complex relationship between the meninges of the brain and the heart. At the very beginning of chapter 6 of De fibra motrice et morbosa, Baglivi gives a tentative definition of balance that might be useful to understand his interpretation of Santorio’s medical statics: With regard to this matter, ‘balance’ will not be interpreted according its strictest laws, as in mechanics and hydraulics; instead, we will call ‘balance’ a certain proportion between the motion of the dura mater and that of the heart; between the oscillatory motion of the villi or the membraneous solids of one part, and the membraneous solids of another; between the successive or oscillatory motion of the membraneous villi, and the motion of the fleshy ones; between the fibers that perpetually contract and between the fluids that flow in contact with the fibers and, finally, between the homogeneous and heterogeneous fluids, as well as those fluids that flow through different channels with various inclinations of motion.45

Thus, this balance is not exactly the equilibrium of mechanics or hydraulics, but a “proportion” of sorts between solids and solids, fluids and fluids, solids and fluids. For instance, looking back at the relationship between the dura mater and the heart, we know that the heart pumps the blood to the dura mater and, vice versa, the dura mater sends the nervous fluid to the heart. Hence, in the light of Baglivi’s concept of balance, at least three possible cases can be made:

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• First case (normal state): In order to ensure blood circulation, the heart exerts a force on the blood that is similar to that exerted by the dura mater on the nervous fluid. The two forces are balanced. • Second case (morbid state): The force and resistance of the heart exceed those of the dura mater. This is the case of microencephalic people who suffer from weak meninges. • Third case (morbid state): The force and resistance of the dura mater are greater than those of the heart. This is the case of people suffering from heart diseases or vascular problems due to obstructed vessels. One could conceptualize Baglivi’s theory by interpreting it as an attempt to mediate between a rationalist and empiric approach to medical practice. On the one hand, in fact, Baglivi extolls the importance of Santorio’s medical statics in the light of the “new” fibrillary interpretation of the body that should inspire it, on the other hand, however, he recognizes that the perfect balance between solids and fluids, including the remedies to be administered to the patient, cannot be deduced by any pre-­established criterion and may only be achieved on a case-by-case basis. In other words, restoring the bodily balance is a matter of practice not theory.

3   Does a “statica mentis” Exist? The concept of statics examined hitherto seems to involve only the “fibre body” as a compound of both oscillating solids and flowing fluids, whose equilibrium determines health. As said, however, statics alone is not enough to make physicians fully cognizant of all the determinant factors at stake in normal and pathological conditions, for it does not take into account the power of the mind. Parallel to that of the body, a “statics of the mind” should be considered. According to Baglivi, body and mind influence each other and enjoy equal standing: bodily processes inevitably affect the mind, and vice versa. As a result, physicians must pay attention also to the way in which mental affections impact bodily processes. However, what makes it possible to realize statica mentis is only philosophia moralis: It is useless to have the static of the body without the static of the mind in order to both medicate and live well. The physician should find the balance between the mind and the body; that of the mind by the statics of moral

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philosophy, that of the body by the statics of Santorio. Since health and life depend on their balance.46

Interestingly enough, Baglivi introduced this distinction between statica mentis and statica corporis at the very beginning of his Canones, in the first aphorism, without however analysing it further. While recognizing that life depends on a body-mind balanced relationship, Baglivi focuses only on the body. Nonetheless, some interesting considerations on this topic can be drawn from other sources. In De praxi medica, for example, Baglivi devoted a chapter (chap. XIV) to mental affections, where he proves to be still thinking of Santorio’s indications provided in De animi affectibus (Medicina statica, Section VII), although reconsidered from the viewpoint of Descartes’ explanation of the passions of the soul.47 Everyday life—Baglivi argues (but he brings belief to what was already adopted by Renaissance philosophers such as Ficino or Pomponazzi)—shows how much imagination affects the human body. People who are abnormally anxious about their health are more likely to get sick as they are unable to keep passions under control. Surprisingly enough, those being healthy but worried about overeating so as not to get sick have poor digestion precisely because of their fear and the action of their “bad imagination.” On the contrary, those who are not health-obsessed experience better digestion, even though they eat to excess. The secret to a long healthy life is a certain neglect of life itself (negligentia vitae).48 In De animi affectibus Santorio showed how close is the relationship between the passions of the soul and the perspiration. Sadness and fear prevent the perspiration of the heavier bodies, cause obstructions, fatigue and hardening of the body limbs.49 Conversely, perspiration would benefit from the consolation of the soul.50 Baglivi is particularly interested in how a physician may treat them. Remarkably, he must confess that the best treatment of mental affections is to be found in the patients themselves. Healing is the result of the patient’s good or bad habits and their application to everyday life. Otherwise, any kind of remedy would be useless: It remains now to touch upon the cure of such diseases, and indeed it must be own’d before we go further, that almost the whole of the cure lies in the patient’s own breast; that is, in a mind well-fortified with patience, fortitude, prudence, tranquility, and the other moral virtues, without which all manner of remedies, and all the efforts of physicians, will be even almost vain and

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useless. For the remedies in the apothecary’s shops, that go by the name of exhilarating, antimelancholick, comforters of the heart and memory, whets for the genius, etc. are rather invented to favour the pomp of the art, than to dispel the bitter cares of the mind, or to rouse a drooping spirit. 51

Baglivi stresses that no drug succeeds in healing those affections of the body that are a consequence of the passions of the soul.52 These, in fact, are affections where “the power of imagination has a great influence both in producing and curing them,”53 exception made for those resulting in physical disorders, for example perturbation of the blood flow. By constantly referring to Seneca, Baglivi claims that the best treatment consists in knowing how to manage one’s passions.54 This implies also a different way of approaching diseases by the patient: From what has been said, we may make this inference by way of corollary, that those who bear trouble patiently, use seasonable exercise, and live soberly, are not readily sick; and if they are, a discreet and prudent use of remedies, joined to their wonted patience and tranquility of mind, will quickly set them right.55

Moreover, the strength of a remedy can also depend on how the physician interacts with the patient, even possibly on how he talks to him.56 This is to confirm even more clearly the idea that Baglivi’s pathology cannot be reduced to a malfunctioning machine.57 In order to alleviate people’s suffering from passions, De praxi mentions also the power of music, which Baglivi examined at length in his De anatome, morsu et effectibus tarantulae, a short dissertation on the effects of tarantula’s bites. In the last chapter, Baglivi proposes an explanation of how music can help those bitten by the tarantula (tarantati): he claims that the motion impressed by the sounds on the air and communicated to the ears affects the brain, and is transmitted in form of vibrations to the fibrils, which in turn shake the numb spirits, thus dissolving the clots caused by the poison. In this way, it becomes apparent how spirits “recover their former correspondence with the humours and solid parts.”58 While acting on the body, however, sounds trigger parallel psychic effects, generating “rerum ideae,” that is mental representations of sorts, which are responsible for different affectiones:

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And the variety of sounds raises various ideas of things in our minds, so that some consorts inspire us with courage, others with cheerfulness, and others again with piety, according as the spirits and humours are so and not otherwise affected.59

This psychic effect may justify why the taranta dance (tarantella) can work also in false cases, as it happens in the “little carnival of women” (carnevaletto delle donne), when women, suffering from ardour, misfortunes and despair connected with their painful and lonely lives, decide to simulate bites’ symptoms, “on purpose to enjoy the agreeable diversion of music, which is only allowed to tarantati.”60 Thus, Baglivi’s statica mentis quoted in the Canones reflects the development of his thought on the psychophysical effect of music, all the while maintaining, like many other Italian iatromechanic physicians, an “agnostic attitude” with regard to the nature of the soul.61 This, however, does not imply that Baglivi ignores the import of the mind-body relationship in medicine. In Canon II, for instance, he states: The movements of the soul variously affect the movements of the body, and change them for better or for worse, as Santorio confirms. Thus, whoever does not know how to direct and adapt the statics of the movements of the soul by means of the canons of moral philosophy to the Santorio’s statics of the movements of the body, will not be able to live long and healthy.62

As it clearly appears, the knowledge of the patient’s “psychic reality” plays a crucial role in the resolution of clinical cases. It is now clear what Baglivi suggests in Canon L. He complains about those physicians who, once they observe a woman suffering from a suppression of menstruus, dry hydrops, uterine mole, or a false pregnancy, prescribe bloodletting and specific drugs aimed at fostering menstrual flow, without understanding the importance of the natural history of diseases, which the De praxi medica recommends as a necessary prerequisite in profiling therapies: I regret it because they administer these substances indifferently in all women and in almost all their illnesses, without having made any examination first—whether the woman is angry or, on the contrary, she has calm temperaments; whether she is arid and dry, or soft and fat, whether or not she is affected by diseases of the soul, whatever was the elaterium in solids, the acrimony in liquids, or the equilibrium in both.63

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The necessity to apply two kinds of statics shows that there is no such thing as a panacea and thus physicians cannot apply the same remedy for any disease. In other words, Baglivi leaves no room for universalism in therapy: all aspects related to health should be considered, including the “psychological” traits.

4   Conclusions The attention Baglivi devoted to Santorio’s work shows that the latter played a pivotal role in his medicine. At the same time, however, Baglivi’s Canones also testifies to the effort to provide an up-to-date version of Santorio’s Medicina statica, so that it could prove useful to eighteenth-­ century medical practitioners. Throughout, Baglivi and Santorio seem to observe the same phenomena but they explain them differently, and involving different levels of analysis. Santorio’s aphorisms on some crucial bodily processes—that is digestion, evacuation, perspiration, passions of the soul and so on—are correct and still valid to Baglivi insofar as these latter processes can be reduced to the balance between solids and fluids which he has identified as instrumental to the preservation of life. In sum, the analysis provided by Baglivi is geared around three main purposes, that are: (1) offering a version of Santorio’s medical statics, which takes in the new anatomical and physiological discoveries; (2) adapting Santorio’s theory to the fibrillary theory and, as a consequence of this, (3) “providing a new interpretation” of Santorio’s principles. The most important result of such a revision is the translation of the Hippocratic eukrasia into the dynamic balance of forces between solids and fluids in the body, which is a crucial aspect of Baglivi’s solidistic physiopathology. By identifying the fibrillary theory as the most plausible hypothesis to approach medical statics, Baglivi finds in Santorio a solid and authoritative source of legitimacy. Finally, Baglivi’s commentary to Santorio’s Medicina statica provided in the Canones allows him to reach a synthesis between his endorsement of the Hippocratic clinical methodology (empirical and non-systematic) and the new fibrillary theory (deductive and systematic). It’s a synthesis out of which we gain a clear picture as to the ways in which Santorio’s legacy disseminated throughout the eighteenth century but also a valuable insight into the development of Baglivi’s medicine.

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Notes 1. Unfortunately, there is no modern monograph on Giorgio Baglivi, except for the dated Max Salomon, Giorgio Baglivi und seine Zeit. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Medicin im 17. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Hirschwald, 1889). See also Francesco Scalzi, “Giorgio Baglivi. Altre notizie biografiche ricavate da un epistolario inedito e dalla sua opera,” Gazzetta medica di Roma, 15 (1889): 457–70, 529–46, 553–61. Further biographical data from the Dubrovnik State Archives have been analysed in Mirko D.  Grmek, “Osservazioni sulla vita, opera ed importanza storica di Giorgio Baglivi,” in Atti del 14. Congresso internazionale di storia della medicina, RomaSalerno, 13–20 settembre 1954, 423–37 (Rome: Guerra e Belli, 1960); id., “La vita e l’opera di Giorgio Baglivi medico raguseo e leccese (1668–1707),” in Il nucleo filosofico della scienza, edited by Guido Cimino, Ubaldo Sanzo and Gabriella Sava, 93–111 (Galatina: Congedo, 1991). See also the proceedings of the conference “Alle origini della biologia medica. Giorgio Baglivi tra le due sponde dell’Adriatico,” special issue of Medicina nei secoli, 12, 1 (2000). On Baglivi and medicine in Rome, see Maria Conforti and Silvia De Renzi, “Sapere anatomico negli ospedali romani: Formazione dei chirurghi e pratiche sperimentali (1620–1720),” in Rome et la science moderne: Entre Renaissance et Lumières, edited by Antonella Romano, 433–72 (Rome: Publications de l’École Française de Rome, 2009). A pivotal source for Baglivi’s life and works is the correspondence, preserved in the Osler Library at McGill University and in the Waller Collection at Uppsala University Library “Carolina Rediviva,” see The Baglivi Correspondence from the Library of William Osler, edited by Dorothy Schullian (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974), and Carteggio, 1679–1704: conservato nella Waller collection presso la University library Carolina Rediviva di Uppsala, edited by Anna Toscano (Florence: L.S. Olschki, 1999). A transcription of the correspondence with Antonio Magliabechi, preserved in the Fondo Magliabechiano at the National Central Library of Florence, can be found in Salomon, Giorgio Baglivi, and Federico Di Trocchio, Gabriella Guerrieri, and Ennio De Simone, eds., Carteggi di Giorgio Baglivi: Fondi Osler e Magliabechi (1677–1706), (Lecce: Milella, 1999). Many other letters remain unpublished. 2. All quotations from Baglivi’s Canones and works, unless otherwise indicated, are from the 7th edition of Baglivi’s complete works; Giorgio Baglivi, Opera omnia medico-practica, et anatomica, 7th ed. (Leiden: Anisson and Joannis Posuel, 1710). For the sake of convenience, only the abbreviation Opera followed by the page number will be used here. All English translations are mine with the exception of Baglivi’s De praxi medica for which I have used the following English translation: The Practice of Physick… 2nd ed. (London: D.  Midwinter et  al., 1723). Very few studies have been

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devoted to Canones: Maria Vidal, “Giorgio Baglivi tra osservazione clinica e speculazioni ­iatromeccaniche,” Atti del centro ricerche storiche di Rovigno, 20 (1990): 133–214, esp. 199–202; Giuseppe dell’Anna, “Introduction,” in Canones de medicina solidorum, 7–18 (Galatina: Congedo, 1987). 3. Cf. Maria Pia Donato, Morti improvvise. Medicina e religione nel Settecento (Rome: Carocci, 2010), Chap. 1. 4. See Giorgio Baglivi, De morborum et naturae analogismo, de vegetatione lapidum, et de terraemotu romano, ac urbium adjacentium, anno 1703, etc., in Opera, 489–562. The dedication was addressed to Giovanni Francesco Morosini, just like in Canones. These studies on earthquakes, influenced by Seneca, Gassendi, but above all by Kircher, aimed at controlling and preventing the infectious diseases supposed to be related to natural disasters, and at trying to extend a mechanistic perspective to the inorganic world by means of analogismus. See Vidal, “Giorgio Baglivi,” 202–11. 5. Antonio Celestino Cocchi (1685–1747), one of Baglivi’s favourite students at Sapienza University, who graduated in 1704, devoted his very first work to this issue: see De Terraemotu, eiusque causis et speciebus phoenomenis, effectibus et prognosi dissertatio brevis (Leiden: Anisson and J. Posuel, 1707). On Cocchi, see Daniela Silvestri, “Cocchi, Antonio Celestino,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Vol. 26 (Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1982), http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/antonio-­celestino-cocchi_% 28Dizionario-Biografico%29/, accessed August 10, 2021. 6. See Giorgio Baglivi, Dissertatio varii argumenti, potissimum vero de progressione romani terraemotus ab anno 1703. ad annum 1705…, in Opera, 563–98. 7. See Conforti and De Renzi, “Sapere.” Baglivi’s letter to Hecquet is published in Baglivi, Carteggio, 334–41. On Pacchioni, see Jacopo Chiappelli, “Notizie intorno alla vita di Antonio Pacchioni, da Reggio,” Raccolta d’opuscoli scientifici e filologici, 3, (1730): 79–102; Matteo Al Kalak, “Pacchioni, Antonio,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Vol. 80 (Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 2014), http://www.treccani. it/enciclopedia/antonio-­p acchioni_%28Dizionario-­B iografico%29/, accessed August 10, 2021. On Hecquet, see Lawrence W.B.  Brockliss, “The Medico-­Religious Universe of an Early Eighteenth-Century Parisian Doctor: The Case of Philippe Hecquet,” in The Medical Revolution of the Seventeenth Century, edited by Roger French and Andrew Wear, 191–221 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 8. On Morosini, see: “Morosini, Giovan Francesco,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Vol. 77  (Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 2012), http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giovan-­francesco-­morosini_res-­325 af54b-­0 7d0-­1 1e2-­8 c38-­0 0271042e8d9_(Dizionario-­B iografico)/, accessed August 10, 2021.

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9. Baglivi, Opera, 154–5. This bookseller is also cited by Baglivi in a letter to Jean-­Jacques Manget, dated 15 December 1696: Baglivi is awaiting for the third and fourth volumes of Bibliotheca medico-practica and suggests Jean-­Antoine Chouet send them to his bookseller Cesaretti or, alternatively, to L’Hullié (“[…] Domino l’Uliè Bibliopolae Gallo in Foro Agonali prope Theatrum Pompei Magni, et Thermas Neronis […]”). See letter no. 113, in Baglivi Correspondence, 260–1. Nicolò L’Hulliè worked “in Circo Agonali,” the ancient name for Piazza Navona in Rome: remarkably, Baglivi had many patients living there, as shown by numerous related case reports disseminated in his Opera omnia. An accurate list of them is provided by Schullian, Baglivi Correspondence, 269–70, n. 21 (on Nicolò L’Hulliè). 10. Baglivi’s account is confirmed by the bookseller himself. See “Bibliopola Romanus Lectori,” in Santorio Santori, De medicina statica libri octo, accedunt Georgii Baglivi philosophi, et medici Canones de medicina solidorum ad rectum statices usum (Rome: L’Hulliè, 1704), 160–2. 11. See Philosophical Transactions, 22 (1701): 832. On Lister, see Anna Marie Roos, Web of Nature: Martin Lister (1639–1712), the First Arachnologist (Leiden: Brill, 2011), esp. 217–219. 12. Giorgio Baglivi to William Sherard, 25 June 1703, Royal Society, Sherard Collection, MS/252/574a: “In queste parti seguitano i terremoti, et io seguito a tesserne e proseguire le istorie che si ristamparà in Leiden. A dio caro et amicissimo Signore Scherard: mi scriva spesso. Se mi mandarà con qualche amico la Statica di Santorio cum notis lister, mi farà un gran piacere […].” Baglivi is referring to the earthquakes that occurred in 1703. 13. Giorgio Baglivi’s testamentum, 13 June 1707, Archivio Storico di Roma, Fondo Trenta Notai Capitolini, vol. 1074, Testamenti, ff. 164v–185r: “Item voglio, che quanto prima dal mio erede venghino fatti copiare le mie opere manoscritte cioè il trattato epistolare di aggiunta di nove lettere, la statica del Santorio, il secondo libro delli canoni dei solidi, quale il medemo mio erede hà già nelle mani, e quelli debbia consegnare al Signore Thomasso Curti Agente in Roma del Signore Alisone libraro in Francia, acciò debba quelli mettere alle stampe.” 14. Baglivi, Opera, 470–1: “curriculum esse, atque perennem fluxum materiei […].” 15. “veras morborum origines, ac certa salubris, et insalubris vitae principia cum hominum utilitate.” ibid., 471. 16. Baglivi, De fibra, BK. I, Chap. I, in Opera, 261: “corpus humanum instar circuli est, quod principio caret, et fine.” 17. Charles V. Daremberg, Histoire des sciences médicales (Paris: J.-B. Baillière, 1870), 735–6: “Il est vrai que la théorie de la perspiration insensible fait partie de l’iatromécanisme, mais seulement à titre d’accessoire.

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L’iatromécanisme a un bien autre généralité que la médecine statique; cette doctrine procède de tout un ensemble de connaissances physiologiques étrangères à Sanctorius, qui a écrit avant la publication du livre de Harvey, et à plus forte raison, bien avant les grandes découvertes faites en anatomie et en physiologie dans la seconde moitié du XVIIème siècle. […] Voici les principales propositions du livre de Sanctorius; quand on les mettra en regard de l’exposé de la doctrine iatromécanique, on reconnaîtra aisément qu’il est difficile de faire sortir Borelli, Bellini, Baglivi, Pitcairn, Cole, etc., de la balance du professeur de Padoue. […].” 18. Ibid., pp. 739–40: “Vous comprendrez, Messieurs, après ces extraits, que nous ne puissions pas partager les élans d’enthousiasme de Baglivi, de Boerhaave et de beaucoup d’autres médecins du XVIIe et du XVIIIe siècle pour la médecine statique. Je ne crois pas non plus que pour ce seul ouvrage on érigerait aujourd’hui à Sanctorius une statue de marbre comme on l’a fait peu après sa mort. Sanctorius est à peu près oublié: on ne le lit même plus. Tout l’édifice de son Ars statica repose sur la vieille physiologie.” 19. Baglivi, Canones, Canon V, in Opera, 475: “Sicuti conservatio sanitatis instituitur detractione eorum quae exuberant, et eorum additione, quae deficiunt, habita cognitione per Staticen occulti perspirabilis uniuscujusque; ita et morborum curatio per easdem dirigetur regulas, sive de proximis, sive de procatarcticis eorundem causis disseratur.” Cf. Santorio, De medicina statica (1704), I.1, 1: “Si quanta, et qualis oporteat fieret additio eorum quae deficiunt, et ablatio eorum quae excedunt, sanitas amissa recuperaretur, et praesens semper conservaretur.” On Santorio, see Fabrizio Bigotti, “A Previously Unknown Path to Corpuscularism in the Seventeenth Century: Santorio’s Marginalia to the Commentaria in Primam Fen Primi Libri Canonis Avicennae (1625),” Ambix, 64, 1 (2017): 1–14; id., “The Weight of the Air. Santorio’s Thermometers and the Early History of Medical Quantification Reconsidered,” Journal of Early Modern Studies, 7, 1 (2018): 73–103. On insensible perspiration, see Edward T. Renbourn, “The Natural History of Insensible Perspiration: A Forgotten Doctrine of Health and Disease,” Medical History, 4 (1960): 135–52; and Jerome J.  Bylebyl, “Nutrition, Quantification and Circulation,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 51, 3 (1977): 369–85, esp. 377–8. See also Lucia Dacome, “Living with the Chair: Private Excreta, Collective Health and Medical Authority in the Eighteenth Century,” History of Science, 39, 4 (2001): 467–500. 20. Baglivi, Canones, Canon IX, in Opera, 476: “Si Sanctorio doctrina circulationis nota fuisset, quam minori incommodo, ac feliciori usu Staticen suam conscripsisset?” In De praxi medica, Baglivi maintains that, unlike Andrea Cesalpino, who first discovered blood circulation but “sola mentis acie,” only Harvey interrogated nature with experiments, anatomical sections

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and observations, “donec tandem ad veritatem fatendam coegerit”. However, in the letter to Morosini (Canones, Praefatio, in Opera, 470), Baglivi states: “[…] Etenim, ut de uno tantum loquar, Sanguinis transitum ex dextro c­ ordis ventriculo in sinistrum per pulmones, ducentis pene ab hinc annis primum aperuit Realdus Columbus immortalis famae in Romano Archilycaeo Anatomicus, primusque circulum sanguinis subindicavit; quanquam nonnulli Caesalpino, et alii Sarpio id adscribant.” 21. Baglivi, Canones, Canon X, in Opera, 476: “[…] duo poli, quibus universa regitur verae Medicinae moles,” See also Canon LII, in ibid., 487: “In theorices quaestionibus agitandis Sanctoriani, et Harvejani, at in veris sensibus practices, et naturae morborum eruendis Hippocratici, et Duretiani praeferuntur.” 22. See, for example, Canones VI–VII. 23. On Baglivi’s fibre theory: Georges Canguilhem, “Machine et organisme,” in his La connaissance de la vie (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1952), 124–59; Mirko D. Grmek, “La notion de fibre vivante chez les médecins de l’école iatrophysique,” Clio medica, 5 (1970): 297–318; François Duchesneau, La physiologie des Lumières. Empirisme, modèles et théories (The Hague: M.  Nijhoff, 1982), 116–26; Anna Toscano, Mirabilis machina: il perpetuum mobile attraverso il De statice æris e il De fibra motrice et morbosa di Giorgio Baglivi (Cosenza: Brenner, 2004); Hisao Ishizuka, Fiber, Medicine, and Culture in the British Enlightenment (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016); Luca Tonetti, “Corpus fasciculus fibrarum: Teoria della fibra e pratica medica nel De praxi medica di Giorgio Baglivi,” Physis. Rivista Internazionale di Storia della Scienza n.s. 51, 1–2 (2016): 379–92. 24. Baglivi, Canones, Canon XXXI, in Opera, 481: “Qui Staticen Solidorum oscillantium, et Liquidorum currentium, vel traditam ab aliis, vel a nobis in libris de Medicina Solidorum, sive de Fibra Motrice, et Morbosa explicatam possidet: ipsam Sanctorii Staticen, atque clavem plurium difficillimum morborum naturam reserandi, tollendique possidet.” 25. Ibid., Canon, XLI, 483: “Aequilibrium solidorum, et liquidorum, divisio fibrarum in systema carnearum, et membranearum; vis, origo, effectus, oscillatio, et Mechanice solidorum corporis animati; de quibus, pluribus ab hinc annis in Theatro Anatomico Romano, et ex Cathedra in Archilycaeo disputavi primus, et tandem sub titulo Fibrae motricis, et morbosae, in praxi nostra novem ante annos edita promissae, publici juris feci, ad assequendam Sanctorii Staticen, et reconditas morborum indications eruendas prae aliis hypothesibus utiliores, clarioresque videntur.” 26. Ibid., Canon XL, in ibid.

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27. On Baglivi’s physiopathology, see Luca Tonetti, “Machines and Diseases: Giorgio Baglivi and his Mechanistic Physiopathology,” in Wired Bodies. New Perspectives on the Machine-Organism Analogy, edited by Nicole Dalia Cilia and Luca Tonetti (Rome: CNR Edizioni, 2016), 37–44. 28. On Baglivi’s Hippocraticism, see Ian M.  Lonie, “Hippocrates the Iatromechanist,” Medical History, 25 (1981): 113–50; Ingo W.  Müller, “Der Hippokratismus des Giorgio Baglivi,” Medizinhistorisches Journal, 26, no. 3–4 (1991): 300–14. On Baglivi’s Baconian methodology, cf. Giuseppe Dell’Anna, “Giorgio Baglivi e la Medendi methodus: una rilettura dell’empirismo baconiano,” in Medicina e biologia nella rivoluzione scientifica, edited by Lino Conti (Santa Maria degli Angeli-Assisi: Edizioni Porziuncola, 1990), 272–88; Vidal, “Giorgio Baglivi”; Roger K. French, Medicine Before Science: The Business of Medicine from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 207–12. 29. On Baglivi’s theory of causation, as it is outlined in De praxi medica, see Luca Tonetti, “La sfida della causalità alla pratica medica: il modello eziologico galenico e il dibattito medico tardoseicentesco,” in Percorsi evolutivi. Lezioni di filosofia della biologia, edited by Elena Gagliasso, Federico Morganti, and Alessandra Passariello (Rome: Franco Angeli, 2016), 131–43. 30. Baglivi, De praxi, Bk. II, Chap. IX, §3.10, in Opera, 216: “Corpus humanum fasciculus est fibrarum varie contextarum, sibi mutuo respondentium, et ab intus se movente fluido veluti elatere quodam hinc indè flexarum; unde quidem provenit consensus ille unus, conspiratio una, et consentientia omnia Magni Hippocratis.” 31. Successiones morborum are mentioned in De praxi medica, Bk. II, Chap. 9, §3.9, in Opera, 215 and very partially examined in De fibra motrice et morbosa (Opera, 367–76). Baglivi had planned to devote an entire book to this issue, without success. He was, however, accused of plagiarism for having presented as original the ideas of Giovanni Casalecchi. See Antonio Vallisneri in Giovanni Casalecchi, “Apparatus ad historiam de morborum transmutationibus iuxta mentem Hippocratis, auctore Ioanne Casalecchio Reggiensi… De transmutatione febrium chronicarum, Caput VII,” La Galleria di Minerva, 6 (1708): 18. On this accusation of plagiarism, see Dario Generali, Antonio Vallisneri. Gli anni della formazione e le prime ricerche (Florence: L.S. Olschki, 2007), 105–7. 32. In the De fibra motrice et morbosa, Bk. I, Chap. X, in Opera, 344 Baglivi restates this principle: “Quae quidem omnia, ut alia quamplura taceam, satis superque ostendunt, quod inter partes, et partes sit iste certus consensus, cujus causa sicuti morbi partium peculiariter inter se mutantur, et communicant: ita quoque, et functiones earum naturales peculiariter sibi invicem consentire crediderim.”

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33. This Epistola  is  based on dissections carried out  at the Anatomical Theater  in Rome, which opened  on 1 March  1700.  See Filippo Maria Renazzi, Storia dell’Università degli studi di Roma, detta comunemente la Sapienza, Vol. 4 (Rome: nella Stamparia Pagliarini, 1806), 13. 34. Baglivi, Dissertatio I, in Opera, 398: “Primum, quaenam sit fibrarum cujusque generis constructio, et in musculis, partibusque componendis artificium. Secundo, quomodo illi ex nostra opinione per trochleostatices, sive potius per scytalae, et axis in Peritrochio regulas moveantur. Denique praecipuas fibrarum affectiones, quibus eae in salubri, atque morboso statu corporis obnoxiae fiunt, adnotare.” 35. On Malpighi and his “glandular machine,” see Domenico Bertoloni Meli, “Mechanistic Pathology and Therapy in the Medical Assayer of Marcello Malpighi,” Medical History, 51 (2007): 165–80; id., Mechanism, Experiment, Disease: Marcello Malpighi and Seventeenth-Century Anatomy (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2011); id., “Machines and the Body between Anatomy and Pathology,” in Modèle Métaphore Machine Merveille, edited by Aurélia  Gaillard, Jean-Yves  Goffi, Bernard Roukhomovsky, and Sophie Roux, 53–68 (Bordeaux: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 2012); id., “Machines of the Body in the Seventeenth Century,” in Early Modern Medicine and Natural Philosophy, edited by Peter  Distelzweig, Benjamin  Goldberg, and Evan Regland  Ragland, 91–116 (Dordrecht: Springer, 2016). See also Guido Giglioni, “The Machines of the Body and the Operations of the Soul in Marcello Malpighi’s Anatomy,” in Marcello Malpighi, Anatomist and Physician, edited by D. Bertoloni Meli, 149–74 (Florence: L.S. Olschki, 1997). 36. Baglivi, Dissertatio I, in Opera, 399: “ut in arborum foliis, vel madida papyro microscopio conspicimus.” 37. Realdo Colombo, De re anatomica libri XV. Anatomia, edited by Gianluigi Baldo (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2014), Bk. VIII, 522–5: “Ex quibus crassa meninx, quam et duram matrem vocant, a cerebro ipso distat quemadmodum a pericardio cor. Huius autem distantiae causa est, ut cerebri diastole systoleque locum habeat.” See also Bk. XIV, 717: “[…] quod cerebrum ita movetur ut ipsum cor moveri omnes fatentur, motu scilicet dilatationis et constrictionis […].” 38. See Georges Canguilhem, La formation du concept de réflexe au 17. et 18. siècles (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1955). 39. Baglivi, De fibra, Bk. I, Chap. V, in Opera, 285: “Hoc unum tamen obiter animadverto, duos posse concedi motus in hujusmodi partibus, alterum nempe a meningibus ad partes, alterum vero ab his ad meninges: primum vocarem systalticum, seu successivum: alterum contra systalticum reflexivum. Ut animi, imperium momento fere perveniat ad partes; fluidum nerveum, et meninges recipiunt impressiones illius directionis, quam

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determinat animus, et ad partes per motum systalticum supradictum transmittunt. Contra vero, ut impressiones in externis sensibus ab externis objectis factae ab animo percipiantur, necesse est, ut per fluidum nerveum a sensibus perveniant ad cerebrum, necnon per ipsas meninges, quae in partibus sensibilibus expanduntur, et hoc fieri oportet per alium motum a primo diversum, quem nos reflexivum vocamus, quia veluti reflectendo a partibus ad primum mobile durae matris momento temporis propagatur.” 40. Ibid.: “certa videlicet proportio impetus, et resistentiae, ut alter alterum non superet, nec destruat, sed promoveat et adjuvet.” 41. Ibid., 281: “[…] sine ullo liquidi impulsu, sed tantum ob particularem rotarum, fusorum, elateris, aliarumque partium solidarum constructionem rectos ordinatosque motus absolvere, et perpetuare.” 42. Ibid.: “Ita in humano corpore, excitato semel a partibus prolificis spermatis elastico motu in solidis, et fluidis foetus, ob aequilibrium quod fluida inter, et solida intercedit, nec non ob continuum occursum fluidorum in solida, et solidorum in fluida, nisum conatumque suum semel incoeptum dictus elater praefatis in partibus perpetuat: maxime vero in solidis majori resistentia praeditis, et a quibus moventur fluida, et omnium maxime in iis solidis, quae peculiari compage ad perpetuandum elaterem, eumque aliis imprimendum praedita sunt, sicuti est cor, et dura meninx.” 43. Baglivi, Dissertatio I, in Opera, 410. 44. Ibid., esp. 409–11. 45. Baglivi, De fibra, Bk. I, Chap. VI, in ibid., 297: “Nec a nobis in hac materia æquilibrium juxta ejus strictiores leges, utque a mechanicis; atque hydraulicis sumitur, accipietur; at æquilibrium dicemus proportionem quamdam inter motum duræ matris, et motum cordis, inter motum oscillationis villorum, seu solidorum membranosorum unius partis cum solidis membranosis alterius; inter motum successivum; sive oscillatorium villorum membranosorum cum motu villorum carnosorum; inter fibras perpetuo se contrahentes; et inter fluida ad contactum fibrarum currentia; denique inter fluida, et fluida tum homogenea, tum etherogenea per diversos canales, variisque motus inclinationibus decurrentia […].” 46. Baglivi, Canones, Canon I, in ibid., 474: “Staticen corporis habere sine Statice mentis ad bene medendum, beneque vivendum est inutile, aequilibrium inter mentem, et corpus a medico inveniendum: mentis per Staticen Philosophiae moralis; corporis per Sanctorii Staticen. Quippe in horum aequilibrio sanitas, et vita.” 47. On Descartes and the Passions of the Soul, see, for example, Denis Kambouchner, L’homme des passions: Commentaires sur Descartes. 2 vols (Paris: Albin Michel, 1995); Carole Talon-Hugon, Descartes ou les passions rêvées par la raison. Essai sur la théorie des passions de Descartes et de quelques-­ uns de ses contemporains (Paris: Vrin, 2002). On passions in seventeenth-­

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century philosophy, see Susan James, Passion and Action. The Emotions in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997). 48. Baglivi, De praxi, Bk. I, Chap. XIV, §2. 49. Santorio, Ars (1704), VII. 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8. 50. Ibid., VII. 6, 17. 51. Baglivi, De praxi, Bk. I, Chap. XIV, §6, in Opera, 151: “Restant nunc dicenda nonnulla de curatione illorum. Et quidem in ipso limine fatendum, illam pene omnem in aegrotantis animo moralibus virtutibus patientia nempe, fortitudine, prudentia, tranquillitate, et reliquis optime munito, ac instructo repositam esse: Quod, si non fiat, omne genus remediorum, omnesque medicorum conatus inutiles propemodum erunt, ac vani. Quaeque in pharmacopoliis medicamenta dicunt exhilarantia, anti-­ melancholica, cor, aut memoriam confortantia, ingenium acuentia, etc. adinventa sunt ad quandam veluti pompam artis, quam ut valeant atras ab animo curas dispellere, vel jacentem illum attollere.” 52. Similarly, Santorio argued that common remedies are useless. See Santorio Ars (1704), VII. 12: “Ira et spes auferunt timorem, et letitia moestitiam: passio enim animi non medicinis, sed alia passione contraria superatur; contraria sub eodem genere.” 53. Baglivi, De praxi, Bk. I, Chap. XIV, § 2, in Opera, 149. 54. Ibid., §7, 154. 55. Ibid., § 8, 154: “Ex his tanquam per corollarium deducimus, quod qui molesta quaeque patienter ferunt, exercitiis utuntur tempestivis, et in victu sobrii sunt, difficillime in morbos incident; et si incident, consueta animi tranquillitate et patientia, nec non sagaci remediorum usu, brevi eosdem eliminabunt.” 56. Ibid., 155: “[…] Siquidem fateri vix possem, quantum verba Medici dominentur in vitam aegrotantis, ejusque phantasiam transmutent […].” 57. See Tonetti, “Machines.” 58. Baglivi, De anatome, in Opera, Chap. XIII, 640. 59. Ibid., 638: “[…]  Et ex varietate sonorum variae in mente nostra rerum ideae excitantur, hinc alii concentus ad audaciam, alii ad hilaritatem, alii demum ad pietatem nos movent, prout scilicet spiritus et humores hoc et non alio modo afficiuntur.” See Gino L. Di Mitri, “Postfazione. La fortuna del tarantismo nel XVIII secolo,” in Giorgio Baglivi, Della tarantola. Lo studio di un medico nel Salento del XVIII secolo, edited by Concetta Pennuto, 173–83 (Rome: Carocci, 2015). 60. Baglivi, De anatome, in Opera, Chap. VII, 617. 61. Cf. Giglioni, “Machines.”

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62. Baglivi, Canones, Canon II, in Opera, 474: “Animi motiones, corporis motus varie afficiunt, et mutant in melius, vel deterius: ut nobis magnus testis est Sanctorius. Quare qui Staticen motionum animi per moralis Philosophiae canones ad Staticen motuum corporis Sanctorianam dirigere, atque accomodare non noverit, diu, et salubriter vivere non noverit.” 63. Ibid., Canon L, in Opera, 487: “Doleo quidem, nam haec adhibent indiscriminatim in omnibus mulierculis, et omnibus pene ipsarum morbis, nullo ante facto examine, an i­racunda sit mulier, an placidis praedita moribus; an arida, siccaque, an vero mollis, et succi plena; an morbis animi laboret, nec ne; quinam sit elater in solidis, quae acrimonia in liquidis, quod aequilibrium in utrisque.”

CHAPTER 12

Disputing Santorio: Johannes de Gorter’s Neurological Theory of Insensible Perspiration Ruben E. Verwaal

In the early modern period perspiration played a pivotal role in the preservation of one’s health. How that exactly worked, however, changed significantly at the turn of the eighteenth century. For much of the seventeenth century the study of insensible perspiration had mostly focused on digestion. Most notably Santorio Santori meticulously measured the weight of everything he ate, drank, urinated, and defecated, and compared these figures with changes in his body weight throughout the day and night. He was convinced that health constituted a harmonious equilibrium between ingestion and excretion. Santorio’s practice of quantification may appear modern in hindsight, but his approach to insensible perspiration was firmly grounded in ancient humoral theory, which was the basis of the regimental tradition known as the “six things non-natural” (sex res non-naturales).

R. E. Verwaal (*) Institute for Medical Humanities, University of Durham, Durham, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Barry, F. Bigotti (eds.), Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614–1790, Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79587-0_12

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Because healthy or unhealthy perspiration correlated with these six categories, Santorio measured the secretion of perspiration depending on air, food and drink, sleeping and waking, exercise and rest, sexual intercourse, and the passions of the soul.1 But around 1700 medical perceptions of insensible perspiration experienced a transformation. Physicians began to focus on the role of microscopic nerves and arteries, as well as the nature of bodily fluids. Johannes de Gorter (1689–1762), a Dutch physician and medical professor at the University of Harderwijk (Fig. 12.1), continued to make his measurements

Fig. 12.1  Portrait of Johannes de Gorter. Line engraving by Jacob Houbraken after Jan Maurits Quinkhard, 1735. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, CC0 1.0

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with the help of the weighing chair. But, contrary to Santorio, de Gorter incorporated neurological descriptions of the internal functioning of perspiration into his medical treatises. The study of perspiration shifted in emphasis from balance and digestion, to mechanical and chemical explanations of the motion of the fluids and the nerves. For example, motivated to explain an outbreak of the epidemic disease of catarrh (excessive discharge of mucus in nose and throat), de Gorter formulated an intricate pathological theory in which the obstructed “nervous juice” (liquor nervosus) could not be perspired, stagnated, and turned sharp. De Gorter’s physiology of insensible perspiration illuminates the argument of this chapter, namely that at the turn of the eighteenth century physicians considered the role of the nerves, developing a neurological theory about the physiological process of insensible perspiration. Scholarship on sweat and perspiration has not yet addressed this shift. Historians have focussed on the longevity of Santorio’s famous weighing chair and the emergence of calculation and quantification in medical research. They present Santorio as part of a medical revolution that rested on experiments and personal observation rather than abstract theory.2 Santorio then fits nicely into the narrative of the scientific revolution, which identifies the mechanisation of the world as the primary novelty of the time, and a fundamental departure from the ancients. But as Andrew Cunningham has shown, although early modern physicians and anatomists like Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) and Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente (1537–1619) may appear modern from our perspective, they were, in fact, working within an ancient Galenic framework.3 The same was true for Santorio, who aimed to confirm long-standing theories on perspiration. It was only at the turn of the eighteenth century that these physiological ideas were gradually called into question. Thus, by looking at Dutch physicians like de Gorter, I highlight eighteenth-­century medicine as having formulated an alternative view of insensible perspiration. I first discuss the cultivation of multiple methodologies that supported the development of theories on an internal physiological process of perspiration. These methods included measurements with the help of the weighing chair, but also microscopic observations, anatomical studies, and chemico-botanical experiments. I then attend to pathology, to demonstrate how, in the case of catarrh, a link was made between the chemical properties of sweat and pharmaceutical drugs.

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1   Balancing Ingestion and Excretion Santorio was primarily interested in perspiration, because he deemed it crucial to balancing the ingestion of food with the excretion of waste matter. To analyse this balance in more detail Santorio had designed a chair scale to measure his ingesta and excreta. The scale consisted of a large steelyard with an adjustable weight hanging on one side, and a chair on the other (Fig.  12.2). Santorio obtained detailed information on the body’s relative mass through systematic measurements over a long period of time. As the total weight of food and drink far exceeded the weight of the visible discharges, he concluded that insensible perspiration explained the discrepancy. In fact, Santorio argued that the insensible perspiration was heavier than all other forms of excretion combined, and that it was not constant but varied depending on internal factors—like sleeping and digestion—and external conditions, such as hot or cold weather.4 Santorio’s aphorisms on insensible perspiration in relation to food and drink reflected long-standing views on digestion, inspired by Aristotle and held by medieval and early modern physicians alike. When awake, the stomach was filled with foodstuffs, but once asleep these nutrients were believed to be heated, broken down, and putrefied in the body. Thanks to body heat, hot vapours or fumes would arise from the stomach, transporting a warm humidity up to the cold brain. As these vapours condensed, the moisture descended back into the body, nourishing the internal organs, or leaving the body if superfluous.5 Santorio’s major contribution to this theory were his detailed measurements on this process, showing, for instance, that insensible perspiration could add up to as much as 40 ounces in one night, as opposed to merely 18 ounces when the stomach was empty during sleep. Santorio also considered the effect of different foodstuffs on perspiration, and warned against foods such as pork, which he believed to obstruct perspiration.6 But while Santorio’s measurements of insensible perspiration were revolutionary, and although they would be used by physicians for generations to come, they were still firmly rooted in ancient humoral physiology. Indeed, as a professor of theoretical medicine, Santorio was mainly occupied with explaining and commenting on the aphorisms of Hippocrates, Galen, and Ibn Sina.7 Like other Renaissance physicians, then, Santorio’s intention was not to replace old ideas, but rather to prove the Aristotelian notion of digestion and Galen’s concept of perspiration through detailed and exact measurements.

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Fig. 12.2  The weighing chair in Heydentryck Overkamp, Verklaring over de doorwazeming van Sanctorius (Amsterdam, 1694). The Hague, KB National Library of the Netherlands

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Based on these ancient understandings of digestion and insensible perspiration, Santorio looked for ways of sustaining health, arguing that this rested on a perfect balance between ingestion and excretion. This equilibrium depended less on the quality of ingested food than on its quantity, which could be precisely controlled by using the weighing chair. Physicians could calculate the correct quantity of food for any given person as follows: before a meal, one placed a weight corresponding to the quantity of food on the other end of the beam. The moment the subject had eaten and drunk sufficiently, the scale would tip over and the chair drop down, signalling the end of the meal (notice the food on the table in Fig. 12.2).8 As the encyclopaedist Ephraim Chambers succinctly put it a century later, the function of Santorio’s weighing chair was ‘to determine the quantity of food taken at a meal; and to warn the feeder when he had eat his quantum’.9 This confirmed that Santorio’s weighing chair was aimed less at gaining insights into the physiology of perspiration, than at assisting early modern weight-watchers in avoiding overeating or, conversely, under-perspiring. Santorio’s work had a long-lasting impact on early modern medicine, just as the association between perspiration and digestion continued to be relevant.10 In the Dutch Republic, Santorio’s groundbreaking work De statica medicina was reprinted several times by booksellers David Lopez de Haro (Leiden, 1642), Adriaen Vlacq (The Hague, 1657, 1664), and Cornelis Boutesteyn (Leiden, 1703, 1711, 1713, 1728). In 1683 a Dutch translation by Philippe La Grue (b. 1658) appeared, while later editions included commentaries by the Amsterdam physicians Steven Blankaart and Heydentryck Overkamp (Amsterdam, 1684, 1686).11 Furthermore, Dutch medical students, such as Thomas Secker (1693–1768) and Herman Hulshof (c. 1715–1742), defended their dissertations on this topic.12 Although these names and publications hardly constitute an exhaustive reception history of Santorio in the Dutch Republic, they clearly reveal the widely shared fascination with Santorio’s work among Dutch physicians. They also testify to the continued existence of long-standing ideas regarding perspiration, because the notion of an invisible vapour continuously leaving the body was widely accepted. In a discussion on respiration, Galen had stated that one went via the lungs, but ‘the other [respiration], which has no name because it is not commonly known, since it escapes observation on account of its tenuousness, is called insensible perspiration (adelos diapnoe)’.13 These ideas proved remarkably enduring, and were still evoked

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in the 1740s by Albrecht von Haller (1708–1777), who argued that ‘if an intense cold could be suddenly produced in a close chamber full of company, one person would not be capable of seeing another through the fog or vapours which exhale from their own bodies, almost in the same manner as the poets feign the gods to be hid each in their proper cloud’ (see Fig. 12.3).14 The method used to measure the amount of perspired mass also remained constant throughout the early modern Europe, as physicians James Keill (1673–1719) in England and de Gorter in Holland performed retrials of Santorio’s weighing experiments.15 In addition to the enduring perception of perspiration as insensible, and the continued success of measuring, de Gorter’s approach nevertheless attests to a substantial departure in general conception. Because what set de Gorter’s work apart from that of his contemporaries was his aim to shed new light on the internal physiological process of perspiration. As I will demonstrate in the next section, de Gorter combined measurements made with the weighing chair and hydrometer with new evidence from other fields of medical knowledge, thereby shifting the focus from the role of digestion to the role of the nerves.

2   Perspiration and the Nerves In the eighteenth century perspiration remained closely linked to ingestion and excretion, but the functioning of the nerves took an increasingly prominent role in explaining the internal physiology of perspiration. Besides relying on experimental observations with the weighing chair, Dutch medical researchers, in particular de Gorter and Abraham Kaau (1715–1758), began to link perspiration to the nerves and the anatomy of the skin, which they argued was as important as the process of digestion. One of the reasons why physicians began to doubt the close link between perspiration and digestion was the development of new theories of digestion. In perfect harmony with the Galenic humoral theory, Santorio had promoted a good night’s sleep as beneficial to digestion and perspiration. Physicians in the seventeenth century, however, increasingly perceived digestion as a chemical and mechanical process. Jan Baptist van Helmont (1577–1644) and Franciscus Sylvius (c. 1614–1672) moved away from the notion that digestion started with internal body heat. Instead, they argued that digestion was instigated by an active acid in the stomach, causing fermentation that separated nutrients from watery and excremental parts. As such, digestion and nutrition came to be perceived

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Fig. 12.3  A young man emanating insensible perspiration. Colour stipple engraving by John Pass, in Ebenezer Sibly, The Medical Mirror (London, 1794). London, Wellcome Collection, CC BY

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as a series of chemical reactions in the body’s internal organs.16 These chemical theories marked a radical departure from Galenic thermal digestion. Most importantly, food intake was no longer related to the origin of vapours inside the body. Consequently, the physiology of perspiration too needed to be rethought. This re-evaluation of perspiration was also necessary because measuring results were often inconsistent. Physicians adopted Santorio’s weighing chair, but the information obtained by de Gorter contradicted that of Santorio. While still a practicing physician in the port town of Enkhuizen, de Gorter constructed his own weighing chair, known as the sella statica, or “static chair”.17 With the help of friend and colleague Henricus Ris (1687–1727), de Gorter ran his own trials of Santorio’s experiments: he recorded his body weight during the day, taking note of the different seasons of the year, and published his findings in 1725 in De perspiratione insensibili (see Table 12.1).18 In accordance with the Galenic notion that digestion—and consequently the creation of vapours and perspiration— occurred during sleep, Santorio had discovered that he perspired considerably more at night than during the day: in the timespan of one day, Santorio had measured a total of 50 ounces of insensible perspiration, of which an average of 29 ounces was perspired at night. Yet as early as in 1718 James Keill published results that deviated from Santorio’s. Keill was a Scottish physician and anatomist who practiced in Northampton, and maintained a mathematical and mechanical approach to medicine. Embracing the view that the body was a hydrostatic machine, and with himself as the experimental subject, he performed retrials of Santorio’s experiments.19 Keill perspired just 30 ounces during the day, but contrary to Santorio, he found that he perspired more during the day than during the night (20 ounces vs. 10 ounces). Whereas the colder climate might explain the overall smaller amount of perspiration, the very different ratio between day and night was more problematic. De Gorter, following Keill’s Table 12.1  Measurements of insensible perspiration

I II III

Time frame

Santorio Santori

James Keill

Johannes de Gorter

24 hours At night (average) In the daytime

50 oz 29 oz 20 oz

30 oz 10 oz 20 oz

45 oz 15 oz 30 oz

Source: Johannes de Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili (Leiden, 1725)

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experiments, put these contradictory values to the test: his own measurements produced 45 ounces perspiration in total, of which an average of 30 ounces during the day, and 15 ounces at night. Although the total amount was closer to Santorio’s than Keill’s, de Gorter’s proportions confirmed the latter’s breakdown into daily and nocturnal perspiration. De Gorter therefore also concluded that the human body perspired more during the day than at night, thereby disproving Santorio’s theory that profuse perspiration was caused by digestion during sleep.20 These two criticisms, derived from both theory and experiment, demanded further research on the presumed impact of food and drink on perspiration. De Gorter thus decided to weigh his insensible perspiration before and after lunch. He measured his body weight during the day, and subtracted the amount of perspiration in the morning, to find out the amount of perspiration after midday. Interestingly, de Gorter concluded that the body perspired twice as much in the morning as in the afternoon, that is, more before lunch than after.21 Moreover, he stated that highest amount of insensible perspiration occurred approximately four hours after eating, from which he deduced that insensible perspiration happened when food and drink had already been digested, thus independent of nocturnal sleep. Once again, de Gorter’s trials with the weighing chair provided measurements that contradicted Santorio’s—and were hence at odds with ancient Galenic physiology. De Gorter started developing a new medical theory on the internal functioning of perspiration. His reinterpretation of the mechanics of insensible perspiration was based on the groundbreaking work of Dutch anatomists. Santorio had already hypothesised that insensible perspiration evaporated through the pores, but it was only later in the seventeenth century that anatomists, with the help of microscopes, were able to investigate the pores in greater detail. In doing so, they radically transformed medical perceptions of the skin. Govard Bidloo (1649–1713), Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723), and Frederik Ruysch (1638–1731) minutely investigated, described, and illustrated this porous tissue.22 In contrast to the macroscopic dissections of larger bodily tissues, which could be observed with the naked eye, anatomists found that innumerable minute openings and sweat glands were situated in the dermis, and that these pores covered the entire surface of the body. Van Leeuwenhoek once calculated as many as 125,000 pores in a surface area the size of a single grain of sand. In 1685 Bidloo’s grand anatomical atlas contained detailed engravings of the pores, showing that a layer of skin consisted of sweat

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glands and excretory ducts; hairs arising near the pores; and papillary glands shaped not unlike pyramids, which were composed of blood veins, lymphatic ducts, and, of course, nerves.23 The precise structure and function of these glands were keenly debated by anatomists and physiologists.24 De Gorter used these anatomical observations and physiological discussions to construct a new internal physiology of insensible perspiration. Given the large amounts of perspiration that any human would exude each day, de Gorter reasoned that the secretion of insensible perspiration occurred on all bodily surfaces, both externally through the outer skin and internally via the lungs, throat, mouth, and nose.25 A similar emphasis on the anatomy of the skin and the physiology of perspiration emerged in the works of other Dutch physicians. Students at Leiden learned about insensible perspiration in lectures on the theory of medicine. Insensible perspiration was still named after Santorio, but it was explained on the basis of the newly discovered anatomical structure of the skin: via these smaller vessels transpired a very thin and ‘very subtle humour from every point of the body, called from its inventor the Sanctorian perspiration’.26 Abraham Kaau, who had studied medicine under the tutelage of his uncle, Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738), because of a hearing impairment, discussed perspiration at great length. To the new physiology of the skin he added a detailed discussion of the central role of the nerves.27 Kaau published Perspiratio dicta Hippocrati per universum corpus in 1738. It presented a series of anatomical observations and experiments to elucidate the insensible perspiration in all body parts, both internally and externally, in sickness and in health. Kaau meticulously observed the reticular structure of the nerves in the epidermis, and the nipples to the alveoli—or tiny air sacs in the lungs—through which the transudation was believed to occur.28 He also confirmed the permeability of the skin and its excreting properties with the help of physiological experiments. He injected the stomach and hepatic artery with water, and when he observed the sample through a microscope, he noticed the liquid oozing out of every small pore in the stomach and liver—it transuded out more beautifully, he noted, when gentle pressure was applied.29 Von Haller performed the same experiment with fish glue, a substance which imitated the “condensed glue” between the dermis and epidermis. Once the glue was injected into the skin, it soon sweated out from all openings. Von Haller therefore concluded that the epidermis was ‘perforated by an infinite number of pores, some larger for the sweat, and others smaller for the perspirable vapours’.30

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Kaau’s emphasis on the function of the nerves echoed de Gorter’s increased attention to the operation of the nerves and the “nervous juice”. De Gorter based his ideas on the work of the Oxford physician Thomas Willis (1621–1675), who was the first to publish comprehensive books on the structure, activity, and purpose of the brain and nervous system. Most notably, Willis proposed the existence of a nervous juice, distilled from blood in the arteries of the brain, in order to explain motion and sensation. Movement, for example, was understood as the agitated fermentation of nervous juice in the muscles.31 De Gorter, in turn, expanded on nervous juice to explain its central role in the internal working of perspiration. He argued that blood vessels discharged a jelly-like sap or “gelatinous liquid” into the nervous system. This thin juice or “spirit” flowed inside the nerves, lubricating and nourishing the nervous fibres as well as the outermost membrane enveloping the brain and spinal cord. De Gorter argued that the nervous juice would find its way into the body and, once it had fulfilled its purpose and was used, had to be discharged. Crucially, in healthy bodies this occurred in the form of insensible perspiration. De Gorter’s theory that nervous juice was the source of perspiration was supported by his observation that nerves permeated the skin in much greater numbers than blood veins—more than seemed actually necessary. In addition, the nerves were more concentrated around sweat glands than elsewhere. De Gorter concluded that nervous juice, once it had been used, was likely to evaporate as insensible perspiration at the body’s surface, via the glands or directly through the pores.32 With his emphasis on the properties of nervous juice de Gorter made an important contribution to the study of both the nervous system and the physiology of perspiration. Boerhaave, for example, decided to incorporate de Gorter’s work in his own investigations of the nerves. Boerhaave’s neurology had always been part of his physiology, but from September 1730 to June 1735 Boerhaave delivered a new series of lectures ‘on the diseases of the nerves’.33 In these lectures he paid particular attention to the spirituous particles contained in the nervous juice. He carefully defined the spirit’s main properties, and argued that they eventually left the body via perspiration: first, spirituous particles were exceedingly small, invisible even when using a microscope; they could only be detected by smell. Second, spirits in the nervous juice were extremely volatile. And finally, spirituous particles were endowed with a force (vis) to enable motion and sensation.34 In agreement with de Gorter, Boerhaave taught his students that blood exuded this peculiar spirit into the nervous juice, but also into

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other bodily fluids, such as saliva and semen. Depending on the location of the body, whether it was the head, ears, armpits, between the toes, or the genital area, the spirit eventually left the body as perspiration, sweat, or the oily, waxy secretion called sebum or cutaneous fat.35 In sum, the way in which physicians conceived of insensible perspiration changed drastically. They shifted their focus from its direct relation to digestion to the involvement of the nerves. Although de Gorter made use of Santorio’s innovative weighing chair, his measurements contradicted the Galenic conception of perspiration, that is as internal vapours resulting from digestion. Supported by the anatomy of skin and the nerves, de Gorter disproved a direct relationship between digestion and perspiration, and instead developed an internal physiology of perspiration, based on the nerves and nervous juice. This proved highly productive, because the nerves continued to be an important topic of medical research throughout the eighteenth century. Anatomists like Kaau, von Haller, and Bernard Siegfried Albinus (1697–1770) devoted much time and effort to investigating the structure, use, and function of the nerves in the following decades.36 Boerhaave, too, incorporated the link between the nervous juice and perspiration in his lectures. Neurological concepts of the body circulated widely among the Dutch medical elite, and as such provided a persuasive explanation for the subtle yet significant transformation of the physiology of perspiration.

3   Spirits and Effluvia As medical practitioners developed new theories on perspiration, one important question remained: what exactly was this nervous juice? This section will demonstrate that the prioritisation of nervous juice and its spirituous particles in the study of perspiration was only possible thanks to the contemporary importance of chemistry for medicine. For although the nervous system and the skin were best studied in anatomy and through microscopy, only chemistry could provide insights into the actual properties of the nervous juice and perspiration, both in healthy and in morbid perspiration. The spirits in the nervous juice, it turned out, were best studied via the chemical analysis of plants, because just like the human body, they also transpired a watery vapour with a unique odour. Naturally, the collection of individual drops of human sweat for chemical investigation was complicated. However, physicians considered the nervous juices in human bodies

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similar to the nervous juices in plants, which opened up the possibility for elaborate chemical investigations. The notion that vegetal transpiration was interchangeable with perspiration in humans and animals is likely to have been based on early modern “comparative anatomy”, namely the notion that animals could serve as substitutes for human bodies in the attempt to clarify human anatomy.37 Furthermore, the words “perspiration” and “transpiration” were used interchangeably.38 Moreover, the property of having a smell, which was intrinsic in the spirits of plants, would lay at the heart of new notions about the scent of healthy and unhealthy human perspiration. The similarities between vegetable and animal physiology are also obvious in Boerhaave’s landmark textbook on chemistry, the Elementa chemiae (1732), in which the chemical theory of plants also referred and extended to animal bodies.39 Boerhaave explained plant anatomy in terms of animal physiology. Once a plant absorbed nourishment from the earth through its porous roots, the juice in the stems was considered crude, heterogeneous; this was called the ‘chyle of the plant’, because ‘the roots, and the body of the plants […] answer to the stomach, and intestines of an animal’. As this vegetal chyle ascended the stem of the plant, it slowly but surely transformed into the plant’s proper nature by ‘force of the air’ in ‘the real lungs of the plant’ (i.e. the leaves). The analogy between plants and animals continued further: Boerhaave referred to the seed in the fruit as the embryo of the plant; and when, for example, an aloe was bruised, it bled a yellow and bitter sap, the ‘blood of plants’.40 In short, botanists and chemists perceived the physiology of plant juices as similar to the movement and properties of animal fluids. The connection between animal perspiration and vegetal transpiration was quickly made. Boerhaave, who had grown proverbial green fingers following his appointment to the chair of botany in 1709, taught his students that the leaves of plants gave off a scented water vapour: ‘There are emunctory [i.e., excretory] vessels in rosemary, for instance, which is continually diffusing an odorous atmosphere around it. And thus, in the summer season, when the air is greatly heated, all aromatic and odoriferous plants come to exhale vast quantities of their fine, spirituous and volatile parts.’41 Similar to the spirit in nervous juice, which could only be detected by smell, the oily and volatile substance from plants had a unique scent, believed to be excited by the force of its “guiding spirit” or spiritus rector. Based on comparative physiology, then, the way in which fluids moved through processes of absorption, nourishment, and transpiration in plants

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ran parallel to that of fluids in animals and humans, going through the processes of ingestion, digestion, and eventually perspiration. To analyse the phenomenon of perspiration in even more depth, Boerhaave went beyond mere smelling, and subjected plants to numerous chemical examinations to extract their spirit. For example, he gathered fresh samples of rosemary leaves and placed them in a copper cold-still with a cone-shaped head, which he placed on a simple brick furnace. The mild and gentle heat created in this furnace matched the heat from the sun; hence this installation was perfectly suited to ‘come to know what it is which spontaneously exhales from vegetables by the warmth of the summer’s sun’.42 The well-regulated fire slowly vaporised the fragrant and most volatile parts from the rosemary leaves. These dewy vapours then condensed against the head of the still, and trickled down the sides of a conical neck, being collected in a receiver. By means of this method, chemists had found a way to capture the scent of plants and preserve it.43 Ordinarily, Boerhaave elaborated, when people walk in scented gardens they breathed the vapours exhaled by rosemary, basil, jasmine, and many more aromatic plants in the form of insensible perspiration. But by means of distillation chemists were able to extract and obtain this juice, which was ‘the most volatile, fragrant and aromatic part of the plant, wherein its specific virtue resided’.44 The unique scent of each plant and animal could be distinguished by this virtue. Boerhaave defined this spirituous substance by its chemical properties: ‘By spirit we mean any sulphurous, or oily matter, so attenuated and subtilised, as to become volatile, by the smallest fire, and miscible with water; which characters, where they concur in the same subject, denominate it a spirit’.45 The spiritus rector, in other words, was perceived as an actual particle or substance that was spirituous, subtle yet pervasive, and the cause of an animal or plant’s unique scent.46 On the basis of the distillation of rosemary and other plants Dutch physicians studied the smells particular to living bodies, as well as what constituted the exhalations. What was called spiritus rector in vegetal juices was called the effluvia in the nervous juices of animals. As Boerhaave explained: ‘Exhalations or effluvia; viz. this same spirit, together with the elementary water which contains it, which is continually flying off from them, during the day, in the form of an insensible perspiration’.47 In other words, animal scents were explained in terms of the spirits or effluvia, the most subtle parts that were present in the nervous juices and perspiration. Their existence and unique character were demonstrated with the help of a very visual and evident anecdote. As Boerhaave recalled, ‘I saw a dog at

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Amsterdam having lost his master in a crowd of people, was therefore obliged to run about continually after the steps of his master ’till he came to the house in which he had taken up his residence’.48 This proved that everyone had their own smell in their perspiration. Supported by these chemical investigations, physicians increasingly regarded particular vegetal and animal smells as unhealthy. Though many well-to-do ladies used scented spirits to dress their hair and wore perfume from lavender, oranges, cloves, and herbs, physicians took a much more sober view. Jan Ingenhousz (1730–1799), for example, warned about the negative properties of vegetal transpiration. In 1768, after working as a physician for a few years, Ingenhousz was appointed as a court physician to the Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa (1717–1780). While researching the insensible transpiration of plants by means of chemistry, Ingenhousz noted that during the day flowers produced a beneficial air, whereas at night they exuded noxious air. He therefore warned his patients not to keep flowers near the bedside: ‘I make no doubt but a great quantity of plants, kept in a close and small place during a night, or by day in the dark, may do some material mischief, and even occasion death, to any person who should be imprudent enough to remain in such a place’.49 Ingenhousz’ warning is exemplary of the shifting medical perception of the smell of insensible perspiration. In the late medieval and early modern periods, physicians such as Gabriele Zerbi (1445–1505) had recommended scattering rose blossoms or other sweet-scented flowers across beds to assure a good night’s sleep.50 By the eighteenth century, however, the nocturnal transpiration of plants was thought to be noxious, if not deadly. Boerhaave provided a long list of examples for the dangers of the spirits in plants: smelling the blossoms of beans, roses, oleander, and the tuberous hyacinth would cause fainting; and a stable servant who had slept under a layer of saffron was known to have died.51 Since the spirits and effluvia in the insensible perspiration of plants and animals were essentially the same phenomenon, human sweat too underwent a shift in perception as to its salubrity. According to Galen and Santorio, insensible perspiration released superfluous moist and cleansed the body of potentially harmful and dangerous matter. Santorio’s measurements of large amounts of perspiration confirmed the theory that sweating was beneficial to health, and prevented harmful substances from accumulating in the body.52 However, supported by chemico-botanical analyses of the nervous juice in the early modern period, the spirits were gradually demystified, and the heavy smell of human sweat came to be a

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sign of disease. One of the physicians who had specialised in the smell of sweat as a diagnostic tool was Henricus Buisen (c. 1678–c. 1724), who claimed that the intensity of smell in patients’ sweat indicated how sick they were. Buisen had studied medicine at the University of Groningen before practicing medicine in Haarlem. In 1706 he published a treatise on human secretions and excretions. According to Buisen, a heavy smell in someone’s sweat was a sign that it contained ‘degenerate and some already corrupted particles’.53 This was caused either by the retention of perspiration, or by the presence of putrefied blood and other circulating fluids in the body. Although each individual exhibited a unique body odour, those who were ill were believed to exude “heavy” smells. Buisen was convinced that melancholic individuals in particular suffered from bilious juices and a ‘bad and heavy smell’ in their sweat.54 Other eighteenth-century physicians also took the foul smell of sweat both as a sign of and as sensory evidence for disease. In their lectures on symptoms and signs of illness Boerhaave and von Haller taught that the healthy body did not generally stink. When an odour arose from the body, this was caused by extreme heat or excessive physical exercise, which caused the oily and saline parts of the fluids to dilute and evaporate.55 This was potentially harmful to the nervous system of the affected individual, and even that of others. The spirits of a mother, for example, could negatively affect the nervous system of her infant in a remarkable way, Boerhaave argued. When her spirits were excessively inflamed by heat and motion, and exuded by panting and sweating while the infant was sleeping under the same sheets, this could incite various nervous diseases in the child, including epilepsy, paralysis, and mental impairment.56 Buisen and de Gorter even went as far as to provide a classification of the smell and properties of sweat, so that physicians might diagnose their patients’ diseases. The location of sweat on the body, for example, often indicated the seat of the disease. Heat and excessive sweating in the course of a fever indicated a prolonged illness, which in the case of smallpox could be deadly. Malodorous sweat was clearly visible on someone’s shirt, which would become stiff and smell. ‘I have seen many times’, Buisen wrote, ‘that when such a sweat persisted for long, it drowned out the sufferer’s strength, causing death’.57 But not all sweat was unwholesome. De Gorter saw warm and odourless sweat was a sign of health if not continuously flowing. And when a patient was suffering from an inflammation or was salivating, sweating could indicate the expulsion of superfluous and malignant parts, and the dwindling of the disease.58

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Eighteenth-century physicians, in short, studied perspiration with some understanding of comparative physiology and chemistry. Via rosemary and other plants, chemists further developed the concept of spiritus rector and effluvia in vegetal and animal bodies to explain the unique character of each species as expressed in a unique smell, later called aroma.59 Early botanists, natural historians, and physicians had always been aware of the smells in nature, but they generally regarded them as safe and healthy. This drastically shifted with Boerhaave’s and Ingenhousz’ chemical studies on the juices. The nocturnal transpirations of flowers were now considered dangerous to health. Likewise, the heavy smells exuded by humans via insensible perspiration could be harmful and cause nervous diseases.

4   Sweating it Out In the early decades of the eighteenth century, de Gorter was confronted with an epidemic outbreak of catarrh, not unlike today’s common cold. Men and women suffered from mucus running down their noses and phlegm stuck in their throats, causing trouble breathing, uncontrollable coughing, chest pains, light-headedness, and lapses into sleep. Sometimes these symptoms coincided with an increased body temperature.60 For the development of the medical theory of the time, the disease of catarrh is important because it is another example for a shift towards a neurological understanding of perspiration. A professor and medical practitioner, de Gorter did not limit himself to the development of physiological theories on the internal functioning of the body. On the contrary, he also aimed at applying his knowledge to actual patients. Searching for a treatment to the outbreak of catarrh, de Gorter explained its aetiology with the extreme suppression and retention of perspiration, which brought about a morbid sharpness in the nervous juice. The primary treatment for this severe and unpleasant illness was the administration of sudorific and diaphoretic drugs, in order to, literally, sweat out the disease. As this last section will demonstrate, de Gorter based his investigations upon the use of measuring instruments. However, it was only within the context of the chemistry of the nervous juice that he could really develop and define the theoretical underpinnings of the efficacy of pharmaceuticals. Investigating the catarrh epidemic, de Gorter realised that his patients suffered from the same illness during the same season, even though they had very different backgrounds, habits, and diets. The only common denominator, de Gorter reasoned, was the chilly air blowing on their faces

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and the cold rains on their skin. Indeed, it was in this period that Europe experienced some of its coldest winters in history. The winters in the first half of the eighteenth century were so cold that the Zuiderzee froze over, and Dutchmen were able to sleigh from one side of the sea to the other.61 De Gorter hypothesised that the wintry weather conditions were to blame for the epidemic, and used Santorio’s weighing chair to measure the fluctuation in perspiration in relation to variations in temperature and humidity. With his weighing chair, de Gorter discovered that the body emitted less insensible perspiration in cold and moist than in hot and dry air. He reached this conclusion by adding a thermometer and a hygroscope to his experiments, which indicated temperature and humidity respectively. Designed by de Gorter’s student Petrus Belkmeer (1703–1763), this particular kind of hygroscope had a cone-shaped body with a spiralling groove to fit a long wire. Belkmeer had matriculated at the University of Harderwijk in 1732 and graduated in 1735.62 For the second edition of De perspiratione insensibili (1736), de Gorter had Belkmeer’s instrument engraved for inclusion in his book (see Fig. 12.4). A sponge and a weight were hung on either end. As the moisture in the air increased, the soft, porous body of the sponge absorbed the moisture, and its weight increased. Because of the conically shaped pulley, the slightest change in weight caused it to turn.63 As de Gorter measured less perspiration when he increased the humidity, he deduced that cold and moist air caused the smaller vessels in the body to contract, which would congeal the fluids, and the pores to close, thereby suppressing perspiration.64 Based on these experiments and his ideas on nervous juices, de Gorter explained the cause of catarrh. When in cold and moist conditions the retention of insensible perspiration persisted, an excess of the “thin fluid” of the nervous juice was kept inside the body, and encouraged the growth of internal sores: since it was unable to exit the body, the redundant fluid would flow to other parts within it. It agitated and became lodged in the lungs, trachea, and mucous membranes due to its increasing “sharpness”, ultimately generating the inflammation typical for catarrh, with its characteristic dripping mucus and coughed-up slime. This identification of coldness and dampness as the root cause of catarrh was supported by the observation that particular regions in the body were especially affected by the cold air: ‘the lung and other breathing parts that lay bare in the air’, such as the skin, throat, and nose, ‘and [the areas] where it predominantly does its harm, are the most affected by this disease’.65

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Fig. 12.4  Jacobus van der Spijk, hygrometer by Petrus Belkmeer, published in De Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili (Leiden, 1736). Allard Pierson, University of Amsterdam, O 62-6242

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Fellow physicians agreed that the accumulation of nervous juice as the cause of disease, and even death. Referring to the autopsies carried out by the Swiss physician Théophile Bonet (1620–1689), Boerhaave recalled cases of obstructed and overflowing nervous juice in patients who had suffered from catarrh: Someone died because of a suffocating catarrh. There was an enormous supply of fluid in between the dura and pia mater. The surface of the windings appeared gelatinous, and when punctured water spewed out. […] The cold, cough, full-headed catarrh; the head of the dead [patient] was overflowing with water.66

Boerhaave ascribed these and other instances in which fluids aggregated, to nervous diseases. Hieronymus Gaubius (1705–1780), too, agreed with de Gorter’s conclusion that bitterly cold and moist air could prevent the body’s natural secretion of perspiration. Professor of medicine and chemistry in Leiden, Gaubius argued that, in a freezing and damp atmosphere, ‘smaller vessels are contracted, the humours inspissated, the pores shut, the perspiration suppressed’.67 Catarrh was not only explained as an excessive accumulation of nervous juice; it was, also, especially in combination with the property of sharpness that the symptoms manifested themselves. De Gorter developed an external and internal theory to explain the presence of sharpness in the nervous juice. External sharpness entered the body by way of harsh and acidic elements such as salt, vinegar, poisons, or—in the case of catarrh—some discrete and malignant particle in the air and wind, which entered the body via the pores. Since much remained unknown about this miasmic sharpness, de Gorter hypothesised that any harmful substance would need to be ‘thin and fine, and of such a nature that for its treatment it requires either an improvement or an excretion’.68 More likely than this was, however, the internal emergence of sharpness in the course of the generation of the nervous juice, which was either not well-prepared in the first place or retained in the body for too long, having become sharp due to having experienced numerous circulations through the nerves. When the weakened body was unable to excrete these sharp particles they caused serious damage. De Gorter located the sharp material mostly where insensible perspiration ordinarily took place, namely in between the nerves and their enclosing membranes and fibres.69

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Fortunately for the sufferers, a possible treatment for catarrh was just around the corner. De Gorter reasoned that drugs could dissolve the thick and slimy mucus, whether caused by internal or external causes.70 Patients simply had to take sudorific and diaphoretic medicines, which lifted their obstructed perspiration, started a profuse sweat, and thus expelled the sharpness from their nervous systems. Early modern pharmacists generally distinguished sudorifics from diaphoretics: the former promoted the expulsion of sweat, and the latter diminished the resistance of the exhaling vessels in the skin and promoted insensible perspiration. In practice, however, these remedies were often the same, and differed only in their degree of action.71 Among the extensive selection of sudorific and diaphoretic drugs, de Gorter specifically chose sal ammoniac, because it agreed with his neurological interpretation of perspiration. Within Galenic medicine all simplicia exhibiting hot and dry qualities were thought to contain the capacity to dissolve. They were, therefore, believed to open the pores, in particular syrup made from blessed thistle (cardus Benedictus), devil’s bit (scabiosa), and aromatic angels’ root (angelica).72 Yet chemical processes of distillation and sublimation introduced medicines made from the most potent essences of plants, animals, and minerals. Chemically produced sweat-­ inducing drugs included the silvery-white antimony, sometimes taken with opium, and the spirits of wine stone, deer horn, and bezoar.73 De Gorter published over a hundred recipes for decoctions, pastes from powders, plasters, pills, drops, drinks, infusions, soaps, potions, spirits, and scents, all believed to induce perspiration.74 But despite the rich assortment of sudorific drugs, de Gorter preferred to prescribe sal ammoniac as the most effective treatment for catarrh. He argued that the ingested sal ammoniac would be absorbed in the blood vessels of the oesophagus and stomach. Once in circulation, it would be discharged as part of the nervous juice and reach the infected skin, lungs, and mucous membrane. It was there that the “spirit of sal ammoniac”—combined with steam baths and poultices (a soft, moist mask consisting of bran, flour, and herbs, and applied to the body to relieve soreness and inflammation)—dissolved the mucus. Furthermore, as sal ammoniac carried the chemical property of sublimation, and turned into vapour upon being heated, it promoted insensible perspiration. It freed patients from their symptoms by purging their bodies from all corrupt “sharp and thin fluid”, and sweating out the “slimy rawness” of the superfluous nervous juice.75 Hence, de Gorter’s reason for preferring sal ammoniac over numerous other sudorific drugs

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was not based on simple trial and error. Rather, his neurological approach to perspiration lay at its basis. Many physicians agreed that sal ammoniac had a dissolving and opening effect on the human body. Purified salts like sal ammoniac, medical students were told, were a ‘powerful, stimulating, aperient, diuretic, sudorific, and resolving medicine; capable also of promoting insensible perspiration, and of entring [sic] into the lungs, nostrils, and cavities of the head and mouth, in the form of invisible effluvia’.76 To make sal ammoniac, chemists mixed one part of an ordinary salt with five parts of urine in a vessel, and gained by sublimation a white, friable substance.77 Dissolved in water, sufferers simply held a bottle with sal ammoniac up to their noses and drank 10–20 drops of the sudorific with some beer every morning and evening.78 De Gorter later claimed to have successfully cured his patients from the widespread disease.79 De Gorter solidified his neurological theory by continuing to lecture and publish on nervous juice and insensible perspiration. He revised and improved his De perspiratione insensibili for a second edition which appeared in 1736.80 In 1737 he also published the second volume of his Medicinae compendium, a popular textbook on general diseases and therapies, in which he devoted a separate chapter to insensible perspiration. In that chapter, de Gorter proudly stated that, as is described in my book De perspiratione insensibili, the augmenting medicines, which produce the most excellent and in all respects the least weakening evacuation, both from the arterial extremities as from the nerves, are today called diaphoretics by all the Physicians.81

*** In the eighteenth-century Dutch Republic, physicians re-conceptualised the physiology of perspiration in terms of the nerves. In comparison to Santorio, the way in which physicians thought about the physiological process of perspiration underwent profound changes. First, new weighing measurements and anatomical observations moved physiologists away from Galenic concepts of perspiration, which were bound up with those of digestion and sleeping, and instead drew them towards a neurological theory. Second, the growing emphasis on the role of nervous juice and the presence of spirits or effluvia in perspiration was largely indebted to the

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chemical and botanical investigations of plants. Finally, the catarrh epidemic offered a unique opportunity to apply the new physiological theory of perspiration to a pathological case study. Sal ammoniac proved a most effective drug to sweat out the disease. Physicians had perhaps been disputing Santorio, but insensible perspiration continued to play a pivotal role in the preservation of health.

Notes 1. Jerome J. Bylebyl, “Nutrition, Quantification and Circulation,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 51 (1977): 369–85. Lelland J. Rather, “The ‘Six Things Non-Natural’: A Note on the Origins and Fate of a Doctrine and a Phrase,” Clio Medica, 3 (1968): 337–47; Peter H.  Niebyl, “The Non-­ Naturals,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 43 (1971): 486–92; Chester R.  Burns, “The Nonnaturals: A Paradox in the Western Concept of Health,” The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 1 (1976): 202–11; Sandra Cavallo and Tessa Storey, eds., Conserving Health in Early Modern Culture: Bodies and Environments in Italy and England (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017). 2. Lucia Dacome, “Living with the Chair: Private Excreta, Collective Health and Medical Authority in the Eighteenth Century,” History of Science, 39 (2001): 467–500; ead., “Balancing Acts: Picturing Perspiration in the Long Eighteenth Century,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 43 (2012): 379–91; Lois N. Magner, A History of Medicine, 2nd ed., 263–66 (Boca Raton, 2005); Nancy G.  Siraisi, “Medicine, 1450–1620, and the History of Science,” Isis, 103 (2012): 491–514, at 504–05; Fabrizio Bigotti, “Mathematica Medica: Santorio and the Quest for Certainty in Medicine,” Journal of Healthcare Communications, 1 (2016): 39. 3. Andrew Cunningham, The Anatomical Renaissance: The Resurrection of the Anatomical Projects of the Ancients (Aldershot: Routledge, 1997). 4. Santorio Santori, Ars de statica medicina, sectionibus aphorismorum septem comprehensa (Venice: N. Polo, 1614). 5. On premodern notions and medical perceptions of sleeping and digestion, see Sasha Handley, Sleep in Early Modern England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2016); Sandra Cavallo and Tessa Storey, Healthy Living in Late Renaissance Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 113–44. 6. Santorio Santori, De statica medicina et de responsione ad staticomasticem (Leiden: D. L. De Haro, 1642), 55–80; id., De ontdekte doorwaasseming des menschen lichaams, ed. Heydentryck Overkamp, 66–100 (Amsterdam: T. ten Hoorn, 1686). The ounces refer to weight, not volume.

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7. Santorio Santori, Commentaria in Artem medicinalem Galeni (Venice: G. A. Somascho, 1612); id., Commentaria in primam Fen primi libri Canonis Avicennae (Venice: G. Sarzina, 1625); id., Commentaria in primam sectionem Aphorismorum Hippocratis (Venice: M.A. Brogiolo, 1629). 8. See preface in Santorio, Ars; id., De ontdekte doorwaasseming. 9. Ephraim Chambers, Cyclopaedia, or, An Universal Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences, 2 vols (London: A. Hogg, 1728), vol. 2, 359. 10. On Santorio’s long-term influence, see Dacome, “Living with the Chair”; id., “Balancing Acts”; and outside the realm of medicine, Lucia Dacome, “Resurrecting by Numbers in Eighteenth-Century England,” Past and Present, 193 (2006): 73–110. 11. Santorio Santori, De ontdekte doorwaasseming of de leidstar der genees-­ heeren, trans. Philippe La Grue (Amsterdam: J. Rieuwertsz, 1683); id., De ontdekte doorwaasseming des menschen lichaams, ed. Steven Blankaart, trans. Philippe La Grue, 2nd ed. (Amsterdam: J van Royen, 1684). 12. Thomas Secker, Disputatio medica inauguralis de medicina statica (Leiden: L. Mulhovium, 1721); Hermannus Hulshof, Dissertatio medica inauguralis sistens febrem diariam benignam ex suppressa Sanctoriana perspiratione ortam (Groningen: H. Spandaw, 1740). 13. As quoted in Edward T.  Renbourn, “The Natural History of Insensible Perspiration: A Forgotten Doctrine of Health and Disease,” Medical History, 4, (1960): 135–52, at 135–36. 14. Albrecht von Haller, ed. Praelectiones academicae in proprias institutiones rei medicae, 6 vols (Göttingen: J. vander Linden, 1739–1744), vol. 3, 576; id., Dr. Boerhaave’s Academical Lectures on the Theory of Physic: Being a Genuine Translation of his Institutes and Explanatory Comment, 6 vols (London: W. Innys, 1742–1746), vol. 3, 307. 15. Dacome, “Living with the Chair”; ead., “Balancing Acts”. 16. Antonio Clericuzio, “Chemical and Mechanical Theories of Digestion in Early Modern Medicine,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 43, (2012): 329–337. 17. ‘Vita auctoris’ in Johannes de Gorter, Praxis medicae systema, ed. David de Gorter, 2nd ed. (Harderwijk, 1767), [**4r]. 18. Johannes de Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili Sanctoriana-Batava tractatus experimentis propriis in Hollandia (Leiden: J. van der Aa, 1725). 19. Anita Guerrini, “James Keill, George Cheyne, and Newtonian Physiology, 1690–1740,” Journal of the History of Biology, 18, (1985): 247–66; ead., “Keill, James (1673–1719),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); James Keill, Tentamina medico-­physica ad quasdam quaestiones quae oeconomiam animalem spectant, accomodata: quibus accessit Medicina statica Britannica (London: G.W. Innys, 1718).

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20. De Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili, 10–11. De Gorter compared his measurements to those found in Santorio’s Ars and Keill’s, Medicina statica Britannica. 21. De Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili, 12–13. 22. Mieneke te Hennepe, “Of the Fisherman’s Net and Skin Pores: Reframing Conceptions of the Skin in Medicine 1572–1714,” in Blood, Sweat and Tears, ed. Manfred Horstmanshoff, Helen King, and Claus Zittel, 523–48 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012). 23. Govard Bidloo, Anatomia humani corporis (Amsterdam: heirs of J. van Dyk, H. Boom and widow of Th. Boom, 1685), Tabula 4. 24. While Ruysch maintained that the glands functioned mechanically, Boerhaave perceived them as follicles in which chemical processes occurred. Herman Boerhaave and Frederik Ruysch, Opusculum anatomicum de fabrica glandularum in corpore humano (Leiden: C. Haak, 1722); de Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili, 20. Rina Knoeff, “Chemistry, Mechanics and the Making of Anatomical Knowledge: Boerhaave Vs. Ruysch on the Nature of the Glands,” Ambix, 53, (2006): 201–19. 25. De Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili, 19–22. 26. Herman Boerhaave, Institutiones medicae in usus annuae exercitationis domesticos digestae, 5th ed. (Rotterdam: Apud J. D. Beman, 1734), 224; von Haller, Academical Lectures, vol. 3, 306. 27. On Abraham Kaau, see Irina Sjtsjedrova, “Abraham Kaau-Boerhaave: Bladzijden uit de biografie van een academicus,” in Noord- en Zuid-­ Nederlanders in Rusland, ed. Emmanuel  Waegemans, J.S.A.M. (Hans) von  Koningsbrugge, and Nadja Louwerse, Baltic Studies (Groningen: INOS [Instituut voor Noord and Oost Europese Studies], 2004), 293–312; Luuc Kooijmans, De geest van Boerhaave: Onderzoek in een kil klimaat (Amsterdam: Prometheus, 2014). 28. Abraham Kaau, Perspiratio dicta Hippocrati per universum corpus anatomice illustrata (Leiden: Luchtmans, 1738). This title, ‘Perspiration over the Whole Body, as called by Hippocrates’, was a double reference: a paraphrase of Galen’s discussion of the expiration and inspiration of the body which, in turn, was referencing Hippocrates’ Epidemics, VI.6. 29. Ibid., 251–2. 30. Albrecht von Haller, Primae lineae physiologiae, 2nd ed., 265–6 (Göttingen: A. Vandenhoeck, 1751); id., Physiology: Being a Course of Lectures upon the Visceral Anatomy and Vital Oeconomy of Human Bodies, trans. Samuel Mihles, 2 vols (London: W. Innys and J. Richardson, 1754), vol. 2, 4. 31. Thomas Willis, Cerebri anatome: Cui accessit nervorum descriptio et usus (Amsterdam: J. Martyn and J. Allestry, 1664), 149–89; J. Trevor Hughes, Thomas Willis, 1621–1675: His Life and Work (London: Royal Society of Medicine Services, 1991).

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32. De Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili, 20–21; idem, Morbi epidemii brevis descriptio et curatio per  diaphoresin  (Harderwijk: W. Brinkink, 1733), 14–16. For his anatomical knowledge, de Gorter relied on the work of other anatomists and his own observations. The University of Harderwijk had had a dissection room since the early eighteenth century, and de Gorter himself specialised in teaching anatomy and surgery to surgeons. For his anatomical lectures, de Gorter commented on the Anatomische Tabellen (first published in 1725) by Johann Adam Kulmus (1689–1745), the Leiden alumnus and professor of medicine at the Akademische Gymnasium in Danzig. See the lecture notes of Gerhardus Vermeer, ‘Comentaria ex ore Clarissimi Viri J. De Gorter excerpta’, Harderwijk, c. 1740. Leiden, University Library, BPL 1478. 33. Herman Boerhaave, ‘Praelectiones publice habitae de morbis nervorum’, Leiden, 1730–1735. S.M. Kirov Military Medical Academy, St Petersburg, MS XIII 11. Microfiche copy stored at University Library, Leiden, F 699. These lecture notes were transcribed, annotated, and translated by Benedictus P.M. Schulte, Hermanni Boerhaave Praelectiones de morbis nervorum, 1730–1735: Een medisch-historische studie van Boerhaave’s  manuscript over zenuwziekten (Leiden: Brill, 1959). 34. Boerhaave, ‘De morbis nervorum’, 21 March 1732 in ibid., 152–5; Rina Knoeff, Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738): Calvinist Chemist and Physician (Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2002), 191–2. 35. Boerhaave, ‘De morbis nervorum’, 1 April 1732  in Schulte, De morbis nervorum, 154–5. 36. Kaau, Perspiratio dicta Hippocrati. On Albinus’ and von Haller’s work on the nerves and ideas of nervous juice, see Hendrik Punt, Bernard Siegfried Albinus (1697–1770) on “Human Nature”: Anatomical and Physiological Ideas in Eighteenth Century Leiden (Amsterdam: B.M. Israël, 1983); Hubert Steinke, Irritating Experiments: Haller’s Concept and the European Controversy on Irritability and Sensibility, 1750–1790 (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2005), 68, 110. 37. Anita Guerrini, The Courtiers’ Anatomists: Animals and Humans in Louis XIV’s Paris (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2015). 38. Abraham Kaau occasionally used the term “transpirare” in his Perspiratio dicta Hippocrati. Some medical students preferred the term “transpiratio insensibilis”, see for example in Henricus Petrus Sigismundus Zehenphenningh, Dissertatio medico therapeutica inauguralis sistens quaedam therapiae specialis notamina circa abusus remediorum vomitoriorum, laxantium et sudoriferorum (Leiden: C. de Pecker, 1750), 10; Arthurus Magenis, Dissertatio medica inauguralis de urina (Leiden: G. Potvliet, 1753), 10. According to a contemporary English-Dutch dic-

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tionary, “perspiration” and “transpiration” were translated similarly. Compare ‘to Perspire, Uitwaassemen, uitdampen door de zweetgaten’ with ‘Transpiration, De ongevoelige uitwaasseming door de Huid’ in Willem Séwel, A Compleat Dictionary English and Dutch ed. Egbert Buys, 2 vols (Amsterdam: K. de Veer, 1766), vol. 2, 575, 851. 39. Ursula Klein, “Experimental History and Herman Boerhaave’s Chemistry of Plants,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 34, (2003): 533–67, at 543. 40. Herman Boerhaave, A New Method of Chemistry: Including the Theory and Practice of that Art: Laid down on Mechanical Principles, and Accommodated to the Uses of Life, trans. Peter Shaw and Ephraim Chambers, 2 vols (London: J. Osborn and T. Longman, 1727), vol. 1, 150–62; idem, Institutiones et experimenta chemiae, 2 vols (Paris: s.n., 1724), vol. 1, 121–7. 41. Boerhaave, A New Method, vol. 2, 8; idem, Institutiones et experimenta chemiae, vol. 2, 14. 42. Boerhaave, A New Method, vol. 1, 379–80. 43. Ibid., vol. 2, 13. See also Alain Corbin, Le miasme et la jonquille: l’odorat et l’imaginaire social, 18e–19e siècles (Paris: Flammarion, 1982). 44. Boerhaave, A New Method, vol. 2, 12–13, 18. 45. Ibid., vol. 1, 168. 46. Cultural historians have studied the human experience of smell and stench, such as Corbin, Le miasme et la jonquille. But the case of spiritus rector shows how smell was not just a sensation in individuals, but rather considered a real, material thing. 47. Boerhaave, A New Method, vol. 2, 18. 48. Von Haller, Academical Lectures, vol. 3, 325. Boerhaave also shared the anecdote that a dog can distinguish a single deer from the herd solely on the basis of the smell of its perspiration. Boerhaave, ‘De morbis nervorum’, 1 April 1732 in Schulte, De morbis nervorum, 154–5. 49. Jan Ingenhousz, Experiments upon Vegetables (London: P. Elmsly and H. Payne, 1779), 47–9; Handley, Sleep, 42. See also Geerdt Magiels, From Sunlight to Insight: Jan IngenHousz, the Discovery of Photosynthesis and Science in the Light of Ecology (Brussels: VUB Press, 2010). 50. Catrien Santing, “Sleeping and Waking,” in Gelukkig Gezond! Histories of Healthy Ageing, ed. Rina Knoeff (Groningen: Barkhuis Universiteitsmuseum, 2017), 80–97. 51. Boerhaave ‘De morbis nervorum’, 13 May 1732  in Schulte, De morbis nervorum, 164–5. 52. Michael Stolberg, “Sweat: Learned Concepts and Popular Perceptions, 1500–1800,” in Blood, Sweat and Tears, ed. Manfred Horstmanshoff, Helen King, and Claus Zittel, 503–22 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), at 510–11.

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53. Henricus Buisen, Verhandelinge van de uitwerpingen des menschelyke lighaams, bestaande in pis, afgang, zweet, kwyl; en braaking (Rotterdam: H. Kentlink, 1731), 115–16. 54. Ibid. 55. Von Haller, Academical Lectures, vol. 6, 111. 56. Boerhaave, ‘De morbis nervorum’, 12 May 1732  in Schulte, De morbis nervorum, 162–3. 57. Buisen, Uitwerpingen, 115–16. 58. De Gorter, Praxis medicae systema, 171–2. 59. See, for example, Joseph Franz von Jacquin, Leerboek der algemeene en artsenijkundige scheikunde, trans. Gerardus Plaat, 2 vols (Leiden: A. and J. Honkoop, 1794), vol. 2, 3. 60. De Gorter, Morbi epidemii, 5–7; id., Korte beschryving van een algemene doorgaande ziekten, in deze tijd nog woedende, en desselfs genezing door sweetinge, trans. Amos Lambrechts (Amsterdam: G. Bouman, 1733), 10–14. 61. Oprechte Haerlemsche Courant, 9 February 1709. See also Gebeurtenissen, voorgevallen in de maanden  January en February, anno 1740 in, en veroorzaakt door de nooit meer gehoorde vehemente en strenge winter (Enkhuizen H. Callenbach, 1740). 62. Petrus Belkmeer, Disputatio inauguralis physiologico medica de motu ut causa et curatione generali omnium morborum (Harderwijk Joh. Rampen, 1735). 63. Johannes de Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili, 2nd ed. (Leiden: J. Vander Aa, 1736), 339–42. A multitude of hygrometer designs circulated, all based on the principle of absorption levels of various materials. See Joachim d’Alencé, Verhandelingen over de barometers, thermometers, en notiometers of hygrometers (The Hague: de Jongh, 1730). 64. De Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili, 109. 65. De Gorter, Morbi epidemii, 3; idem, Doorgaande ziekten, 5. 66. Boerhaave, ‘De morbis nervorum’, 19 January 1731 in Schulte, De morbis nervorum, 88–9; Herman Boerhaave, Praelectiones academicae de morbis nervorum, ed. Jacob van Eems, 74 (Leiden: Vander Eyk and de Pecker, 1761). 67. Hieronymus David Gaubius, Institutiones pathologiae medicinalis (Leiden, 1758), 208; idem, The Institutions of Medicinal Pathology, trans. Charles Erskine (Edinburgh: C. Elliot and T. Cadell, 1778), 139. 68. De Gorter, Morbi epidemii, 4; id., Doorgaande ziekten, 7–8. 69. De Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili, 26–35. 70. De Gorter, Morbi epidemii, 7; id., Doorgaande ziekten, 15. 71. Johannes de Gorter, Medicinae compendium in usum exercitationis domesticae digestum, 2 vols (Leiden: J. van der Aa, 1731–1737), vol. 2, 218. See s.v. ‘diaphoretica’ and ‘sudorifera’ in the ‘Index formularum medicinalium

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generalis’. Johannes de Gorter, Formulae medicinales cum indice virium quo ad inventas indicationes inveniuntur medicamina (Harderwijk, 1750), [H2v], [X4v]. 72. De Farvacques, Medicina pharmaceutica, of Groote algemeene schatkamer der drôgbereidende geneeskonst, 3 vols (Leiden: I. Severinus, 1741), vol. 1, 18. 73. For numerous other drugs, see Buisen, Uitwerpingen, 184–5; Noël Chomel, Huishoudelyk woordboek: Vervattende vele middelen om zyn goed te vermeerderen, en zyne gezondheid te behouden, Met verscheiden wisse en beproefde middelen, trans. Jan Lodewyk Schuer and A.H. Westerhof, 2 vols (Leiden: S. Luchtmans, and Amsterdam: By H. Uytwerf, 1743), 1455. 74. De Gorter, Formulae medicinales. Under diaphoretica, it mentioned apozema, bolus, cataplasma, electuarium, emplastrum, epithema, fotus, guttulae, haustus, infusio, lavamentum, mixtura, pilulae, potio, pulveres interni, spiritus, and suffitus. 75. De Gorter, Morbi epidemii, 20–22; id., Doorgaande ziekten, 71–7. 76. Boerhaave, A New Method, vol. 2, 224. Emphasis added. 77. Chambers, Cyclopaedia, vol. 1, 140. See also s.v. ‘Ammoniacum, Sal’, in the ‘Index medicamentorum’ in de Gorter, Formulae medicinales. 78. As suggested in Henricus Buisen, Practyk der medicine, ofte Oeffenende geneeskunde, 4th ed. (Rotterdam: H. Kentlink, 1743), 1–11. 79. De Gorter, Morbi epidemii; de Gorter, Doorgaande ziekten, 22. 80. According to de Gorter, his publisher requested a reprint, but he first wanted to improve and elaborate on the text; de Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili, [‘Preface’]. 81. De Gorter, Medicinae compendium, vol. 2, 215.

CHAPTER 13

Santorio’s Influence on the Dietetics of Carl Linnaeus Luciana Costa Lima Thomaz

1   A Work to Be Kissed Hippocrates, Celsus, Hoffman, Boerhaave et 600 alii have written rather much about dietetics […] but for me no-one but Sanctorius has written, [and] I kiss his book.1

With this sentence, which opens the manuscript Diaeta naturalis, Linnaeus effusively expresses his admiration for Santorio’s Ars de statica medicina (hereafter Medicina statica) without, however, offering much explanation as to the reasons compelling him to make such an impassionate statement. In this paper I will explore these reasons by considering Linnaeus’ studies on dietetics as built around the relations between man and his environment (or, in more classical terms, between nomos and physis) in their physiological and pathological unfolding. As a classical issue of inquiry as well as a conditioning factor of the ways of life, dietetics played

L. C. L. Thomaz (*) Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Barry, F. Bigotti (eds.), Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614–1790, Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79587-0_13

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an important part in the writing of Linnaeus, especially so in the Diaeta naturalis and its successor, Lachesis naturalis. These works consider the way in which individuals ought to manage their lives from a physiological perspective and direct their actions righteously. Regulating people’s lifestyle, these works offered a series of rules as to how avoid suffering in their old age the consequences of careless actions undertaken in their youth.2 In order to unravel the relationship between Linnaean dietetics and Santorio’s Medicina statica, I first analyse the development of Linnaeus’ medical thinking and how this affected his approach to Santorio’s work. I then discuss how Santorio is presented in the Diaeta naturalis and in the Lachesis naturalis. I finally move to consider, however briefly, the force of attraction as a consequence of effluvia, as expressed in Linnaean dietetics and I examine a dissertation on perspiratio insensibilis written by one of Linnaeus’ pupils under the guidance of the then mature professor at the University of Uppsala as an example of the long-lasting influence that Santorio exerted on Linnaeus. Finally, I consider the influence of Santorio’s aphorisms as a literary frame adopted by Linnaeus to present his findings.

2   On the Development of Carl Linnaeus’ Medical Thinking 2.1  Ancient and Modern Sources Widely regarded as the greatest classifier of botany, with his work Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) permanently transformed the taxonomy of living beings. Linnaeus’ system of classification allowed, because of its clarity and effectiveness, scholars from any background to recognize and classify organisms.3 From early on Linnaeus was introduced to all types of natural species by his father in Stenbrohult. After studying with Johann Stensson Rothman (1684–1763), however, he opted for medical studies, even though his family had expected him to follow the footsteps of his father, a clergyman.4 Rothman was a doctor of the district of Växjö as well as natural history professor at the local gymnasium. Even before beginning his formal medical studies Linnaeus had early access to several medical works pointed out by Rothman, the most influential being Institutiones medicae (1708) by Hermann Boerhaave (1668–1738).5 Rothman had studied with Boerhaave

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in Leiden and, according to Albert Johan Boerman, Linnaeus’ early notes—most notably in the Diaeta naturalis—reflect Boerhaavian teachings about Hippocratic diaetetics and therapeutics.6 It was via Boerhaave’s Institutiones medicae that Linnaeus’ first came in contact with the work of Santorio. Boerhaave’s influence would be consolidated later by Linnaeus’ departure to Leiden to follow the lectures of the Europae praeceptor, after obtaining his medical degree. Beyond being a mentor, Boerhaave would also generously introduce Linnaeus to an important circle of Dutch botanists and become a correspondent of his former student until his death.7 Early in his medical studies,8 Linnaeus selected works by key medical figures, cataloguing them under headings (i.e. ‘Anatomy and Physiology’, ‘Pathology’, ‘Practice’, ‘Botany’, ‘Mineralogy’, ‘Zoology’, ‘Natural History’, ‘Dietetics’, ‘Surgery’ and ‘Hyperphysiology’) which were then published in the Bibliotheca medica (1728), a guide to the ‘initial stage of Linnaeus’ medical thought’. Among the references we find Hippocrates (c. 460–c. 370 BC), Daniel Sennert (1572–1637), Thomas Willis (1621–1675), Thomas Sydenham (1624–1689), Friedrich Hoffmann (1660–1742) and, as mentioned, Herman Boerhaave. 9 Linnaeus read also older books on natural history, including those of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–1535) and Levinus Lemnius (1505–1568). These same authors appeared in his early medical references, under the Hyperphisiologia heading. Historians have considered the presence of such works as demonstrating Linnaeus’ inclination to use ancient sources.10 In 1732 Linnaeus made an important trip to Lapland in which he had the opportunity to study the local population, called Sami, and which greatly impacted on his later conception of dietetics. The Sami’s society and their harmonious relationship to the environment was often described by Linnaeus as a perfect dietary lifestyle which he contrasted with the European habits, far removed from contact with nature.11 He will subsequently refer back to the ‘Laplanders’ ideal of life’ in several works. His interest in the intersection between nature, physiological and pathological factors in the human body is witnessed in his dissertation to obtain his medical degree (1735), submitted to Johannes de Gorter (1689–1762), who was then professor of medicine at Harderwijk University, a scholar famous for replicating Santorio’s experiments.12 This was the Dissertatio medica inauguralis in qua exhibetur hypothesis nova de febrium intermittentium causa, which considered the course of intermittent fevers and their causes. Linnaeus attributed the cause of these fevers to the ingestion

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of muddy waters, as described in Hippocrates’ Airs, Waters and Places, and in the Aphorisms.13 The ingestion of these waters would cause the blockage of a fundamental function in the human organism, namely sweating. Most notably Linnaeus ascribes the evil effect of the muddy waters in the organism to transpiratione scilicet impedita (‘impaired perspiration’).14 He backs up this claim with several references to Hippocrates and above all to Boerhaave’s Institutiones medicae, insofar as the latter had pointed to the change in perspiration as the relevant pathological agent.15 In keeping with these early studies, it was inevitable for Linnaeus to appeal to Santorio in his dissertation. Linnaeus quotes a passage from the fifth section of Santorio’s medical statics: Sudor semper est a causa violenta (V.3)16 while another quotation refers to food that increases perspiration (Lac recens, ova, lardum).17 This collection of ancient and modern authorities (e.g. Hippocrates, the iatrophysicists and contemporary authors) was a constant in Linnaeus’ style, both in natural historical and in medical writings. In his analysis of what Linnaeus considered as his greatest work in medicine, the Clavis medicinae duplex (1766), Gunnar Broberg provides an index of the sources of Linnaeus’ medicine arranged in three interconnected segments. The first concerns Renaissance philosophy which, according to Broberg, reveals Linnaeus’ preference for concepts connected with ‘natural principles’. An example of such an influence can be considered the quotations, in the örtabok, of the triadic principles Sulphur, Mercury and Salt, reflecting Linnaeus’ interest in Paracelsian medicine.18 The second source of influence was Hippocrates’ conception of health and illness, whereby the good relationship between man and the environment determines a healthy and longer life.19 The third set of influences consisted in Linnaeus’ borrowing from authors such as René Descartes (1596–1650), Friedrich Hoffmann and Hermann Boerhaave who promoted a concept of the human body as a ‘mechanical-hydraulic machine’. This influence is reflected in Linnaeus’ Clavis medicinae duplex, which begins with the emblematic statement that ‘The pneumatic-­ hydraulic machine of the BODY is regulated by LIFE’.20 As a medical authority, Santorio fits perfectly well into this latter set of sources, for he is regarded by Linnaeus as a solid example of how the human body can be studied from a mathematical perspective which, coupled with a strong iatromechanical agenda, soon became a landmark for early modern medicine.

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2.2  Following His Master’s Advice Linnaeus’ medical conceptions are often associated with those of his mentor Hermann Boerhaave.21 During his stay in Leiden, the young doctor had the opportunity to attend Boerhaave’s lectures and to develop a close relationship that will last until the latter’s death in 1738. Indeed, Boerhaave’s teaching was instrumental to Linnaeus’ iatromechanical understanding of the body.22 Most notably, Linnaeus followed his teacher’s conception of the ‘ideal physician’. According to Boerhaave, to truly understand the mechanisms by means of which health is maintained in an individual patient, a physician should systematically base his studies on geometry and mechanics and learn to observe the direct actions of simple elements of the body so as to finally deduce these mechanisms from their causes. Such inquiry should be continued through systematic dissections and vivisections in order to connect the results so obtained with the mechanical phenomena already studied. This rational system of investigation would provide the method to disclose those properties of the operations of the human body that are not fully clear.23 Similar steps should be followed in the study of organic fluids and also in the search for adequate therapy. 24 Boerhaave’s method begins with the empirical observation of natural phenomena as exhibited by individual bodies, and proceeds by continually comparing the data thus obtained, following the Baconian analysis, according to which the observation and description of the phenomena is absolutely necessary for a good medical practice. Boerhaave stresses that the results of such investigations should be expressed in clear and solid arguments and in such a manner that other scholars can comprehend and replicate the results.25 Hence, in his training and practice, the ideal physician should aim at scrutinizing consistent information, acquired through observation as recorded by other authors. The touchstone for selecting potential sources in a complete review of the literature would be represented by those authors who provided their analyses with maximum clarity, offering descriptions of phenomena as they occur in nature, written in a simple manner, and without additions or omissions.26 According to Boerhaave, anything that meets these criteria is clear, true and eternally valid, and the consequences inferred from them have ‘geometric’—that is mathematical—certainty.27 Like Boerhaave, Linnaeus deeply valued the relevant contributions carried

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out before him all the while connecting them with contemporary knowledge. Reading classic medical texts together with observation in medical practice would lead the doctor to an appropriate deduction about the clinical status of his patients. This premise helps us to explain Linnaeus’ strong connection with Santorio’s Medicina statica. The reading of Santorio’s experiments, with their minutiae in the description of signs and symptoms, and the precision with which he performed his statical experiments in medicine, evoked in Linnaeus Boerhaave’s praecepts, so that he could compose his own dietetics on foundations that were grounded on mathematical principles, clearly described, and capable of being repeated by other scholars. To Linnaeus Santorio was, above all, an author who could help him, in keeping with Boerhaave’s advice, to become an ‘ideal physician’. Furthermore, from the practical viewpoint of Linnaeus’ medical training, Boerhaave provided his student with the theoretical underpinnings to understand Santorio’s studies on medical statics and the function of perspiratio insensibilis. Boerhaave’s Institutiones medicae and Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis morbis, outlined the importance of keeping the balance of perspiration in order to maintain a good health. Boerhaave’s Institutiones medicae, in particular, includes a section named Sanctoriana perspiratio featuring seven topics on the qualities of the perspiration along with the description of skin pores, discovered by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1732) in 1676, the way in which perspiration allows the body to keep its balance, how it could be affected by exercise and sleep, transformed into sweat in hot weather, and how it could weaken a person when perspired matter was exhaled excessively.28 In his Aphorisms, Boerhaave demonstrates how impeded perspiration is a relevant pathological factor in the formation of plethora and rheumatism as well as in the genesis of gangrenes, and in smallpox.29 Boerhaave identifies the cause of impeded perspiration in the obstruction of the pores of the skin which affects the circulation of the fluids, thus resulting in distempers.30 For Boerhaave, as for Linnaeus, Santorio’s medical statics was an example of a well-structured study showing how periodic measurements of the body could offer a simple and clear explanation of how the relevant bodily mechanisms occur, especially in association with changes in the dietary regime and variations of temperature. Italian iatromechanicists like Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608–1679), Francesco Redi (1626–1697) and Lorenzo Bellini (1643–1703), and also Marcello Malpighi (1628–1694) known for their mathematical accuracy in describing the functioning of

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the human body, featured prominently in Boerhaave’s orations as examples of the application of the scientific method to the economy of the human body.

3   Santorio in Linnaeus’ Dietetic 3.1  ‘Diaeta naturalis’ on perspiratio insensibilis In 1741 Linnaeus was appointed to teach theoretical medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of Uppsala. One of the topics taught was dietetics, which covered the study of those actions by means of which individuals could prevent diseases, enjoy better health and achieve a longer life. Such studies reported the effects of nature on the six res non naturales: air; food/drink; exercise/rest; sleep/wakefulness; secretion/excretion; mental affections. To these factors, Santorio added venere, the study of sexual activity from the point of view of medical statics. This insight was later reworked by Linnaeus in the aphorisms of the Diaeta naturalis. The writing of this work begun in 1733, so it gives us an important indication of how Linnaeus’ ideas developed early in his medical career. Articulated in eight parts, Diaeta naturalis is arranged into 136 aphorisms. The structure of Diaeta naturalis consists mostly of rules and its scholia ordered according to Linnaeus’ own logical criteria. The work is provided with an index of the sources out of which Linnaeus extracted the basic tenets of his dietary aphorisms: zoology, the discoveries of natural scientists and the iatrophysicists, the New and Old Testaments, as well as the medical statics of Santorio and James Keill (1673–1719).31 It also offered Linnaeus the opportunity to develop his conceptions in dietetics, established during his trip to Lapland. As highlighted earlier, Linnaeus identified in the Sami’s way of life a dietary ideal to be achieved as, in his view, the Sami ‘lived longer and rarely became ill’.32 In the first pages of the Diaeta naturalis, Linnaeus writes that health was wanting in his days,33 because people were gradually neglecting their dietetic rules.34 In several emphatic passages35 Linnaeus advises his readers to take health care measures from early on in their life so as to avoid future regrets for, otherwise, not even Hippocrates, Asclepius, or ‘the panacea of ​​Heraclitus’ could free them from illness and death.36 Linnaeus considers that, in order to live a good life, man ought to observe how animals live. And for this, he formulates two correlated

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aphorisms, remembering that men are animals and therefore must live as such.37 Linnaeus recalls the close relationship of the human being to the monkeys, so he ought to observe how these animals lived: ‘If you want to live long, live as an animal of your family; no-one is as close a cousin as the monkey, learn to live from the [willa] monkey and you shall live’.38 He observes how, in general, his fellow men lived less well, the great exception to this rule being the aforementioned example of the Sami.39 Throughout his work, Linnaeus refers to the authors who helped him to develop his dietetics, many of whom were directly related to the study of perspiratio insensibilis. Apart from Galen (129–c. 216) he included authors who had re-enacted and performed the experiments of Santorio as well as those who had published commentaries on Medicina statica. These include: George Cheyne (1671–1743); Andreas Johannes Rüdiger (1673–1731); Martin Lister (1638–1711) and his mentor at Harderwijk University, Johannes de Gorter.40 The presence of these authors, as well as the interest of Linnaeus in the subject, highlights the importance of the study of the phenomenon of perspiratio insensibilis for the medicine of the time. As Lucia Dacome has argued, by the middle of the eighteenth century medical statics had become an authoritative tool necessary for physicians to understand what conditions could lead to greater or lesser perspiration and so ensure health and longevity. As the greatest authority on the subject, Santorio logically constituted a reference for those concerned with the phenomenon. This applied equally to the young Linnaeus. Edward Tobias Renbourn’s historical survey of perspiratio insensibilis has detailed how the emission of bodily effluvia became an object of study and speculation in classical medicine. Besides the writings of Empedocles and Hippocrates, the idea of sympathetic communication between the lungs and skin pores could also be found in Plato’s Timaeus.41 Galen expanded the idea that exhalatio is the ‘main cause of health’,42 an expression that Linnaeus quotes literally in his Diaeta naturalis. Renbourn shows also that in the eighteenth century the question of pores obstruction causing the suppresson of insensible perspiration was still regarded as one of the main causes in the onset of diseases. Environmental temperature and sweating were taken into account for both the simultaneous affection (or ‘sympathies’) of distant and the contiguous organs alike.43 And because insensible perspiration was so important for a proper functioning of the body, especially in chronic diseases, so-called heat regimes44 were prescribed in order for the pores not to be obstructed and for the

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superfluous matter to be eliminated via perspiration, thus restoring the body’s balance.45 In the aphorisms of the Diaeta naturalis, and especially in aphorism15, Linnaeus recognises the value of Santoro’s precepts. Linnaeus equates Harvey and Santorio as authoritative sources, echoing Giorgio Baglivi (1668–1707) in paralleling the importance of Harvey’s discovery of blood circulation to Santorio’s studies of perspiration for dietitians.46 He then concludes that nothing could be compared to the findings made by these two authors.47 Indeed, of all the authors given as references, Santorio appears most prominently in Diaeta naturalis, being quoted on 28 out of the total 215 pages,48 with approximately 60 direct or indirect citations taken from the Medicina statica.49 Additionally, as mentioned earlier, Santorio appears on what would have been the title page of Linnaeus’ planned publication of Diaeta Naturalis while his copy of Medicina Statica (1647) shows the extent of his commitment to assimilating Santorio’s praecepts (Fig. 13.1).50

Fig. 13.1  Linnaeus’ copy of Santorio’s Medicina statica (1647). (Courtesy of the Uppsala University Library ‘Caterina Rediviva’)

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3.2  The Ars De Statica Medicina in ‘Diaeta naturalis’ Summum sanitatis praesidium in perspiratione consistit. So reads the fifteenth aphorism of Linnaeus’ Diaeta naturalis. In the scholium of this rule, Linnaeus explains in a didactic and succinct way Santorio’s experiments using as reference the Sanctorian aphorisms themselves, which are annotated in the form of ‘section number in Statica medicina § aphorism number in Statica medicina’. Santorio is also praised in another aphorism of Linnaeus, namely aphorism fiftytwo, where Linnaeus states that health can be maintained even in old age if the individual is able to keep a constant weight during the four seasons of the year.51 Most of the references to Santorio are strategically positioned to corroborate Linnaeus’ own dietary principles or aphorisms. The first section of Medicina statica (which agitur de ponderatione insensibilis perspirationis) is the most cited, with 11 aphorisms quoted out of Santorio’s 140 in that section. This is the section where Santorio presents the basis for his experimentation on the perspiratio insensibilis, so clarifying to the young Linnaeus the several variables affecting perspiration and the way to measure them. From this same section, Linnaeus builds a series of rules and advices congruent with what Santorio considered to be the principal cause of the onset of disease. Since insensible perspiration (exhalatio) was greater in quantity than any sensible one,52 knowledge about it would ensure efficacy in dietetics and, consequently, the potential for therapeutic intervention. Although Linnaeus was clearly interested in how the quality of waters affects the human organism, as his first medical dissertation shows, the second section of Medicina statica (De are et aquis) is cited only four times, probably because at this stage Linnaeus was still relying on Hippocratic ideas about the effects of air and water on health. However, the third section of Santorio’s Medicina statica (De cibo et potu), is frequently cited in Diaeta naturalis53 to exemplify Linnaeus’ concern for proper nutrition. Linnaeus quotes Santorio’s aphorisms on the quantity,54 variety55 and types of meat56 required for a healthy diet, the way of cooking them and more appropriate feeding times to provide a more effective perspiration. With regard to a regular food regimen, Linnaeus extracts rules such as:

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You should eat to strengthen yourself and not to overload your stomach. (Aphorism 28)57 Qui comedit magis quam oportet, alitur minus quam oportet (Santorio III. 54) Those who eat too much or too little gradually destroy their bodies. (Aphorism 29)58 […] si natura posset digerere 100 libras edulii, et exporrigentur 99, animal proptera cursu temporis destrueretur. (Santorio III. 40) Dum per diaetam corpus reducitur ad pondus minus suo salubri minori, quod amittit de robore est irreparabile. (Santorio III. 33) Bonae valetudinis pestis est comedere ante cibi praecedentis concoctionem. (Santorio III. 105) Illa cibi quantitas est saluberrima, dum a cibo corpus suis negotiis eadem agilitate vacat, ac si esset jejunium. (Santorio III. 36) Do not eat meat if the vegetable is sufficient. (Aphorism 37)59 Minus quam lactuca nutriet caro pulli, si de carne ea copia edatur ut in liquidarum faecum corruptelam exeat. (Santorio III. 31) Homogeneous foods should be eaten at the same time; mixing different things is harmful. (Aphorism 38)60 Tria mala eveniunt ob ciborum varietatem; nimium comeditur, minus coquitur et minus perspiratur. (Santorio III. 51) From food sleep, from sleep digestion, from digestion very easy transpiration. (Aphorism 56)61 Ille vere longaevus, qvi qvotidie bene concoqvit et digerit, coctio fit somno et qviete, digestio vigilia et exercitio. (Santorio IV. 63)

The fourth section of Medicina statica, dealing with sleep and wakefulness and its relations to perspiration, was also explored by Linnaeus. His aphorism: ‘Sleep should be sufficient. Those who sleep, are perspiring

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twice as much’62 is based on Santorio’s aphorism IV.52.63 In discussing his aphorism 56 (Somnus meridianus insolitis nocet; adsuetis naturalis est), Linnaeus refers to Santorio’s aphorisms 38 and 43, and cites ‘verbatim’ number IV.64 (‘Somnus meridianus insolitus viscera omnia laedit, hebeatque perspirationem’).64 Following the order of the six non-naturals adready adopted by Santorio, Linnaeus prescribes: ‘You ought to periodically move the entire body within one third of the day’ (Diaeta naturalis, Aph. 55) a rule abstracted from Medicina statica V.16.65 Nine verbatim citations from this fifth section (De exercitio et quiete) are also used in the Diaeta naturalis, starting from rule 16.66 In his 16th aphorism, Motus faciles et interpositos ad tertiam diei partem instituta, Linnaeus refers to Santorio’s aphorisms V.8, 19 and 33, sometimes in the original Latin and some others in Swedish. Regarding the effects of sexual intercourse on insensible perspiration, detailed in the sixth section of Santorio’s Medicina statica, Linnaeus quotes only one aphorism Coitus juvat excitatus a natura: [a] mente, mentem et memoriam laedit (VI.35).67 This is used as an argument in Linnaeus’ rule 8968 which says that wives should be healthy, young, fun, hilarious and beautiful. But Linnaeus points to Santorio’s aphorism 35, marked with the adjective ‘beautiful’, noting contra theologos. With this note Linnaeus is probably referring back to the importance of preserving a youthful and attractive appearance between spouses, in order to have a healthy sexual relationship, something that was not valued among theologians. On this same rule 89, Linnaeus also cites aphorism 198 of Keill’s Medicina statica Britannica, discussed below, and refers also to King David, possibly due to the latter’s long succession of marriages in the Old Testament. The aphorisms concerning the affections of the soul in the seventh section of Santorio’s Medicina statica are not mentioned very often by Linnaeus. But four of Santorio’s aphorisms are related to Linnaeus’ rule 64, which recommends that deep speculation should be done in order to increase the volume of the brain.69 Linnaeus immediately adopts Santorio’s suggestion, noting that study keeps the individual away from excessive and abrupt emotions such as those caused by dice games. Another aphorism cited by Linnaeus establishes the relation between peace of mind and longevity; according to Linnaeus, once sadness diminishes, lifespan increases.70 This is reinforced by Linnaeus’ rule 65, about the danger of sudden and violent passions.71 These rules recall Santorio’s aphorisms that relate emotions such as anger, sadness, and excessive joy to the emission of insensible bodily effluvia.72

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Overall then, although Linnaeus did not, like his mentor De Gorter and others, replicate Santorio’s experiments on perspiratio insensibilis, he used Medicina statica to support his own precepts in dietetics. The pervasive presence of Santorio’s work as reference in this writing demonstrates the young doctor’s tendency, whether in medicine or in other branches of natural history, to observe and compile the results of particular observations in order to convert them into general rules on which other scholars could ground their own research. 3.3  ATTRATRIX VIS As an important follower and interpreter of Santorio’s principles, James Keill (1673–1719) was also a major source for Linnaeus. Keill was part of a circle of British iatromechanists which included his older brother John (1671–1721), Archibald Pitcairne (1652–1713), George Cheyne (1671–1743), John Freind (1675–1728) and Richard Mead (1673–1754). These scholars produced a number of works relating Newton’s mechanical principles to chemistry and physiology.73 Keill’s interpretation of Santorio’s Medicina statica highlighted the relationship between perspiratio insensibilis and attraction between bodies, and Linnaeus used Keill’s ideas in Diaeta naturalis where Keill is often cited in comparison with Santorio. Linnaeus systematically compares the results of Keill’s Tentamina medicophysica (1718) with Santorio’s original text, mostly pointing out the passages where the English author had gone against Santorio’s findings. An example is a passage in which Linnaeus cites aphorism I. 12 of Santorio’s Medicina statica74: Non possunt simul stare multa perspiratio et multa, solitoque major, sensibilis evacuatio. Linnaeus then notes Keill negat.75 Then in the last third of his own scholium to aphorism 15 of Diaeta naturalis, Linnaeus quotes seven aphorisms of Keill76 on the movement and temperatures to which the bodies may be subjected (e.g. feeding times of the day and their relations to greater or smaller perspiration) but then he adds in the margin the note: errat forte auctor (‘the author is possibly mistaken’) and points out Santorio’s original aphorisms denoting the opposite of what Keill argues. In his 1970 study of Lachesis naturalis and Nemesis divina, Karl Robert V. Wikman notes Linnaeus’ interest in the power of attraction between bodies, giving examples concerning sympathy, attraction and magnetism: magnetic influence of iron, contagious diseases, mutual attraction in generation, appetites in gestation, blemishes during birth and even the kiss of

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lovers. In Diaeta naturalis, Linnaeus speaks about magnetism as a wonderful phenomenon77 but explores the idea that the power of attraction may perhaps be communicated to all bodies: ‘an attratrix vis communicata in omnibus corporibus?’78 In another passage he states: ‘everything has its own exhalations’79 and throughout the Diaeta naturalis he identifies exhalations as a phenomenon not exclusive to human beings. Indeed metals emanate exhalations that can be harmful to the human body, as Linnaeus recalls in his aphorism 4480 citing Erik Odhelius (1661–1704).81 Both in Diaeta naturalis and in Lachesis naturalis Linnaeus connects the power of attraction between bodies through exhalations, to his reading of Keill’s Tentamina medico-physica. One notable example is Linnaeus’ above-mentioned aphorism 89 in Diaeta naturalis: Conjux sit sana, juveniles, hilaris, formosa. To develop the idea that spouses ought to remain attractive throughout the marriage, Linnaeus quotes Keill’s aphorism 198: The attraction of naked bodies is great and strong, even under their own covers, …; they warm themselves not only by giving warmth to each other, but also by the hot exhalation of perspiration, as if it were a mist. When much of life is spent in this way by unions, it is not surprising that bodies united communicate their qualities to one another. An ardent desire is propagated by this society. Through it, the liquid that flows from the crooked groin hurts the sore with venereal disease; through it, the warm youth rebuilds old age; by her [scil. society] the girl full of health, next to the old dry, loses strength and languishes.82

During the eighteenth century, physical contact between two individuals was regarded as a solution to some illnesses, since a ‘sympathetic’ exchange of healthy vapours between them via insensible perspiration was postulated. Some writers maintained the very old belief that a very weakened, or ‘cachectic’ man could benefit from intercourse with younger girls, since they would transmit already suppressed vapours to older, debilitated individuals. 83 Linnaeus addresses sympathy in aphorism 111 of his Diaeta naturalis: Sympathia forte a sensu aliquo nobis destitutis.84 This aphorism can be interpreted in two ways. The first interpretation reads sensus as ‘reason’, with Linnaeus suggesting that in the absence of rational explanations of a phenomenon, we could use sympathy. He observes that action at a distance was something he could not explain, but could nevertheless observe.85 However, the second way to interpret sensus is as signifying ‘the

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five senses’ of the human body, so that the aphorism might be construed as meaning that, in the absence of the testimony provided by the five senses, we could postulate a certain sympathy between the phenomena. This is more likely what Linnaeus meant, since this aphorism is placed in a sequence of others regarding the five senses.86 However, whichever interpretation we adopt, in the Diaeta naturalis Linnaeus is not concerned with the phenomenon of sympathy in a mechanical manner, for he does not even mention the possibility of an action at a distance related to particles or effluvia.87 3.4  Santorio in the ‘Lachesis naturalis’ Linnaeus’ best-known dietary text, Lachesis naturalis, may be considered as a continuation of the Diaeta naturalis and, like its predecessor, it addresses important passages of Santorio’s Medicina statica. In particular, Linnaeus emphasizes the importance of physiological perspiration in a section entitled Transspiratio [sic] vel perspiratio88 where Santorio is recalled by Linnaeus as a man whose health and long life was due to his 30 years’ experimentation.89 As in Diaeta naturalis, Linnaeus cites a list of authors associated with medical statics to emphasize Santorio’s importance in the history of medicine. Noting Ippolito Obizzi’s criticisms of Santorio, he then mentions the Diaeta eruditorium of Andreas Johannes Rüdiger, James Keill and his experiments in Great Britain, Johannes de Gorter and Denis Dodart (1634–1707), who had performed experiments in medical statics for 20 years.90 After this list, Linnaeus stresses the importance of the preservation of weight in ensuring a long lifespan91 substantiating his claims with nineteen other aphorisms extracted from Santorio’s Medicina statica (namely sections I, II, III, IV and VII). Following this sequence of aphorisms, James Keill is then compared with Santorio, but unlike the Diaeta naturalis, Keill here is not accused of making ‘mistakes’.92 On the contrary, Linnaeus presents Keill’s theoretical approach to attraction as no less important than Santorio’s theories on perspiration.93 He suggested that perspiration was related to the functions of the lungs and the pores.94 He also embraced the therapeutic power of attraction, recounting stories in which sick and old people coming into contact with young and healthy ones, gained new energy for life.95 Linnaeus himself took advantage of this therapeutic use of attraction as the notes taken by his medical students at Uppsala96 report him mentioning

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his own experience with his little sister who was affected by smallpox. To alleviate her symptoms, Linnaeus placed her body within the body of a sheep that had just been slaughtered and the presence of effluvia, still in the animal’s body, provoked her quick healing.97 These notes also record Linnaeus discussing the influence of ambient temperature on the opening of the pores of the skin along with the negative influence of overfeeding or overheating on attraction related to transpiration from the skin and the capacity of the lungs to attract the air98 and hence on perspiration. He also briefly mentions some factors that can increase electricity, in a clear attempt to correlate perspiration with the power of attraction.99 3.5  Dissertatio Physiologica de Perspiratione Insensibili It is also worth studying the dissertations of Linnaeus’ pupils, as the eighteenth-­century practice was that pupils were only requested to have a sufficient mastery of Latin, while the content of their theses had simply to reflect the letter of their master’s teachings. On November 15, 1775, Nicolas Avellan, a student of Linnaeus, defended his dissertation on insensible perspiration. Under the guidance of his mentor, Avellan reviews the scholarship on the subject from Hippocrates to Santorio. Santorio’s experimentation is well-represented, especially where the discussion falls on the proportions of the excreted matter in rapport to different climates, seasons and bodily temperaments. The discovery of insensible perspiration is traced partially to the ancient Methodic School of medicine and the idea that perspirable matter derives from blood, from the middle layer of red arteries100 which upon reaching the surface of the skin, becomes smaller and exhales the mild, aqueous and odoriferous temperaments, through certain orifices (oscula). However, the account also mentions other channels (i.e. lungs, mouth, nose) by means of which perspirable matter can exhale, as demonstrated by Leeuwenhoek’s investigations.101 Particular attention is devoted to the suppression of insensible perspiration as a pathological factor.102 The fifth section offers a mechanical explanation as to how different pathologies arise when insensible perspiration is prevented. According to Linnaeus, the symptoms of suppressed transpiration are quite severe: increased urination volume and abdominal oedema. If these symptoms don’t occur, then fever and a change in the mental state may occur, caused by a ‘retention’ of bad humours within the body eventually resulting in internal putrefaction.

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This clinical picture is due to an imbalance in contraction and relaxation in blood vessels and in the ‘friction between solids and liquids’ in the body.103 Just like Santorio had done before, Avellan’s dissertation cites the various types of inflammatory diseases caused by the suppression of perspired matter: pleuritis, pneumonia, rheumatism, odontalgia, coughs, coryza, cholera, diarrhoea, cachexia, hydropsy.104 Santorio equally appears in other dissertations of Linnaeus’ students. In Diaeta acidularis, Santorio is quoted with regard to an acidifying diet and the importance of good sleep in the preservation of health.105 Insensible perspiration also features prominently in the dissertations De varia febrium intermittentium curatione, Medicamenta purgantia,106 and, with regard to the relationship between respiratory function and good health, in Respiratio diaetetica.107 These works show that, in his later days, Linnaeus continued to reflect on the role of insensible perspiration and medical statics indicating Santorio as an authoritative reference for his disciples, which testifies how Santorio’s influence lasted throughout his career.

4   Linked by Aphorisms An aspect of this influence worth noting is the adoption of the same concise form to present their observations and experiments. Aphorisms were chosen by early modern scholars for their clarity and conciseness, making them the best way to communicate their observations108 and Roger French has noted that eighteenth-century physicians continued to use aphorisms as a way to grant exactness to the notions they extracted from experience and observation, especially when referring to practical medicine.109 Aphorisms were also chosen as a way of organizing basic rules for dietetics, because they could be read as canons that would help physicians in their practice to communicate in an incisive and easy-tomemorize way. Although aphorisms had been used in medicine since Hippocrates, they remained part of a living scientific agenda. To explain Linnaeus’ predilection for this genre we can recall his interest in Renaissance medicine.110 Most notably, Santorio’s Medicina statica, whose chapters followed closely the sequence of the sex res non naturales and are written in aphorisms, offered to Linnaeus the conceptual order he needed to reflect on his own dietetics. Furthermore, aphorisms convey an encapsulated message in small and often enumerated paragraphs, with cross-­referencing being part of their narrative structure.111 As a

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consequence, Linnaeus could regard the aphoristic genre as a method of writing instrumental to his intended reformation of natural history which makes sense of his claim that this field had to be treated ‘aphoristically’.112 As Staffan Müller-Wille and Isabelle Charmantier have argued, Linnaeus made use of lists as instruments of knowledge organisation and even adopted particular ‘writing technologies’ to record his thoughts because these were an important key for understanding nature. Thus notes and records had an important part in the constitution of his taxonomic method.113 Linnaeus’ concise style, with a spatial organization of the works he refers to, is remarkable in its own right. Therefore, in the light of Linnaeus’ method, aphorisms condensed a large number of ideas in a small space, thus representing a conceptual instrument which is integral to the naturalist’s need to collect, present and share new ideas in a compelling way. Linnaeus’ best-known aphoristic writings are found in two botanical works: Fundamenta botanica (1736) and its extension, Philosophia botanica (1751).114 Han-Liang Chang, in his study of Linnaeus’ aphorisms in botany, recognizes that this style prevailed in mid-eighteenth-­ century medicine, examining in particular the example of Boerhaave and Christian Gottlieb Ludwig (1709–1773) and suggests that Linnaeus may have imitated Boerhaave’s style.115 This fact can be seen as an example of transmission of knowledge, not only with regard to the theoretical content but also to the way of expressing a certain doctrine. Aphorisms approximated the eighteenth-century need to expose natural philosophy and, by extension, medicine with mathematical precision. Broberg has developed this very idea in one of his studies on Linnaeus’ medicine: aphorisms would be rightly situated between mathematical axioms and poetic metaphors. He argues that aphorisms in medicine had the power of associating the art of living and all knowledge that could be memorized. Aphorisms were written not only to be tested experimentally, but also to provide wisdom for life,116 both of which Linnaeus could easily find in the aphorisms of Santorio’s Medicina statica.

5   Conclusions There cannot be any doubt that Linnaeus was an admirer of Santorio’s work, for this formed the foundations of his very concept of dietetics, which this chapter has explored. This admiration was so profound that Santorio’s Medicina statica became a landmark for Linnaeus during and

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for many years after his medical education, as Linnaeus himself educated other doctors. In keeping with Boerhaave’s example, Linnaeus relied on Santorio’s canonical work to weave his own understanding of the economy of the human body. He eventually adopted the same form to summarize dietetic rules and then closely interpreted Santorio’s aphorisms in the construction of his dietetics, which, as Linnaeus programmatically states in the opening remarks of the Diaeta naturalis, is based on the observation of human cases, plants, animals and ultimately on nature itself. In the end, however, the communalities between Santorio and Linnaeus lay deeper than a simple, however great, influence; they were grounded on their common vision of nature whereby the within and the without, the excess and the defect, old and new concepts balanced harmoniously, so as to support the preservation of both life and scholarship.

Notes 1. Carl Linnaeus, Diaeta Naturalis, 1733, edited by Arvid Hjalmar Uggla (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1958), 16. 2. Ibid., 17. 3. Gunnar Broberg, “The Greatest Jewel in Medicine,” in Clavis Medicinae Duplex: The Two Keys of Medicine, edited by Lars Hansen, Bengt I. Lindskog and Bengt Jonsell (Munich: IK Foundation & Co, 2012), 7–8. 4. Dietrich Heinrich Stoever, Life of Sir Charles Linnaeus (London: E. Hobson, 1794), 7–9; Theodor Magnus Fries, Linnaeus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 15; Richard Pulteney and Carl Troilius, A General View of the Writings of Linnaeus (London: J. Mawman, 1805), 32; Carl Linnaeus, Linnaeus’ Notebook From 1725: The Very First Writings, edited by Torbjörn Lindell (Munich: IK Foundation & Co, 2007), 10, 22. 5. Albert Johan Boerman, “Linnaeus and the Scientific Relations Between Holland and Sweden,” Svenska Linnésällskapets Årsskrift, 18, (1978): 43–56, 45; Linnaeus’ Notebook, 22. 6. Boerman, “Linnaeus,” 45. 7. Ibid., 48–9. 8. Linnaeus began his medical studies in Lund between 1727 and 1728, and then completed his training at Uppsala, where he remained from 1728 to 1735. 9. Two hundred and fifteen books are listed in Carl Linnaeus, Bibliotheca Medica, edited by Telemak Fredbärj (Ekenäs: Ekenäs Tryckeri Aktiebolag, 1956).

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10. Arthur James Cain, ‘Was Linnaeus a Rosicrucian?,” The Linnean, 8, no. 3 (1992): 23–44, 27–8. 11. Lisbet Koerner, Linnaeus: Nature and Nation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 75. 12. See Vervaal’s chapter in this volume for De Gorter’s own work on Santorio, published as De perspiratione insensibili Sanctoriana-Batava tractatus experimentis propriis in Hollandia (Leiden: J. vander Aa, 1725). 13. Hippocrates. ‘Traité des Airs, des Eaux et des Lieux’ in Oeuvres Complètes, vol. 2 edited by Émile Littré (Amsterdam: Adolf Hakkert, 1978), 27. 14. ‘Perspiration certainly impeded’: Carl Linnaeus, Hypothesis nova de febrium intermittentium causa (M.D. diss., University of Harderwijk, 1735), 15. 15. In this case, both Linnaeus in his thesis and Boerhaave are referring to sweating or transpiration and not to perspiratio insensibilis. 16. Linnaeus, Hypothesis, 16. 17. Linnaeus cites, according to Santorio: fish, fresh milk, eggs and pickled meats: ibid., 17. 18. Broberg, “Greatest Jewel,” 8. 19. Ibid., 9. 20. Carl Linnaeus, Clavis medicinae duplex = The Two Keys of Medicine from a Swedish Translation, with Introduction and Commentary by Birger Bergh trans. by Peter Hogg, edited by Lars Hansen (London: The IK Foundation & Company, 2012), 115. The capitalisation is by Linnaeus. 21. Boerman, “Linnaeus,” 45. 22. See the discussion in Broberg, “Greatest Jewel,” 10. 23. Boerhaave’s Orations, edited by Elze Kegel-Brinkgreve and Antonie M. Luyendijk-Elshout (Leiden: Brill, 1983), 89. 24. On Boerhaave’s studies on chemical therapeutics see Ana M.  Alfonso-­ Goldfarb, Márcia H.M. Ferraz and Silvia Waisse, “Chemical Remedies in the 18th Century: Mercury and Alkahest,” Circumscribere, 7, (2009): 19–30; Ana M. Alfonso-Goldfarb and Marcia H.M. Ferraz, “Gur, Ghur, Guhr or Bur? The Quest for a Metalliferous Prime Matter in Early Modern Times,” British Journal for the History of Science, 46, no. 1 (2013): 23–37. 25. Boerhaave’s Orations, 96. 26. Ibid., 69. 27. Ibid. 28. Herman Boerhaave, Institutiones medicae (Paris: G.  Cavelier, 1735), 224–6. 29. Boerhaave’s Aphorisms: Concerning the Knowledge and Cure of Diseases (London: A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch, 1735), 30, 104, 383, 406–8, 416. 30. Boerhaave’s Orations, 92.

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31. Ibid., 11. 32. Linnaeus, Diaeta, 16. 33. Ibid., 14. 34. Ibid., 15. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid., 67–9, aphorisms 25 and 26: ‘Homo est animal, et ut animal suae sortis vivere oportet cultura enim fuit quae hominem a brutis adeo diversum fecit.’ and ‘Homo est animal et ut animal suae sortis vivere oportet.’ 39. Ibid., 16. 40. Ibid., 20–21. 41. Edward Tobias Renbourn, “The Natural History of Insensible Perspiration: A Forgotten Doctrine of Health and Disease”, Medical History, 4 (1960): 135–52; Plinio Prioreschi, A History of Medicine: Roman Medicine (Omaha: Horatius Press, 1996), 373. 42. Fabrizio Bigotti, “Mathematica Medica. Santorio and the Quest for Certainty in Medicine,” Journal of Healthcare Communications, 1, 4 (2016): 39–46. 43. Renbourn, “Natural History,” 138. 44. Ibid., 140. 45. Ibid., 142–145. 46. ‘Transpiratio’ according to Linnaeus. 47. Linnaeus, Diaeta, 54. 48. This page numbering refers to the 1958 edition. The original manuscript contains approximately 260 pages including the session ‘Varia’ in which the author writes on different subjects. 49. Linnaeus, Diaeta, 55. 50. Ibid., 10. 51. “Health continues into old age, almost irreproachable, if the body is kept for four years at the same weight.” Ibid., 103. 52. In aphorism 15, Linnaeus cites Santorio’s Medicina statica, I.4: “Perspiratio insensibilis sola solet esse longe plenior, quam omnes sensibiles simul unitae.” 53. Altogether, there are 16 quotations from this section. 54. Linnaeus, Diaeta, 70, ‘Illa cibi quantitas est saluberrima, dum a cibo corpus suis negotiis eadem agilitate vacat ac si esset jejunum.’ 55. Santorio, Ars de statica medicina et De responsione ad Staticomasticem (Leiden: D. Lopes de Haro, 1642), 38, ‘Tria mala eveniunt ob ciborum varietatem; nimium comeditur, minus coquitur et minus perspiratur.’ 56. Ibid., 60, ‘Ex usu carnis suillae et boletorum triente minus solito corpus magna ex parte perspirat.’

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57. Linnaeus, Diaeta, 71. 58. Ibid. Immediately below the enunciation of this aphorism, Linnaeus cites Santorio, Ars (1642), 64: ‘Si natura posset digerere centum libras edulii, et exporrigerentur nonaginta novem, animal propterea cursu temporis destrueretur.’ 59. Linnaeus, Diaeta, 80. 60. Ibid., 82. 61. Ibid., 106. This is Linnaeus’s modification of Santorio’s aphorism IV: 59. 62. Ibid., 107. 63. Santorio, Ars (1642), 81, ‘Dormiens septem horarum spatio occulte, salubriter et sine violentia perspirare solet duplo magis quam vigilans.’ 64. Ibid., 97. 65. As for exercising, Linnaeus cites the aphorisms 3; 6; 7; 8; 19; 33; 35; 36. 66. Ibid., 55, ‘Motus a pastu et pastus a motu nocet; quo remotiores meliores.’ 67. Aphorism 35 from the sixth section in Ibid., 116. 68. “May the spouse be sane, young, cheerful, beautiful.” Linnaeus, Diaeta, 143. 69. Rule 64, 117. But in rule 63, 116, Linnaeus states that dedication to studies should be restricted to a third of the day. 70. Rule 65, 117. For the development of his rule, Linnaeus cites aphorisms 6, 47 and 48 of the seventh session of Medicina statica (referring to affections of the soul). 71. Rule 66, 118. 72. According to Santorio, even positive emotions, if extreme, are not salutary, see Linnaeus, Diaeta, 65 a, b and c, which refers back to Santorio, Ars (1642), 118. 73. See Robert E.  Schofield, Mechanism and Materialism: British Natural Philosophy in an Age of Reason (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), 40–44. 74. This passage is found in the scholium of aphorism 15: Linnaeus, Diaeta, 53. 75. Ibid. 76. These are aphorisms 8, 11, 16, 20, 22, 25 and 43. They were extracted from James Keill, Tentamina medico-physica ad quasdam quaestiones quae oeconomiam animalem spectant, accomodata: Quibus accessit Medicina statica Britannica (London: G.  Strahan and W. and J.  Innys, 1718) according to the bibliography in Diaeta naturalis. 77. ‘Magnetismus rerum mirus.’ Linnaeus, Diaeta, 207. 78. Karl Wikman, “Lachesis and Nemesis: Four Chapters on the Human Condition in the Writings of Carl Linnaeus,” Scripta Instituti Donneriana Aboensis, 4 (1970). Linnaeus concludes that because metals have exhalations, foods should be cooked in glass pots. Ibid., 87.

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79. Ibid., 207. 80. Ibid. 81. Ericus Haquini Odhelius, Observationes chemico-metallurgicae circa ortum et effluvia metallorum (Brussels: s.n., 1687). 82. Linnaeus, Diaeta, 143. 83. Renbourn, “Natural History,” 142. 84. Linnaeus, Diaeta, 175. 85. Ibid. 86. Ibid., 168–74. 87. Concerning a third way of communicating sympathy, see Silvia Parigi, “Effluvia, Action at a Distance, and the Challenge of the Third Causal Model,” International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 29, 4 (2016): 351–68. 88. Linnaeus, Lachesis naturalis, in Linnés diætetik, på grundvalen af dels hans eget originalutkast till föreläsningar: Lachesis naturalis quæ tradit diætam naturalem, och dels lärjungeanteckningar efter dessa hans föreläsningar: edited by Axel Otto Lindfors (Uppsala: Uppsala University, 1907), 75. 89. Ibid. 90. Ibid. 91. Ibid., 76, ‘If the body is not preserved with the same weight, we do not feel well; thus teaches static’ and ‘If I ate for seven days, say 50 pounds of food, I should not increase the weight; then, if it happens, something will go to putrefaction or will be accumulated in fat.’ 92. See one example of this comparison in the following section. 93. Linnaeus, Lachesis, 83. 94. Ibid. 95. Ibid., 84. 96. ‘Kollegieanteckningar’ in Carl Linnaeus, Linnaeus Collegium Diaeteticum Eller Academiska Föreläsningar öfver Diaeten Af Carl Linnaeus, edited by Axel Otto Lindfors (Uppsala: Akad. Bogtryckeriet, 1907), 37. 97. Ibid. 98. Ibid., 36. 99. Ibid., 86, ‘Auget electricum: lagom kall, frisk, hurtig.’ 100. Nils Avellan, Dissertatio physiologica de perspiratione insensibilii (Uppsala: Edman, 1775), 4: ‘Ex arteriis rubris.’ 101. Ibid., 5. 102. This suppression could cause a series of symptoms that precede sickness like numbness, lethargy, weakness and restlessness. Ibid., 8. 103. Pehr Cornelius Tillaeus, De varia febrium intermittentium curatione (Uppsala: Edman, 1771), 13. 104. Ibid., 10. 105. Ericus Vigelius, Diaeta acidularis (Uppsala: s.n., 1761), 7.

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106. Johannes Rotheram, Medicamenta purgantia (Uppsala; J.  Edman, 1775), 22. 107. Jonas Ullholm, Respiratio diaetetica (Uppsala: Edman, 1772), 3. 108. Julian Martin notes that Giorgio Baglivi affirmed that aphorisms could be compared to a ‘safe road’ to surpass clinical difficulties: Julian Martin, “Sauvages’s Nosology: Medical Enlightenment in Montpellier,” in The Medical Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century, edited by Andrew Cunningham and Roger French, 111–137 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 117. 109. Roger K. French, “Sickness and the Soul: Stahl, Hoffman and Sauvages on Pathology,” in ibid., 88–110, 99. 110. See section 1:1 above. 111. Staffan Müller-Wille, “History Redoubled: The Synthesis of Facts in Linnean Natural History,” in Philosophies of Technology: Francis Bacon and his Contemporaries, edited by Claus Zittel, 515–538 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 519. 112. Broberg, “Greatest Jewel,” 17. 113. Staffan Müller-Wille and Isabelle Charmantier, “Lists as Research Technologies,” Isis, 103, no. 4 (December 2012): 743–52, 744. 114. Han-Liang Chang, “Calendar and Aphorism: A Generic Study of Carl Linnaeus’s Fundamenta Botanica and Philosophia Botanica,” in Languages of Science in the Eighteenth Century, edited by Britt-Louise Gunnarsson, 263–278 (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2017), 264. 115. Ibid., 267–9. 116. Broberg also identifies the Baconian and Boerhaavian heritage of Linnaeus’ aphorisms, see Broberg, “Greatest Jewel,” 50–1.

CHAPTER 14

Weighing Authority: Lavoisier’s and Séguin’s Reassessment of Santorio’s Experiments on Transpiration Francesca Antonelli

1   Lavoisier’s Chemical Education and Medicine Eighteenth-century chemistry is intimately connected with pharmacy and medicine. However, the case of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743–1794) shows that during the second half of the century chemical research could also take place beyond the influence of both the medical faculties and the pharmaceutical guilds. Indeed, despite the effort to contextualize his work on respiration and transpiration within the medical tradition,1 Lavoisier had no specific background either in medicine or in pharmacy.

I thank Madeline McMahon for reading the draft of this paper and revising my English in February 2018. F. Antonelli (*) University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Barry, F. Bigotti (eds.), Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614–1790, Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79587-0_14

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Lavoisier began his scientific education in the early 1760s, while he was a student at the Collège Mazarin. The schooling at the Collège lasted nine years: six years devoted to humanities, followed by a course in mathematics, one in physics, and one in logic. Following an agreement with the University, the teaching of medicine had to be excluded from the classes.2 Lavoisier entered the Collège in 1754 and probably completed the whole curriculum in 1763, shortly before taking a degree in law at the Parisian Faculté de Droit. During his stay at the Collège, he studied mathematics and astronomy with Nicolas-Louis de La Caille and attended Jean Nollet’s public lectures on experimental physics likely at the same time. These courses, especially Nollet’s, left a very positive impression on him, as we know both from an autobiographical note dealing with his early scientific education and from his youthful confidence in adapting physical instruments to chemistry.3 By contrast, Lavoisier was deeply dissatisfied with the chemical knowledge he received from the apothecaries Laurent-Charles de La Planche and Guillaume-François Rouelle, then the most popular chemical teacher in Paris.4 Contrasting the obscurity of their methods to the clarity of experimental physics and mathematics, he recalled his first approach to chemistry: When I began for the first time to attend a course in chemistry I was surprised to see how much obscurity surrounded the first approaches to the science, even though the professor whom I had chosen was regarded as the clearest and most accessible to beginners, and even though he took infinite pains to make himself understood. […] [La Planche] assumed from his very first lessons many things that he promised to demonstrate in later lessons, and these lessons passed without the assumptions being demonstrated. From the first day, he talked to us about affinities, which are the most difficult thing to understand in chemistry. […] I no longer experienced the same difficulty when, in the years that followed, I took Rouelle’s course. The eminent professor combined much method in the presentation of his ideas with much confusion in his expression of them. But with the aid of the preliminary knowledge that I had acquired before coming to listen to him by dint of three years’ hard work, I succeeded in forming a clear and accurate idea of the state reached by the science of chemistry at this time. But it is no less true that I had spent four years studying a science that was based on only a small number of facts.5

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La Planche’s and Rouelle’s approach to chemistry was, in many regards, the “traditional” one. They first analyzed the vegetable kingdom, by far the most complex, and then the mineralogical one. The centrality of the chemical analysis of the vegetable kingdom stemmed from the traditional materia medica and was primarily aimed at preparing medical remedies, under the vigilant supervision of the medical faculty. Apothecaries mainly relied on vegetable chemistry according to the prescriptions of the Collège de pharmacie when they supplied physicians with drugs. Lavoisier’s education was altogether alien to the organization and scientific objectives of the pharmacist. His main teacher in fact was Jean-­ Etienne Guettard.6 Although trained as a physician, Guettard devoted most of his career to geology and mineralogy. By 1747 he became médecin botaniste of the Duc d’Orléans and worked extensively in his private laboratory at the Abbay Saint-Génèvieve, focusing especially on the chemical analysis of mineral rocks and the production of porcelain.7 Not surprisingly, it was Guettard who introduced the young Lavoisier to mineralogy, mineral collecting, and mineral chemistry.8 The two became acquainted in 1763 and for the following four years made several scientific expeditions together. Most importantly, in 1767 they collaborated on a mineralogical survey of Alsace, Lorraine, and France Comté, for the publication of the Atlas et description minéralogiques de la France (1780), the first collection of detailed mineralogical and geological maps of France. During these excursions, Lavoisier collected hundreds of mineral specimens and fossils and took plenty of notes concerning his observations. Altogether these accounts show that in the mid-1760s he was already using physical instruments systematically for both his mineralogical and chemical investigations. Indeed, since 1764, while he was traveling with his mentor, he studied mineral ores in relation to their stratigraphic position, precisely determining these locations with a barometer.9 Furthermore, around the same time, he made a chemical analysis of gypsum using the hydrometer.10 His method of analyzing a mineral differed radically from the most common practice of exposing a specimen to the fire and consisted in dissolving it in water before measuring the specific gravities of its ingredients with a hydrometer. In 1768 Lavoisier also designed a new kind of chemical hydrometer and, throughout the rest of his career, remained confident that gravimetric measurements were the best way to investigate chemical combinations.11 The use of physical instruments, especially hydrometers and thermometers, proved to be crucial also in Lavoisier’s study of mineral waters.12

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During the early 1760s he performed chemical analysis of thermal and mineral waters in order to detect and quantify the presence of different kinds of salts. He then described his observations in detail in two memoirs, where he wrote at length in support of hydrometry as a method of chemical analysis.13 His interest in mineral waters, however, had seemingly nothing to do with their therapeutical properties, but only with the search for accurate means by which they could be analyzed. The focus on gravimetric measurements was in itself unusual for a chemist and Lavoisier’s aim was primarily to stress the originality of his approach within the chemical tradition: Chemistry, consulted as to these different questions, will only answer with useless words on affinity, analogies, or abrasions […] which yield up no ideas and which serve only to accustom the mind to satiate its curiosity with words. If it is possible for the human spirit to penetrate these mysteries, it is by means of research into the specific gravity of fluids that one may hope to achieve it. The quantity of real saline matter contained in the two fluids which it is desired to combine, their mean specific gravity together with that resulting from their mixture, in other words the result of the same experiment, repeated on the same mixt combined with all the others, may form a considerable quantity of data leading to the solution of the problem.14

Instruments were not the only source of Lavoisier’s education. In fact, during his apprenticeship with Guettard, he also enriched his own library by purchasing two important collections of books. In 1766 he bought several medical books on mineral waters from the library of the chemical technologist Jean Hellot.15 Hellot owned “a unique collection”16 of treatises devoted to the chemical analysis of mineral waters and Lavoisier certainly bought at least17 the following: Jean Aubery, Les bains de Borbon-Lancy (Paris 1604); Andrea Bacci, De Thermis (Rome 1622); Anselme Boèce de Boodt, Gemmarum et lapidum historia (Lugduni Batavorum 1647); Isaac Cattier, De la nature des bains de Bourbon (Paris 1650); Helvig Dietrich, Responsa medica de probatione et usu acidularum ac fontium Schwalbaci (Francofurti 1631); Claude Fouet, Le secrets des bains et eaux minerales de Vichy (Paris 1679); Blaise Pascal, Traitez de l’équilibre des liqueurs, et de la pesanteur de la masse de l’air (Paris 1664). In 1767 he bought another rich collection of books and once again the number of works connected to the analysis of water is impressive, combined with titles related to mineralogy, chemistry, and early pneumatic

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medicine, such as Van Helmont’s Ortus medicinae and Mayow’s Tractatus quinque.18 At the end of his career, Lavoisier’s library was considerable. However, out of the 2500 titles he owned, only 113 were related to medical topics and only few among them were actually not concerned with his chemical researches. Considering the titles that are listed in the published catalogue,19 it seems that Lavoisier was interested in medical authors only when they wrote about chemistry: it is significant, for instance, that while he owned almost all of Stahl’s chemical works, he did not have any of his medical writings. Furthermore, although some important theoretical treatises, such as Harvey’s Exercitationes de generatione animalium or Santorio’s Medicina statica, are listed, they are definitively less numerous than books related to other topics, as the following classification highlights: • Mineral waters: 42 titles • Domestic medicine: 23 titles • Iatrochemistry and alchemical medicine: 21 titles • Materia medica: 12 titles • General medicine: 7 titles • Anatomy: 4 titles • Surgery: 4 titles While the majority of the titles are indirectly connected to Lavoisier’s chemical investigation, it is likely that books on anatomy and general medicine provided him with useful introductory information that could be used to contextualize his memoirs on respiration and transpiration.20 In Lavoisier’s laboratory, consisting of about 7000 pieces of apparatus, there are no known records of medical instruments.21 The numerous eudiometers, the instruments invented by Joseph Priestley and Marsilio Landriani in order to measure the salubrity of air, had no direct medical use but served primarily to quantify the presence of nitrous air.22 Interestingly, the Sanctorian balance is not listed although, as I shall show later on, a different kind of balance was used during the experiments on transpiration. Against this background, Denis Duveen and Herbert Klickstein have stressed Lavoisier’s role in medical reforms, noting the 73 medical reports ascribed to him. In fact, many of these reports are only loosely connected to medicine.23 Most of them, moreover, were written together with other members of the Académie des Sciences and it is often difficult to establish

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Lavoisier’s effective role as an author. Undoubtedly, Lavoisier’s interests in the salubrity of air and the mephitic exhalations of the fosses d’aisance, and his late experiments on nutrition would eventually be of great importance to medical hygiene, but the main aim of this research was the exact determination of the action of different kinds of gases on the organism.

2   Lavoisier and Santorio Even if Lavoisier had no background in medicine and showed little interest in the discipline, the role he assigned to oxygen in respiration, transpiration, and other physiological functions probably forced him, from the late 1770s, to explore medical topics. As noted regarding his library, he was able to acquire some knowledge on the anatomy of the human body and of the physiological mechanism controlling respiration, transpiration, nutrition, fatigue, and heat. However, the memoirs on respiration and transpiration are not medical articles per se and, although they propose a new explanation of the two functions, in those works the analysis is kept within the realm of pneumatic chemistry. Respiration and transpiration were in fact regarded above all as chemical reactions.24 The memoirs in question were written together with Armand Séguin (1767–1835), a quite obscure figure about whom we know very little.25 Coming from the Parisian artisanal milieu and based in the east outskirts of the French capital, Séguin had no formal education in science but played a major role in several crucial experiments performed in Lavoisier’s laboratory at the Arsenal. During the Revolution he patented at Sèvres a new tanning process which made him immensely rich.26 He probably entered Lavoisier’s circle of associates around the mid-1780s and, for a few years, he actively took part in his research, designing and making several instruments and experimental devices. In the case of human physiology his role was however more complex since, as we shall see later, he participated both as a subject of the experiments—which were performed on the human body—and as a co-author of Lavoisier in the published memoirs. In any case, what it is important to stress at this stage is that by focusing on human respiration and transpiration, Lavoisier and his associate wished to show to which extent the discovery of oxygen provided universal explanation of both organic and inorganic chemical reactions. This framework emerges clearly in the opening of the Premier mémoire sur la transpiration des animaux, where the two authors summarized their studies on the physiological functions of the human body:

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[…] we have shown that the animal machine is governed by three main regulators: Breathing, which by provoking in the lungs, and perhaps in other parts of the system, a slow combustion of the hydrogen and carbon in the blood, produces a release of calories that is absolutely necessary for the maintenance of animal heat. Perspiration, which, by causing a loss of the perspirable humour, facilitates the release of a certain quantity of caloric which is necessary for the dissolution of this humour in the surrounding air, and the cooling caused by this release consequently ensures that the temperature of the individual is not higher than the one set by nature. Digestion, which, by supplying the blood with water, hydrogen and carbon, constantly returns to the machine what it loses through perspiration and respiration, and then expels, through the excreta, the substances which are harmful or superfluous.27

I will give more details on Lavoisier’s and Séguin’s writings on transpiration in the next paragraph; here I concentrate on the possible reasons why they chose to examine the work of Santorio Santori. Indeed, the Premier mémoire, as well as the Second mémoire sur la transpiration des animaux, mentions Santorio’s quantitative experiments on transpiration and his Medicina statica (1614) is cited as the exclusive medical source. This choice should not be overlooked, first of all because Lavoisier was often very selective in his quotations, which, normally, avoided erudite references.28 Secondly, since Lavoisier often used to privilege the most recent literature in his memoirs, it is quite surprising that he preferred Santorio’s work to other more up-to-date medical works, authored by equally distinguished physicians like, for instance, Albrecht von Haller.29 Moreover, Santorio’s medical statics was far from undisputed in eighteenth-­ century Europe: in fact, it still provoked “mixed reactions”30 and while a number of physicians continued to repeat his experiments on transpiration, many among them questioned his conclusions.31 According to recent studies, in France the Sanctorian weighing chair and the practice of self-­ weighing were not as popular as they were in England and their scientific value was increasingly challenged.32 Additionally, the French editions and translations of Santorio’s Medicina statica were less numerous than the English and Italian ones.33 In their Premier mémoire, Lavoisier and Séguin regard Santorio as their predecessor and as the one who “paved the way”34 for a proper understanding of human transpiration. Before communicating their results, the two authors praised Santorio’s experiments:

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Sanctorius was the first to undertake consistent experiments on perspiration. Before him, the effects of this function were more suspected than known. He sat on a chair fixed to a balance named after him, and he determined the amount of his perspiration by measuring the loss of his weight.35

Not surprisingly, the authors emphasized Santorio’s contribution with the aid of a steelyard (Fig.  14.1). Throughout the eighteenth century the weighing chair became a recognizable symbol of a well-established scientific practice,36 so much so that it soon became better known as the Sanctorian chair (sella Sanctorii), an eponym that also Lavoisier and Séguin accepted. Likewise, Lavoisier’s use of the precision balance in chemistry made it a powerful emblem of what he called the “chemical revolution”.37 Throughout his career, Lavoisier multiplied his efforts to improve the accuracy of different types of balance and to adapt them to his own research programs, so much that these instruments, made for him by Fortin, Mégnié, and other prominent instrument makers, set the standard for other chemical and physical laboratories.38 Weighing substances and reactions was in fact the basic principle of Lavoisier’s experimentation. While several chemists still relied on their senses to assess the identity of a substance, Lavoisier regarded secondary qualities as accessory elements in the chemical analysis and  stressed the need for quantitative criteria. Moreover, his predilection for weight measurements, by means of the balance, was complemented by the theoretical assumption in the conservation of matter that guided his experimental practice.39 He repeatedly emphasized the importance of weight measurements in chemical analysis also in his Traité élémentaire de chimie (1789), the synthesis of more than two decades of research in which he also stated his law in its most famous formulation.40 These kinds of statements, however, were also part of a rhetorical strategy that began to characterize his writings at a very early stage of his career.41 Especially during the 1780s, when Lavoisier systematically promoted his theories, he used all possible means to persuade his opponents. Domestic spectacles and semi-public experiments organized at his Parisian residence were aimed at endorsing his methods and discoveries, and a letter campaign was launched in order to keep contact with European scientific circles.42 This effort of self-promotion relied to a great extent on the support of his associates and especially on his wife, Marie-­ Anne Paulze-Lavoisier. It was she who contributed in various ways to the building of Lavoisier’s public persona, namely as the author of a “new” way of doing chemistry.43

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Fig. 14.1  Santorio sitting on his weighing chair. From Santorio Santori, De statica medicina aphorismorum sectiones septem: accedunt hoc opus commentarii Martini Lister et Georgii Baglivi (Patavii: typis Jo. Baptistæ Conzatti, 1710)

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Keeping that in mind, the choice of quoting Santorio as the main authority on the topic appears to be consistent with Lavoisier’s scientific and personal aims. Besides, the authors, and especially the French chemist, may have been interested in Santorio not only because of the balance but also, more broadly, because of the latter’s attempt to quantify medical phenomena. As it is known, Santorio’s program had been to reform the Galenic tradition “from within,”44 through the introduction of the quantitative analysis of some main physiological processes. The vital functions of the human body had to be measured through mathematical parameters and these had to be recorded with precision instruments that Santorio himself had designed to this purpose.45 By doing so, he intended to grant certainty to medical knowledge, as he stressed in describing to his pupil and friend Senatore Settala the benefits of the medical balance he had invented: His Lordship will see the advantage that is possible to glean from the use of the statics I invented and that, for sure, is possible to call ‘medical mathematics’ [mathematica medica] so much we gain in certainty regarding medical things.46

The same principle oriented Medicina statica, a work in which Santorio reported on the results of his experiments on insensible transpiration, achieved by the systematic use of the medical balance and other instruments. Indeed, the goal of quantifying the “exact”47 relationship between body weight, excreta, and health is clear from the start of the book.48 The idea to make science as exact as possible, by adopting physical instruments and quantitative parameters, was also at the center of Lavoisier’s projects. In 1792 he underlined the connection between chemistry and physics as follows: It is easy to see that these two sciences overlap at a good many points and that they have a lot in common; it is impossible to give a good physics course without introducing certain aspects of chemistry and, vice versa, to create a good chemistry course without beginning with a few elementary notions of physics. These points of juncture between the two sciences increase day by day, since physicists and chemists have adopted a common approach, taken from that of the mathematicians, since they have rejected supposition and they no longer accept as truth that which is not proven through experimentation.49

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In addition to the medical balance, Santorio is also credited with use of the hydrostatic balance, the invention of the thermometer, the hygrometer, and the pulsilogium.50 Although the hydrostatic balance was reintroduced by Galileo in 1586 in his work La Bilancetta,51 Santorio was among the first to use it in medicine and in the Medicina statica he implicitly assumed its principles.52 Lavoisier, as I have already mentioned above, also saw in hydrometry a crucial part of his reform of chemistry. Santorio and Lavoisier also shared a concern for the quantification of heat. The thermometer was invented by Santorio and used in order to quantify the variation of the temperature of the body.53 Lavoisier systematically used thermometers during chemical experimentations and in order to measure the temperature of water springs. He introduced several technical suggestions to improve the accuracy of existing thermometers.54 Both men worked to measure humidity. Santorio perfected a new method for hydrometric measurements, since the humidity of the atmosphere was a major factor in the overall assessment of diseases.55 Similarly, Lavoisier, both in his writing and in his collection of instruments, showed a keen interest in hygrometry because the accurate measurement of humidity was a necessity during chemical experimentation. Finally, Santorio and Lavoisier both used the pulsilogium. Santorio was the first to use it in medicine, by adapting a pendulum to the measurement of the pulse frequency.56 The same quantitative method was adopted by Lavoisier and Séguin. It is clearly visible in two drawings by Madame Lavoisier illustrating the experiment on human respiration and transpiration performed at the Arsenal in the early 1790s. In the first (Fig. 14.2), Séguin is sitting and breathing in a mask, while one of Lavoisier’s laboratory assistants, probably Hugh Gillan, is standing and feels for Séguin’s pulse with one hand and holds a circular-shaped device, similar to a chronometer, in the other. In the second (Fig.  14.3), Séguin is sitting in a barrel filled with water and exhaling through a pipe, probably in view of measuring the quantity of exhaled carbon dioxide and once again we see an assistant taking his pulse by looking into a circular-shaped instrument.57 The measurement of the pulse frequency was in fact a crucial step in Lavoisier’s and Séguin’s experiments on respiration and transpiration.58 They observed and quantified the relation between fatigue and the proportional increase of pulse and, in so doing, they furthered Santorio’s ideas regarding the use of the pulsilogium.59 Curiously, despite their clear reliance on Santorio and similarities to him in experimentation, Lavoisier and Séguin criticized him. It is

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Fig. 14.2  Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze-­ Lavoisier, Expériences sur la respiration de l’homme au repos, Detail (Private Collection)

therefore necessary at this point to explore the contents of the memoirs on respiration and transpiration in some detail before turning to this critique.

3   The “chemical” Physiology of Respiration Lavoisier’s and Séguin’s Response to the Sanctorian Tradition

and Transpiration:

Lavoisier’s and Séguin’s memoirs on respiration and transpiration were published long after their presentation before the Académie des Sciences and the role of the two authors has been contested. The Premier mémoire sur la transpiration des animaux was read on April 14, 1790.60 The

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Fig. 14.3  Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze-Lavoisier, A man seated with his head in a glass container lit by a candle, Detail (Courtesy of Wellcome Library, London. The title is that provided by the Wellcome Library)

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principal author of this memoir seems to be Séguin, given that his name appears first. This role was probably due to the general circumstances under which the experiments had been performed. As already mentioned, Séguin was assisting Lavoisier in his laboratory and since the mid-1780s he was also conceiving and making the apparatus used during several experiments made at the Arsenal.61 Furthermore, he submitted himself to most of the experiments on respiration and transpiration and Lavoisier openly acknowledged the importance of Séguin’s contribution on more than one occasion.62 The Second mémoire sur la transpiration des animaux was presented before the Académie on February 21, 1792, and published by Séguin in the Annales de chimie only in 1814.63 Here Lavoisier’s name appears first, but the memoir was evidently written by Séguin, since the author always speaks in the first person while reporting on the experiments that were performed on him. Unfortunately, the whereabouts of the laboratory notebooks describing Lavoisier’s and Séguin’s experiments on transpiration are presently unknown. This is due to the events related to the edition of Lavoisier’s Mémoires de physique et de chimie, a collection of essays which was supposed to include a revised version of the memoirs on respiration and transpiration, which was never officially published.64 In 1793 Lavoisier and Séguin were preparing this publication, but the arrest of Lavoisier on November 28 brought the printing to a halt, when only two volumes and a fragment of a third were published. It is almost certain that Madame Lavoisier, who had already illustrated her husband’s Traité élémentaire de chimie, prepared at least four drawings that were destined to illustrate the volume containing the memoirs on respiration and transpiration.65 In 1796, after the turmoil of the Revolution and two years after Lavoisier’s execution, Madame Lavoisier asked Séguin to resume the publication but refused to accept his prominent role in the memoirs on animal physiology: a stance that was consistent with her wish to represent her late husband as the unique author of the “new chemistry” even after his death.66 Shortly after, she took over the whole project and decided to exclude Séguin from it. As a result, the publication of the Mémoires was discontinued and in 1805 Madame Lavoisier distributed to some friends what had already been printed in 1793. Instead Séguin, who was probably in possession of the laboratory notebooks, published autonomously some of the results in a series of papers. These were the last scientific memoirs published by Séguin, who later mostly devoted himself to the writing of some eccentric pamphlets on government finances and horseracing.67 Because of his

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quarrel with Madame Lavoisier, however, the manuscript notes on human physiology are now considered lost and the main sources for Lavoisier’s and Séguin’s experiments on transpiration are the published version of the two memoirs. In the Premier mémoire sur la transpiration des animaux, Séguin and Lavoisier intend to communicate “the beginning of a very extensive work on transpiration” which stems from their previous study on respiration. Transpiration is described as one of the three fundamental “regulators” of the animal economy which, together with respiration and digestion, presides over its functioning. The animal body is conceived as a “machine,” that is a system of chemical mechanisms which constantly interact with each other and keep the organism alive.68 The authors then pass to define transpiration as an invisible and insensible “aqueous emanation” continuously exhaling from animal bodies and distinguish “cutaneous transpiration,” made through the pores of skin, from “pulmonary transpiration,” made through the lungs.69 The main effect of this function is to maintain the temperature of the body, by balancing the production of heat that results from respiration with a loss of “caloric,” or heat matter. Lavoisier and Séguin in fact understood respiration as a slow combustion of hydrogen and carbon, producing water and carbon dioxide and supplying heat to the animal body. This water then combined with the exceeding caloric and, once transformed into vapor, was expelled from the body through transpiration. It is in this context that Santorio is mentioned and praised, as I have already pointed out, for being the first to have worked on this topic experimentally. However, after this acknowledgment, Lavoisier and Séguin criticize him at length. The major point of this criticism is Santorio’s ignorance of the physiology of respiration on a chemical level. As a consequence, he failed to understand the effects of transpiration: […] this man, rightly famous, commendable for both his zeal and patience, to whom we owe a debt for having opened the path, lacked the wealth of data which were accumulated in the successive centuries. At that time, the phenomena of respiration, the formation of water and the carbonic acid that accompanies it were not yet known; it was not known that there were two kinds of evaporation, one by means of the dissolution in the air, the other occurring through the simple combination of the caloric with the liquid to be vaporized. It was not even known that the main causes that influence breathing are the greater or lesser density of the air, its ­temperature and its

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degree of dryness or humidity. Sanctorius, lacking this knowledge, confused all the effects, and regarded as simple what was a very complex result.70

According to the two authors, the results obtained by Santorio were inaccurate also because of the steelyard he used, which was not precise enough in its measurements.71 They made the same objections against Denis Dodart, a French physician known for having repeated Santorio’s experiments on transpiration in the second half of the seventeenth century.72 Lavoisier and Séguin then dismissed both Santorio’s and Dodart’s studies as “rough”73 and proposed a different set of experiments that they described more in detail in the second memoir. The Second mémoire sur la transpiration des animaux opens with a description of the balance used by Lavoisier and Séguin. The balance was drawn in great detail by Madame Lavoisier (Fig. 14.4) and resembles one still existing in the collection of the Parisian Musée des Arts et Métiers.74

Fig. 14.4  Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze-Lavoisier, A man being weighed on a huge set of scales, and a man with his head in a glass container (Courtesy of Wellcome Library, London. The title is that provided by the Wellcome Library)

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The latter is a large balance with arms and supports to the arms made of steel. The pointer is decorated with a lily and the copper plates are suspended by three brass chains and a pear-shaped hook. In Madame Lavoisier’s drawing the arms and the supports of the balance are slightly different, while the plates have been substituted with one which is deeper. Two different weights have been put inside the left plate and the right plate is used as sort of chair with a man, probably Séguin, sitting on it. Lavoisier’s and Séguin’s choice to replace the steelyard with a balance is interesting although not entirely new, since a French edition of Santorio’s Medicina statica, dating to 1694, already shows both options (Fig. 14.5).75 Undoubtedly, their aim was to reach a high degree of accuracy, consistent with the critique they addressed to Santorio on this point. The results obtained with the new balance were in fact far more precise: The balance we used in this research was built with the utmost care. Loaded with 125 pounds on each side, it was so sensitive that a demi gros was enough to shift the balance, so that at each weighing, the error could not exceed 18 grains, either more or less. […] This accuracy of the balance required a great deal of practice to make it work properly. An involuntary movement of the person undergoing the experiment would very often cause the scale beam to oscillate. But what was even more disturbing was the weight loss experienced by this person during each weighing, a loss which, as an average figure, amounted to 17 or 18 grains per minute. When the right weight was determined, you had to quickly look at the watch, because if you waited another minute, the scale would start to stagger on the side of the weights.76

The balance was used by Lavoisier and Séguin to measure the weight loss caused by respiration and transpiration, both cutaneous and pulmonary. As they explain in their account of the experiments, Séguin was weighed several times a day, for about eleven months. At each time, they took notes regarding his weight, the hour in which it was determined, and the conditions under which the experiment was performed: At each weighing, the barometer, the thermometer and the hygrometer were checked; the degrees they indicated were noted, and the circumstance in which I found myself was also noted. If  the temperature of the atmosphere was a little high, I wore my chemise, in order to ease the dissolution of my perspiration; if the temperature was lower, I covered myself more,

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Fig. 14.5  An Adapation of Santorio’s Chair. From Santorio Santori, Science de la transpiration ou médecine statique. C’est à dire manière ingénieuse de se peser pour conserver et rétablir la santé par la connoissance exacte du poids de l’insensible transpiration … Traduction de M. Alemand, Docteur en Médecine (Lyon: chez Jaques Lyons, 1694)

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being especially attentive, in the comparative weighings, to wear exactly the same clothes.77

After a first weighing, Séguin remained at rest for four hours and, at the end of this time, he was weighed again. By means of subtraction, Lavoisier and Séguin calculated how long the experiments had lasted in minutes and how much weight loss there had been during this period. Then, by dividing the loss in weight by the number of minutes, they had the average of weight loss for each minute.78 The same measurements were repeated while Séguin was engaging in some physical exercise, in view of determining the quantitative relation between increase of pulse and weigh loss.79 In order to separate the effects of the respiration, cutaneous transpiration, and pulmonary transpiration, they designed and constructed a series of devices, including of an impermeable garment that prevented water from evaporating through the pores of the skin, and a spirometric apparatus that was to be used to determine the quantity of water exhaled through respiration. On May 11, 1791, Lavoisier gave a description of this apparatus to the Académie des Sciences but, unfortunately, no account of this presentation has survived.80 Lavoisier and Séguin also accurately weighed every portion of food or beverage consumed by the latter during the experiments, as well as his solid and liquid excrements. Then they compared these quantities to the weight loss due to transpiration: When I wanted to eat and drink given quantities of stuff, I weighed them both separately and collectively. Sometimes I also sat on the balance and ate a pre-weighed amount of food; I then determined the loss of weight experienced during meals. In other circumstances, I weighed for a few days all the food I ate; I also weighed all my excrements, both solid and liquid; and, adding this last weight to that of my insensible perspiration, I examined whether the sum which came from this addition was equal to the weight of the food I had eaten.81

Following these procedures, the two associates came to conclude that transpiration accounted a weight loss of 2 livres 13 onces (1376.7  g) in 24 hours. They pointed out, moreover, that a man consumes 600 pouces (11,900 ml) of oxygen per hours; that oxygen served for the production of 8.6 pieds cube of carbonic acid and 13.6 pieds cube of water; that the volume of carbonic acid liberated by our lungs in 24  hours consists of 14,930 pouces cubes (296,614 ml); that the weight of the water formed in

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the lungs in 24 hours is 1 livre, 7 onces, 5 gros, 20 grains (722.5 g); that the quantity of water released from the lungs is 5 onces, 5 gros, 63 grains (160 g).82 In addition to these results, Lavoisier and Séguin made a series of further remarks, most of which regarded the relation between transpiration and digestion. The most important of these statements is probably the first: Whatever quantity of food one takes, whatever the variations of the atmosphere may be, the same individual, after having increased in weight corresponding to the quantity of food he has taken, returns every day, after twenty-four hours, to approximately the same weight he had the previous day, provided, however, that he is in good health, that his digestion is good, that he does not become fat, that he is not in the age of growth, and that he avoids excesses.83

Although this effect had already been noticed by Santorio,84 Lavoisier and Séguin took it as a starting point to address one final critique of the Italian physician. They rejected Santorio’s prescriptions on dietetics and, in particular, the idea that eating the same amount of food every day maintained the body in a state of health.85 Accordingly, they criticized the practice of weighing the quantity of food intake during the meal with the Sanctorian steelyard86 and concluded: We must observe on this subject that those who will decide the amount of foodstuffs to be taken by submitting to the authority of calculation, rather than on their need or appetite, will be often exposed to eating either too much or too little. Indeed, assuming that the quantity of food should always be in the same ratio to the weight loss that we experience, as perspiration often varies in a ratio of one to three, it would follow that we should not take the same amount of food every day.87

4   Conclusion Lavoisier’s and Séguin’s criticisms of Santorio appear at times unjustified. The two associates adopted Santorio’s idea of quantitative medicine enthusiastically and Santorio’s innovative idea of using the balance during the experiments on respiration and transpiration perfectly fit with Lavoisier’s principle of the conservation of mass. More generally, their emphasis on the quantification of natural phenomena is strikingly similar. The conduct of the experiments was also directly inspired by Santorio and

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the main differences are due to the inevitable increase of accuracy of the instruments used by Lavoisier and Séguin nearly two centuries later. Lavoisier’s and Séguin’s experiment even follows Santorio’s protocol virtually step by step. Why then was Santorio criticized so severely? A plausible answer to this question lies not in the polemic with the Italian physician but in Lavoisier’s and Séguin’s effort to provide their experiments with an original theoretical statement. In fact, they aimed to situate the explanation of the physiological functions of respiration and transpiration within the framework of the “new chemistry.” In doing so, they intended to propose a new hierarchy of scientific knowledge in which chemistry explained the physiological processes that medicine could not. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the authority of medicine guided chemical research; according to Lavoisier and Séguin, chemistry was now able to be the leading science. If this interpretation is correct, the polemic with Santorio becomes less opaque. While Lavoisier and Séguin admired Santorio’s unique commitment to introduce physical method into medical research, they criticized his ignorance of the chemical process behind the physiology of respiration. This charge was obviously ungenerous because the discovery of hydrogen (1766), oxygen (1773–1774), and other gases were extremely recent and came after Santorio’s time. But from a wider perspective, their criticism of Santorio probably aimed at expressing the deficit of traditional medicine and the powerful explanatory potential of pneumatic chemistry. Santorio, like Lavoisier, had seen in physics new methodologies to measure medical phenomena. The necessary ingredient to bring this reform of medicine about, however, was the “new chemistry.”

Notes 1. Denis Duveen and Herbert Klickstein, “Antoine Laurent Lavoisier’s Contributions to Medicine and Public Health”, Bulletin for the History of Medicine, 29 (1955): 164–79. 2. On Lavoisier’s education see especially Marco Beretta, A New Course in Chemistry: Lavoisier’s First Chemical Paper (Florence: Olschki, 1994), 13 and Jean-Pierre Poirier, Lavoisier. Chemist, Biologist, Economist (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), 5–7. 3. “J’avais fait un bon cours de philosophie, j’avais suivi les expériences de l’Abbé Nollet, j’avait étudié avec quelque fruit la mathématique élémentaire dans les ouvrages de l’Abbé de La Caille et j’avais suivi pendant un an

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ses leçons. J’étais accoutumé à cette rigueur de raisonnement que les mathématiciens mettent dans leurs ouvrages, jamais ils prennent une proposition que celle qui la précède n’ait été découverte. Tout est lié, tout est enchainé, depuis la deffinition du point, de la ligne, jusqu’aux vérités les plus sublimes de la géométrie transcendante”: cited in Beretta, New Course, 16–17. 4. On Rouelle’s and Laplanche’s chemical courses see Christine Lehman, “Innovation in Chemistry Courses in France in the Mid-Eighteenth Century: Experiments and Affinities,” Ambix, 57 (2010): 3–26 and John Perkins, “Chemistry Courses, the Parisian Chemical World and the Chemical Revolution, 1770–1790”, Ambix, 57 (2010): 27–47. To put the success of chemistry courses in the broader context of eighteenth-century Paris, see Stéphan Van Damme, Paris, capitale philosophique. De la Fronde à la Revolution (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2005), esp. chap. 6. 5. Lavoisier in Beretta, New Course, 15–17: “Lorsque j’ay commencé pour la première fois à suivre un cours de chimie, le proffesseur que j’avais choisi passat pour le plus clair et le plus à portée des commençans, quoqu’il prît infiniment de peine pour se faire entedre […]. [La Planche] supposait dès ses premiers cours beaucoup de choses qu’il promit de démontrer dans les cours subséquents et les cours se passaient sans que les suppositions fussent démontrées. Dès le premier jour, il nous parlait d’affinités, ce qu’il y a de plus difficile à entendre dans la chimie […]. Je n’éprouvais plus les mêmes difficultés lorsque les années suivantes je suivis le cours de Rouelle. Le célèbre proffesseur réunissait à beaucoup de méthode dans la manière de présenter ses idées beaucoup d’obscurité dans la manière de les énoncer. Mais à l’aide des connoissances préliminaire que j’avais acquises avant de venir l’entendre pendant trois années d’assiduité, je parvins à me former une idée nette et précise de l’état où la science chimique était parvenue à cette époque. Mais il n’était pas moins vrai que j’avais employé quatre années à étudier une science qui n’était fondée que sur un petit nombre de fait”. On this note, see also Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, “A view of the chemical revolution through contemporary textbooks: Lavoisier, Fourcroy and Chaptal,” British Journal for the History of Science 23(4) (1990): 435–360. 6. Rhoda Rappaport, “Guettard, Jean-Étienne,” in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles C.  Gillispie, Vol. 5 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1981), 577–79. 7. I thank Marco Beretta for sharing with me this information in February 2018. 8. See especially Henry Guerlac, “A Note on Lavoisier’s Scientific Education,” Isis, 47 (1956): 211–16 and Marco Beretta, “Collected, Analyzed, Displayed: Lavoisier and Minerals,” in From Private to Public: Natural

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Collections and Museums, edited by Marco Beretta, 120–40 (Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publications, 2005). 9. Rhoda Rappaport, “Lavoisier’s Geologic Activities, 1763–1792,” Isis, 58 (1967): 375–84; ead., “Lavoisier’s Theory of the Earth,” British Journal for the History of Science, 6 (1973): 247–60. 10. Lavoisier, “Analyse du gypse”, in Œuvres, 6 vols., (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1862–1864), vol. 3, 111–44. 11. Beretta, New Course, 35–41. 12. Norman Meldrum, “Lavoisier’s Early Work in Science 1763–1771,” Isis, 19 (1933): 330–63. 13. Lavoisier, in Œuvres, vol. 3, 427–50: “Recherches sur les moyens les plus surs, les plus exacts et les plus commodes de determiner la pesanteur spécifique des fluides soit pour la physique soit pour le commerce”, and id., in Œuvres, vol. 3, 145–205: “De la nature des eaux d’une partie de la FrancheComte, de l’Alsace, de la Lorraine, et analyses de l’eau”, in Œuvres, vol. 3, 145–205. 14. Lavoisier, Œuvres, vol. 3, 450: “La chimie, consultée sur ces différents objets nous répondra par de vains noms de rapports, d’analogues, de frottements … qui ne présentent aucune idée, et qui n’ont d’autre effet que d’accoutumer l’esprit à se payer de mots. […] S’il est possible à l’esprit humain de pénétrer dans ces mystères, c’est par des recherches sur la pesanteur spécifique des fluides qu’il peut es-pérer d’y parvenir. La quantité de matière saline réelle contenue dans les deux fluides qu’on veut combiner ensemble, leur pesanteur spécifique moyenne avec celle qui a résulté de leur mélange, enfin le résultat de ces mêmes expériences, répétées sur un même mixte combiné avec tous les autres, pourront former un nombre de données assez considérable pour conduire à la solution du problème.” Translated in Arthur Donovan, Antoine Lavoisier: Science, Administration and Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 89. 15. Marco Beretta, “Lavoisier as a Reader of Chemical Literature,” Revue d’histoire des sciences, 48 (1995): 71–94, 76–8. 16. Ibid., 76. 17. Those that have survived in the collections of Cornell University and the Bibliothèque Universitaire de Bordeaux bearing Hellot’s ex-libris. 18. Beretta, “Lavoisier as a Reader,” 78–81. The complete list of the books purchased by Lavoisier in 1767 is published in Lavoisier, Correspondance, edited by René Fric, Vol. 1: 1763–1769 (Paris: A. Michel, 1955), 94–8. 19. Marco Beretta, Bibliotheca Lavoisieriana. The Catalogue of the Library of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1995). 20. Among the most important are the following: Toussaint Bordenave, Essai sur la phyisiologie, ou physique du corps (Paris: Clousier, 1778); Raoul Léopold Alfred Sabatier, Traité complet d’anatomie, ou description de toutes

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les parties du corps humain (Paris: Th. Barrois, 1755); Jacob Benignus Winslow, Exposition anatomique de la structure du corps humain (Paris: Savoye, 1766); Lorenz Heister, L’Anatomie, avec des essais de physique sur l’usage des parties du corps humain (Paris: J. Vincent, 1753). 21. See “Inventaire du citoyen Lavoisier fait par le citoyen Gondouin notaire, 7 prairial An IV [26 May 1796]”, Cornell University, Kroch Library, Ithaca (USA), Shelfmark: Lavoisier/Mss./8.11 and Marco Beretta, “Lavoisier’s Collection of Instruments: a Checkered History,” in Musa Musaei. Studies on Scientific Instruments and Collections in Honour of Mara Miniati, edited by Marco Beretta, Paolo Galluzzi and Carlo Triarico, 313–34 (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 2003). 22. On eudiometry see Simon Schaffer, “Measuring Virtue: Eudiometry, Enlightenment and Pneumatic Medicine,” in The Medical Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century, edited by Andrew Cunningham and Roger French, 281–31 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 23. Duveen and Klickstein, “Lavoisier’s Contributions”. The list of the memoirs and reports mentioned by Duveen and Klickstein is given in eid., A Bibliography of the Works of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, 1743–1794 (London: W. Dawson and Sons, 1954). 24. On Lavoisier’s theory of respiration see especially Frederic Lawrence Holmes, Lavoisier and the Chemistry of Life. An Exploration of Scientific Creativity (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985); Charles A.  Culotta, “Respiration and the Lavoisier Tradition: Theory and Modification, 1777–1850,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 62 (1972): 3–41; Johann Peter Prinz, “Lavoisier’s Experimental Method and his Research on Human Respiration,” in Lavoisier in Perspective, edited by Marco Beretta, 43–52 (Munich: Deutsches Museum, 2005). 25. For biographical and bibliographical information about Séguin, see Jean-­ Pierre Poirier, “La contribution d’Armand Séguin (1767–1835) aux programmes de recherches de Lavoisier,” in Lavoisier, Correspondance, Vol. 6 (Paris, Académie des Sciences, 1996), 427–36; Stuart Pierson, “Séguin, Armand,” in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles C. Gillispie, Vol. 12 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1981), 286–7; Jacques Michaud, “Séguin (Armand),” in Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne. Supplément, edited by Louis-Gabriel Michaud, Vol. 82 (Paris: Beck, 1849), 37–43. 26. For some bibliographical references to Séguin’s scientific memoirs, mainly written in collaboration with other French savants, see especially Pierson, “Séguin, Armand.” 27. Armand Séguin and Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, “Premier mémoire sur la transpiration des animaux”, in Lavoisier, Œuvres, vol. 2, 704: “[…] nous

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avons fait voir que voir que la machine animale est gouvernée par trois régulateurs principaux: La respiration, qui, en opérant dans le poumon, et peut-être dans d’autres endroits du système, une combustion lente de l’hydrogène et du carbone que contient le sang, produit un dégagement de calorique absolument nécessaire à l’entretien de la chaleur animale. La transpiration, qui, en occasionnant une perte de l’humeur transpirable, facilite le dégagement d’une certaine quantité de calorique nécessaire à la dissolution de cette humeur dans l’air environnant, et empêche conséquemment, par le refroidissement que produit ce dégagement, que l’individu, ne prenne un degré de température supérieur à celui qu’a fixé par la nature. La digestion, qui, fournissant au sang de l’eau, de l’hydrogène et du carbone, rend habituelle-ment à la machine ce qu’elle perd par la transpiration et par la respiration, et rejette ensuite au dehors, par les déjections, les substances qui nous sont nuisibles ou superflues.” The three functions are defined in almost the same terms in their “Premier mémoire sur la respiration des animaux”, in ibid., vol. 2, 700. 28. On this point see Beretta, “Lavoisier as a Reader,” esp. 71–5. On Lavoisier’s rhetorical strategies, from a different point of view, see also Jan Golinski, “Precision Instruments and the Demonstrative Order of Proof in Lavoisier’s Chemistry”, Osiris, 9 (1990): 30–47. 29. For other attempts to study the human transpiration before and after the publication of Santorio’s Medicina statica see Edward Tobias Renbourn, “The Natural History of Insensible Perspiration: A Forgotten Doctrine of Health and Disease”, Medical History, 4 (1960): 135–52. 30. Lucia Dacome, “Balancing Acts: Picturing Perspiration in the Long Eighteenth Century,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 43 (2012): 379–91, 385. 31. Some of these reactions are described in ibid., 381–5. 32. Emma Spary, Feeding France. New Sciences of Food. 1760–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 102–7 and Lucia Dacome, “Living with the Chair: Private Excreta, Collective Health and Medical Authority in the Eighteenth Century,” History of Science 39, 4 (2001): 467–500. 33. Out of the five French editions of Santorio’s Medicina statica that I have been able to find (two of which are translations), Lavoisier owned De Medicina statica aphorismi. Commentaria notasque A.C.  Lorry (Paris: P.G. Cavelier, 1770). See Beretta, Bibliotheca Lavoiseriana, 333. 34. “Cet homme si justement célèbre, si recommandable par son zèle et sa patience, auquel nous avons l’obligation de nous avoir ouvert la carrière […]”: Séguin and Lavoisier, “Premier mémoire sur la transpiration” in Œuvres, vol. 2: 706. 35. Ibid. “Sanctorius est le premier qui ait entrepris des expériences suivies sur la transpiration. Avant lui les effets de cette fonction étaient plutôt soup-

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çonnés que connus. Il se plaçait dans une chaise adaptée à une balance qui porte son nom, et il déterminait la quantité de sa transpiration par la perte de poids qu’il éprouvait.” 36. Dacome, “Balancing Acts”, 385–9. 37. On this topic, see among others, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, “The Balance: Between Chemistry and Politics”, The Eighteenth Century, 33, 3 (1992): 217–237 and her biography of Lavoisier, Lavoisier. Mémoires d’une révolution (Paris: Flammarion, 1993). 38. Maurice Daumas, “Les Appareils d’Expérimentation de Lavoisier,” Chymia, 3 (1950): 45–62. 39. See especially Henry Guerlac, Lavoisier—The Crucial Year: The Background and Origin of His First Experiments on Combustion in 1772 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1961); Robert Siegfried, “Lavoisier’s View on the Gaseous State and Its Early Application to Pneumatic Chemistry,” Isis, 63 (1972): 59–78; Ferdinando Abbri, Le terre, l’acqua, le arie. La rivoluzione chimica del Settecento (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1984), 65–108. 40. “[…] car rien ne se crée, ni dans l’opération de l’art, ni dans celles de la nature, et l’on peut poser en principes que dans toute opération, il y a une égale quantité de matière avant et après l’opération; que la quantité et la quantité des principes est la même, et qu’il n’y a que des changemens, des modifications. C’est sur ce principe qu’est fondé tout l’art de faire des expériences en Chimie: on est obligé de supposer dans toutes une véritable égalité ou équation entre les principes de corps qu’on examine, et ceux qu’on retire par l’analyse”: Lavoisier, Traité élémentaire de chimie (Paris: Cuchet, 1789) 140–1. 41. Among others, Golinski, “Precision Instruments”. 42. This aspect is studied in detail in a brief but rich article by Carleton E. Perrin, “The Triumph of the Antiphlogistians”, in The Analytic Spirit. Essays in the History of Science in Honor of Henry Guerlac, edited by Harry Woolf, 40–63 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1981). See also Bensaude-Vincent, Lavoisier, chap. 10. 43. On Madame Lavoisier, and especially on her work as a “promoter” of her husband’s career and persona, see among others Keiko Kawashima, Émilie du Châtelet et Marie Anne Lavoisier. Science et genre au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2013) and the recent Meghan Roberts, Sentimental Savants. Philosophical Families in Enlightenment France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), esp. chap. 2. Since the writing of this chapter, I have myself worked on the topic, from a different angle, in the fourth chapter of my PhD dissertation: Francesca Antonelli, “Scrittura, sociabilità e strategie di persuasione: Marie-Anne Paulze-Lavoisier, secrétaire (1758–1836)”, PhD dissertation, Università di Bologna/École des Hautes en Études en Sciences Sociales, 2021.

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44. Giuseppe Ongaro, “Introduzione,” in Santorio Santorio, La medicina statica, edited by Giuseppe Ongaro (Florence: Giunti, 2001), 24. 45. Fabrizio Bigotti, “Mathematica Medica. Santorio and the Quest for Certainty in Medicine,” Journal of Healthcare Communications, 1, 4 (2016): 39–46. See also Mirko D.  Grmek, “Santorio, Santorio”, in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 12, edited by Charles C. Gillispie (New York: Ch. Scribner’s Sons, 1970–80), 101–104 and Ongaro, “Introduzione,” esp. 20–30. 46. Santorio Santori to Senatore Settala on December 27, 1625, in Carlo Castellani, “Alcune lettere inedite di Santorio Santorio a Senatore Settala”, Castalia, 1 (1958): 31. 47. Santorio Santori, Ars de statica medicina (Venice: N.  Polo, 1614), “Ad lectorem.” 48. See especially ibid., I.3: “Ille solus, qui sciet quantum et quando, magis vel minus corpus occulte perspirat, penetrabit quantum et quando erit addendum vel auferendum pro sanitate conservanda, et recuperanda”. 49. Cited in Marco Beretta, “Lavoisier and his Last Printed Work: the Mémoires de physique et de chimie (1805),” Annals of Science, 58 (2001): 327–56, 334. 50. Ongaro, “Introduzione,” 24–9. For a longer list of instruments whose invention is attributed to Santorio see Pietro Stancovich, “Santorio” in Biografia degli uomini distinti dell’Istria, Vol. 2 (Trieste: Gio. Marenigh Tipografo, 1829), 256–9. 51. On Galileo’s hydrostatic balance see Annibale Mottana, Galileo e La Bilancetta: un momento fondamentale nella storia dell’idrostatica e del peso specifico (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 2017). 52. See Santorio, Ars (1614), II.5: “Quanta sit aquae ponderositas, facile intellegitur, si grave perpendatur in aqua; illa enim est levior, et per consequens salubrior, in qua grave magis gravitat: illa vero, in qua minus, est ponderosior et insalubrior”. These kinds of experiments, however, were already popular in antiquity: see Fabrizio Bigotti, “The Weight of the Air: Santorio’s Thermometers and the Early History of Medical Quantification Reconsidered”, Journal of Early Modern Studies (JEMS), 7 (2018) 73–103, esp. 87. 53. For a description of the several types of thermometers designed and manufactured by Santorio see Bigotti, “The Weight of the Air” and Ongaro, “Introduzione,” 26–9. 54. Maurice Daumas, Lavoisier: theoricien et experimentateur (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1955); id., Scientific Instruments of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries and their Makers (London: Portman, 1989). 55. See Santorio, Ars (1614), II.4: “Quanta sit aeris ponderositas, colligitur primo ex maiori vel minori gravitate aluminis faecum prius exsiccati in sole, et deinde aeri nocturno expositi. Secundo ex eo quia sentiamus maius fri-

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gus, quan quod observetur in instrumento temperamentorum: aeris enim humiditas incurvatione tabulae subtilissimae, praecipue ex piro. Quarto ex contractione chordarum testudinum, vel ex cannabe”. 56. See Fabrizio Bigotti and David Taylor, “The Pulsilogium of Santorio: New Light on Technology and Measurement in Early Modern Medicine,” Society and Politics, 11, 2 (2017): 53–113 and Ongaro, “Introduzione,” 25–6. 57. A detailed description of the latter drawing is given in Marco Beretta, “Imaging the Experiments on Respiration and Transpiration of Lavoisier and Séguin: Two Unknown Drawings by Madame Lavoisier,” Nuncius, 27 (2012): 163–191, 188–9. 58. Holmes, Lavoisier, 455–7. 59. Lavoisier, Œuvres, vol. 2, 696: By using this technique, Lavoisier and Séguin came to the formulation of two important laws concerning the relations between fatigue, oxygen consumption, and pulse: “Nous sommes parvenus […] à constater deux lois de la plus haute importance. La première, c’est que l’augmentation du nombre des pulsations est assez exactement en raison directe de la somme des poids élevés à une hauteur déterminé, pourvu toutefois que la personne soumise aux expériences ne porte pas ses efforts trop près de la limite de ses forces, parce qu’alors elle est dans un état de souffrance, et sort de l’état naturel. La seconde, c’est que la quantité d’air vital [oxygen] consommé est, tout choses égales d’ailleurs, lorsque la personne ne respire qu’aussi souvent que le besoin l’exige, en raison composée des inspirations et des pulsations, c’est-­à-­dire en raison directe du produit des inspirations par les pulsations”. Séguin and Lavoisier, “Premier mémoire sur la respiration.” 60. Séguin and Lavoisier, “Premier mémoire sur la transpiration”. The memoir was first published in the second edition (1792) of Vincenzo Dandolo’s Italian translation of Lavoisier’s Traité élémentaire de chimie. The first French version appeared only in 1797 and was published as Séguin and Lavoisier, “Premier Mémoire sur la Transpiration des Animaux”, Mémoires de l’Académie des Sciences pour l’année 1790 (1797): 601–12. The delay of publication was due to the Revolution. 61. Beretta, “Imaging,” 168–71 and 180–1. 62. See, for instance, Lavoisier’s famous Détails historiques, sur la cause de l’augmentation de poids qu’acquièrent les substances métalliques, lorsqu’on les chauffe pendant leur exposition à l’air, in Œuvres, vol. 2, 99–104 and Archives de l’Académie des Sciences, Paris, Procès-Verbaux, 1792, fol. 82: on February 22, 1792, “M. Séguin a lu un mémoire sur la transpiration. M. Lavoisier a annoncé à cette occasion que ce travail commencé d’abord en commun avec lui avait été suivi ensuite par M. Séguin seul et que les expériences de ce mémoire lui appartenait entièrement.”

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63. Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and Armand Séguin, “Second mémoire sur la transpiration des animaux” Annales de chimie, 90 (1814): 5–28. The delay of publication of the second memoir was also due to the events following the Revolution. 64. On the history and the contents of Lavoisier’s Mémoires de physique et de chimie see especially Beretta, “Lavoisier and his Last Printed Work” and William A.  Smeaton, “Madame Lavoisier, P.  S. and E.  I. Du Pont de Nemours and the Publication of Lavoisier’s ‘Mémoires de chimie’,” Ambix, 36 (1989): 22–30. 65. On the illustrations by Madame Lavoisier in Lavoisier’s Mémoires de physique et de chimie see Beretta, “Imaging” and Smeaton, “Madame Lavoisier.” On Madame Lavoisier as an illustrator of scientific texts, see especially Madeleine Pinault Sørensen, “Madame Lavoisier, dessinatrice et peintre”, La Revue. Musée des Arts et Métiers, 6 (1994): 23–25. 66. I have explored Madame Lavoisier’s efforts to build the public memory of Lavoisier and its consequences on the latter’s laboratory notebooks in the fifth chapter of my PhD dissertation: Antonelli, “Scrittura, sociabilità e strategie di persuasione.” 67. Stuart Pierson, “Séguin, Armand,” 286. 68. Lavoisier, Œuvres, vol. 2, 705: “L’homme se trouve-t-il dans un climat froid? d’un côté, à raison de la plus grande densité de l’air, le contact dans le poumon devient plus considérable; plus d’air s’y décompose, plus de calorique s’y dégage et va réparer la perte qu’occasionne le refroidissement extérieur; en même temps la transpiration diminue, il se fait moins d’évaporation, donc moins de refroidissement. Le même individu passe-t-il dans une température beaucoup plus chaude? L’effet contraire arrive, l’air étant moins dense, son contact avec le sang est moins considérable; moins d’air se décompose, moins de calorique se dégage; une transpiration plus abondante s’établit; une plus grande quantité de calorique est enlevée, et c’est ainsi que se maintient ce degré de chaleur à peu près uniforme qui s’observe dans les animaux qui respirent. Tant que la variation de ces effets ne sort pas des limites qu’a fixées la nature, tant que les moyens de compensation sont suffisants, l’animal est dans l’état de santé”. Séguin and Lavoisier, “Premier mémoire sur la transpiration.” 69. Ibid., 706: “On donne généralement le nom de transpiration à une émanation principalement aqueuse qui s’exhale continuellement du corps des animaux, qui échappe à la vue, et qui ne devient sensible que lorsqu’elle cesse d’être tenue en dissolution dans l’air. Ce n’est pas seulement par les pores de la peau que cette émanation a lieu; il s’exhale aussi une quantité considérable d’humidité par le poumon à chaque expiration. Nous distinguerons donc ici la transpiration cutanée, celle qui se fait par la peau, d’avec la transpiration pulmonaire.”

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70. Ibid: “[…] cet homme si justement célèbre, si recommandable par son zèle et sa patience, auquel nous avons l’obligation de nous avoir ouvert la carrière, manquait d’une foule de données réservées à d’autres siècles. On ne connaissait point alors les phénomènes de la respiration, la formation d’eau qui et d’acide carbonique qui l’accompagne; on ignorait qu’il existât deux sortes d’évaporation, l’une qui se fait par voie de dissolution dans l’air, l’autre qui a lieu par la simple combinaison du calorique avec le liquide qu’on veut vaporiser. On ne savait pas même que les causes principales qui influencent la respiration sont densité plus ou moins grande de l’air, sa température et son degré de sécheresse ou d’humidité. Sanctorius, privé de ces connaissances, a confondu tous les effets, et a regardé comme simple un résultat très-composé.” 71. “Son appareil était d’ailleurs tellement défecteux, qu’il lui donnait à peine l’exactitude des onces dans les pesées”: ibid., 707. 72. On Dodart see Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, “Éloge de M. Dodart”, in Histoire de l’Académie Royale des Sciences, année 1707 (Paris: L’Imprimerie Royale, 1730), 182–192. 73. Séguin and Lavoisier, “Premier mémoire sur la transpiration” Lavoisier, Œuvres, vol. 2, 707: “On ne peut se défendre d’un sentiment d’étonnement, quand on considère que c’est sur des expériences, on peut dire, aussi grossières, que d’habiles médecins ont principalement fondé […] leur théorie et leur pratique.” 74. I thank Marco Beretta and Paolo Brenni, who are completing the catalogue of Lavoisier’s instruments at the Musée des Arts et Métiers, for providing me with information about this balance  in November 2017.  The catalogue will be published as Marco Beretta, Paolo Brenni, The Arsenal of Eighteenth-Century Chemistry. The Laboratories of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). 75. The illustration published in the French translation seems to be an exception to the rule, since most pictures of the Sanctorian balance shows a steelyard. The Museo Galileo (Florence, Italy) holds one of the few known surviving Sanctorian balance dating to the eighteenth century, which is also a steelyard. See https://catalogue.museogalileo.it/object/Scale_n01. html (consulted on February 13, 2018). 76. Lavoisier and Séguin, “Second mémoire”, 6–7: “La balance dont nous nous sommes servi dans ces recherches, était construite avec le plus grand soin. Chargée de 125 livres de chaque côté, un demi gros la faisait trébucher très-sensiblement; d’où il résulte, qu’à chaque pesée, l’erreur ne pouvait aller qu’à 18 grains, soit en plus, soit en moins. […] Cette exactitude de la balance exigeait une grande habitude pour s’en bien servir. Très souvent un mouvement involontaire de l’individu soumis à l’expérience faisait osciller le fleau. Mais ce qui gênait d’avantage, c’était la perte de poids qu’éprouvait cet individu pendant chaque pesée, perte qui, terme moyen, s’élevait à 17 ou 18 grains par minute. Lors donc qu’on avait le poids juste,

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il fallait promptement regarder la montre; car, si l’on attendait encore une minute, la balance commençait à trébucher du côté des poids.” 77. Ibid., 10: “A chaque pesée l’on regardait le baromètre, le thermomètre et l’hygromètre; l’on tenait note des degrés qu’ils indiquaient; et l’on notait également la situation dans laquelle je me trouvais. Pour peu que la température de l’atmosphère fut un peu élevée, je me mettais en chemise, afin de donner plus de facilité à l’air de dissoudre mon humeur transpirable; mais si la température était moins élevée, je me couvrais davantage, en ayant surtout soin, dans les pesées comparatives, d’avoir exactement sur moi les mêmes choses.” 78. Ibid., 9. 79. Ibid., 12. 80. According to the Procès-Verbaux de l’Académie, on that date Lavoisier gave “une description verbale de l’appareil qui a servi à des expériences qui il a fait conjointement avec M. Séguin sur la transpiration. Il a aussi expliqué les résultats de ces experiences” see Archives de l’Académie des Sciences, Paris, Procès-Verbaux, 1791, fol. 336. A detailed and plausible reconstruction of the spirometric apparatus is to be found in Prinz, “Lavoisier’s Experimental Method,” 47–51. 81. Lavoisier and Séguin, “Second mémoire”, 11: “Lorsque je voulais manger et boire des quantité déterminées, je pesais d’abord ces quantité, et je les prenais ensuite en totalité. Quelques fois aussi je me mettais sur la balance, et j’y mangeais une quantité d’alimens préliminairement pesés; je déterminais ainsi la perte de poids qu’on éprouve directement pendant les repas. D’autre fois, je pesais pendant quelques jours tous le alimens dont je me nourrais; je pesais également tous mes excremens solides et liquides; et, ajoutant ce dernier poids à celui de ma transpiration insensible, j’examinais si la somme qui provenait de cette addition égalait le poids des dont je m’était nourri.” 82. Ibid., 26–8. For the conversion of these results into the modern measuring system I followed Beretta, “Imaging,” 178–9. 83. Lavoisier and Séguin, “Second mémoire”, 14: “Quelque quantité d’alimens que l’on prenne, qu’elles que soient les variations de l’atmosphère, le même individu, après avoir augmenté en poids, de toute le quantité de nourriture qu’il a prise, revient tous les jours, après la révolution de vingtquatre heures, au même poids, à-peu-près, qu’il avait la vieille, pourvu toutefois qu’il soit d’une forte santé, que sa digestion se fasse bien, qu’il n’engraisse pas, qu’il ne soit pas dans un état de croissance, et qu’il évite les excès.” See also Séguin and Lavoisier, “Premier mémoire sur la transpiration” Lavoisier, Œuvres, vol. 2, 713: “[…] sans s’attacher à ne prendre chaque jour que la même la quantité de nourriture, sans s’astreindre à un genre de vie déterminé, pourvu que les repas soient pris à des heures à peu près réglées et qu’on évite les excès, le même individu, après avoir augmenté de poids de toute la nourriture qu’il a prise, revient tous les jours,

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après la révolution de vingt-quatre heures, au même poids qu’il avait la veille. Si cet effet n’a pas lieu, l’animal est dans un état de souffrance ou de maladie”. 84. See Santorio, Ars (1614), I.15: “Si corpus idem pondus quotidie revertatur, nulla facta mutatione in perspirabilium evacutatione, non indigebit crisi sanumque conservabur”. 85. Lavoisier and Séguin, “Second mémoire”, 14–15: “Ce résultat bien remarquable prouve avec quelle attention la nature s’est attachée a établir les compensations que nous avons fait remarquer tant de fois. Il suffit pour remplir ses intentions d’éviter les excès. Ce n’est pas remplir son voeu que de l’assujettir, comme le faisait Sanctorius, à un régime trop uniforme et trop rigoureusement calculé.” 86. Ibid., 15: “Cet homme célèbre [Santorio] s’étant persuadé qu’il était important pour la santé de prendre régulièrement la même quantité de nourriture, avait adapté à l’extrémité du bras d’une balance une chaise construite de telle sorte, qu’aussitôt que la personne qui y était placée avait mangé la quantité d’alimens qui avait été preliminairement déterminé par plusieurs autres expériences, la chaise rompait l’équilibre, et, en descendant, ne permettait plus d’atteindre à ce qui était sur la table.” 87. Ibid: “Nous devons observer à ce sujet que celui qui s’en rapporterait à la décision du calcul, plutôt qu’à a son besoin ou à son appétit, pour fixer la quantité d’alimens qu’il doit prendre, serait très-souvent exposé à manger trop ou trop peu. En effet, comme la transpiration varie souvent dans le rapport d’un à trois, il s’ensuivrait, en admettant que la quantité des alimens doive toujours être dans un même rapport avec la perte de poids que nous éprouvons, qu’il ne faudrait pas en prendre tous les jours une même quantité.” As pointed out in Spary, Feeding France, 121, there is an interesting resemblance between this passage and the Encyclopédie article on the Sanctorian chair, authored by Denis Diderot. See Denis Diderot, “Chaise de Sanctorius,” in Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, edited by Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, Vol. 3 (Paris: Briasson et al., 1753), 13–14: “S’il m’est permis de dire ce qui me semble de cette invention de Sanctorius, j’oserai assûrer que celui qui s’en tenoit à sa décision, plûtôt qu’à son besoin et à son appétit, sur la quantité d’alimens qu’il devoitprendre, étoit très—souvent exposé à manger trop ou trop peu; la température de l’air, les exercices, la disposition de l’animal, et une infinité d’autres causes étant autant de quantités variables dont il n’est guere possible d’apprétier le rapport avec la quantité nécessaire des alimens, autrement que par l’instigation de la nature, qui nous trompe à la vérité quelquefois, mais qui est encore plus sûre qu’un instrument de Méchanique”.

Index1

A Addison, Joseph Spectator, 112, 114 Aglietti, Francesco, 26 Agostino, Arcangelo, 9 Agrippa von Nettesheim, Heinrich Cornelius, 349 Albinus, Bernard Siegfried, 329 Alexander of Aphrodisias, 127, 193, 195–196 De anima, 195–196 De mixtione, 195, 202 Amsterdam, 322, 330 Anaxagoras, 77 Angelucci, Vittorio, 226, 236n32 Anisson and Posuel (publishers), 290, 292 Arcadio, Francesco, 53n72 Argenterio, Giovanni, 68, 155 De morbis, 151 Aristotelianism, vii–viii, 9, 27, 33–34, 43n12, 65, 71, 73–74, 90–91,

94n22, 115n8, 119, 121–122, 126–129, 137, 139–140, 143–144, 146, 148–150, 155–157, 248, 252, 256, 278, 320 Aristotle, v, vii, 51n65, 68, 74, 80, 138, 141, 145, 148, 196, 320 Categories, 127 De generatione, 77, 120, 130, 141, 145 Historia animalium, 262n13 Meteorologica, 120, 145, 262n13 Physica, 73, 168 Arnald of Villanova (pseudo), 123 Arts classics, 7–8, 282 literature, 363 music, 7–8, 303–304 poetry, 8, 221, 282, 364 tarantella, 304 Asclepiades of Bythinia, 77

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Barry, F. Bigotti (eds.), Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614–1790, Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79587-0

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404 

INDEX

Asclepius, 353 Astrology, 18, 34, 103, 106, 278, 280 Astronomy, vi, 33, 67, 71, 73, 114n8, 131–132, 147, 262n13, 275–276, 374 comets, 33 moon, 27, 113, 241–244, 262n13 planets, 221, 278 sun, 201, 262n14, 280, 331 See also Natural philosophy Athens, 222, 228 Atlas et description minéralogiques de la France, 373 Aubery, Jean Les bains de Borbon-­ Lancy, 374 Augenio, Orazio, 7 Avellan, Nicolas, 362–363 Averroes (Ibn Rushd), 143–144, 166 Avicenna (Ibn Sina), 2, 24, 36, 85, 141–142, 144–145, 194–195, 198, 200–201, 212n46, 213n47, 221, 320 Canon (see also Santori, Santorio), 146, 194 B Bacci, Andrea De thermis, 374 Bacon, Francis, 92n6 Baconianism, 241, 247, 351, 370n116 Baglivi, Giorgio, 2, 3, 39, 96n36, 103, 289–305, 355, 370n108, 379 Canones de medicina solidorum, 289–305 De anatome … tarantulae, 303–304 De fibra motrice et morbosa, 292, 295, 300 De praxi medica, 294–296, 302–305, 309–310n20 Opera omnia, 290–291 Specimen quatuor librorum, 294

Balance/equilibrium/homeostasis/ eukrasia, 16–17, 35, 38, 82–83, 85, 87, 107, 138, 142, 152, 171, 200–201, 281–282, 294–296, 298–302, 304–305, 317, 319, 322, 355 mixture, 72–73, 77, 85, 120–122, 124, 138–147, 150–158, 195, 199–200 temperament, 69, 72, 73, 77, 85, 138–144, 146, 151–158, 167, 173–177, 179, 193–202, 208 See also Physiology Bardi, Giovanni, 37 Barozzi, Francesco, 11, 32 Bartholin, Caspar (elder), 12 Bartoli, Giovanni, 60n144 Bathurst, Ralph, 268n65, 269n72 Battaglia, Antonio, 226, 236n32 Baxter, Richard, 269n74 Beeckman, Isaak, 18, 138–139, 147–158, 190n115 Catalogus librorum, 156 Belkmeer, Petrus, 335–336 Bellini, Lorenzo, 275, 293, 352 Bernoulli, Jean, 2 Bichi, Alessandro, 34 Bidloo, Govard, 326 Bigotti, Fabrizio, 5, 19, 120, 138, 141, 154 Bilger, Johan Disputatio medica de hydrope, 101n77 Blankaart, Steven, 190n116, 322 Boccalini Traiano, 219 Boerhaave, Herman, 2, 39, 96n36, 112, 327–334, 342n24, 342n26, 344n39–42, 344n47, 344n48, 344n51, 348–350, 365 Aphorisms, 352, 364, 370n10, 370n116 Elementa chemiae, 330 Institutiones medicae, 348–350, 352

 INDEX 

Boerman, Albert Johan, 349 Bologna, University of, 24, 182n11 Bonet, Théophile, 337 Bontekoe, Cornelis, 190n116 Borelli, Giovanni Alfonso, 2, 96n36, 231, 237n41, 273–284, 293, 352 Delle cagioni de le febbri maligne, 231, 275–282 De motionibus naturalibus, 283 De motu animalium, 276, 277, 281 Boutesteyn, Cornelis, 322 Boyle, Charles, 254 Boyle, Robert, vi–vii, 2, 90, 120, 122–123, 132, 139, 210n4, 239–260 Certain Physiological Essays, 247, 259 Essay of the Great Effects of … Motion, 248 Essays of Effluviums, 248–249 Experiments and Considerations about Porosity, 248 Medicina hydrostatica, 240–241, 258 New Experiments … Spring of the Air, 254, 258 New Experiments touching Cold, 241, 256 Origin of Forms and Qualities, 247–248 Porosity of Bodies, 252–254, 256 Reason and Religion, 255 Short Memoirs … of Mineral Waters, 259 Some Considerations, 241 Usefulness of Natural Philosophy, 252–257, 259 Bozzuto, Giuseppe, 226 Brahe, Tycho, 147 Broberg, Gunnar, 350, 364 Browne, Thomas, 239–240, 260n2 Bruno, Giordano, 11, 163n94

405

Buisen, Henricus, 333 Burnet, Gilbert, 254 C Caen, University of, 139, 147 Caimo, Pompeo, 24, 56n108 Campanella, Tomaso, 93n10, 236n41 Capello, Arcadio, 5, 8–9, 26, 45n24, 46n35, 47n37, 48n42, 48n47 Capodistria (Koper), 5–6, 8, 45n23, 48n45 Academia Palladia, 8, 95n26 Capodivacca, Girolamo, 218–219 Cappella, Antonio, 110 Caracciolo, Beatrice, 227, 236n37 Cardano, Gerolamo, 68, 230 De subtilitate, 144 Cartesianism, 123, 132, 166, 170–171, 175–176, 180n1, 244, 274, 276, 302, 350 See also Descartes, René Casalecchi, Giovanni, 311n31 Casserio, Giulio, 24, 66 Castelli, Benedetto, 274–275 Caston, Victor, 196 Castrillo, Count of, Viceroy of Naples, 226–227 Cattier, Isaac De la nature des bains de Bourbon, 374 Cavalieri, Bonaventura, 33 Cavendish, William, Marquis of Newcastle, 170 Cesalpino, Andrea, 309–310n20 Chambers, Ephraim, 322 Chang, Han-Liang, 364 Charles II of England, 253, 269n69 Charleton, Walter, 250–251, 266n50 Natural History of Nutrition, 250–251 Charmantier, Isabelle, 364

406 

INDEX

Chemistry, vi, viii–ix, 4, 7, 18, 121, 123, 131–132, 136n34, 150, 229, 237n41, 319, 323–324, 329–331, 334, 338, 359 acid-alkali, 296 alchemy, 67, 82, 120–121, 123, 134n13, 137–140, 143–147, 150, 153, 156, 229, 237n46, 375 carbonic acid, 389 chymistry, vi, 119, 131–132, 246–247, 250–252, 254–255, 259, 263n25 distillation, 9, 17, 67, 82, 121, 130, 251, 331, 338, 340, 371–391 fermentation, 122, 201, 241, 249–251, 276, 323, 328 gypsum, 373 hydrogen, 377, 385, 391 iatrochemistry, 105, 252, 375 metals/minerals, 120–123, 129–130, 195, 250, 280, 338, 373 mineral waters, 373–374 niter, 248, 251, 254, 268n65, 375 oxygen, 376, 389, 391, 398n59 saltpetre, 247 salts, 374, 339 See also Natural philosophy Cheyne, George, 354, 359 Christina, Queen of Sweden, 276 Cigogna, Emanuele Antonio, 5 Clodius, Frederick, 246 Cocchi, Antonio Celestino, 307n5 Cohn, Samuel, 220 Cole, William, 293 Colonna, Fabio, 236n41 Colombo, Matteo Realdo De re anatomica, 298, 312n37 Concublet, Andrea, 236n37 Conring, Herman, 1, 165 Contarini, Nicolò, 7, 9–13, 23 De perfectione rerum libri sex, 9

Contarini, Pietro, 56n108 Copernicanism, 27, 147 Cornelio, Tommaso, 116n25, 227, 231 Craanen, Theodor, 190n116 Cremona, 224 Cremonini, Cesare, 168 Croatia, 8, 289 Crombie, Alistair, 33 Cunningham, Andrew, 319 Curti, Tommaso, 292 D Dacome, Lucia, vi, 3, 111, 354 D’Acquapendente, Girolamo Fabrici (Hieronymus Fabricius), 11, 24, 66, 319 Da Mula, Agostino, 23, 28, 32 Danzig Akademische Gymnasium, 343n32 Dardani family, 25, 57n122 Daremberg, Charles, 3, 39, 292–293 De Boodt, Anselme Boece Gemmarum et lapidum historia, 374 De Gorter, Johannes, 103, 116n34, 317–340, 349, 354, 359, 361 De perspiratione insensibili, 335, 339 Medicinae compendium, 339 De Haro, David Lopez, 322 De la Caille, Nicolas-Louis, 372 De la Hire, Philippe, 262n13 De la Planche, Laurent-­ Charles, 372–373 Del Gaizo, Modestino, 5 Della Porta, Giovan Battista, 237n46 Della Rovere, Francesco Maria II, 24–25 Del Monte, Guidobaldo, 28 Democritus, 76–77, 79, 93n10, 120, 126, 129–130, 137, 145–146, 148, 154, 156, 196, 246, 283

 INDEX 

De Renzi, Salvatore, 292 Descartes, René, vi–vii, 2, 36, 90, 95n30, 96n36, 131, 139, 165–180, 183n18, 274 Discourse de la méthode, 120, 166, 168, 176 Excerpta anatomica, 170 Meditationes de prima philosophia, 172 Meteorology, 120 Notae in programma quoddam, 172 Primae cogitationes circa generationem animalium, 170 Traité sur les passions de l’âme, 166–167, 173–174, 176 See also Cartesianism Di Capua, Leonardo, 105–106, 113–114, 116n24, 116n25, 227 Parere, 110–111 Diderot, Denis, 402n87 Dietrich, Helvig Responsa medica, 374 Digby, Kenelm, 201, 246 Disease, 34–35, 68–70, 79, 83, 90, 154, 168, 171–172, 175, 178, 249, 259, 266n45, 296, 299, 302, 304, 333, 363 allergy, 128, 197 anthrax, 229 apoplexy, 172 asthma, 2, 17, 86, 128 cachexia, 363 calculi, 86 catarrh, 319, 334–339 cholera, 363 chronic, 354 contagion, 221–222, 225–228, 279 coryza, 363 diarrhoea, 363 epidemics/pestilences, 17, 25, 141, 154, 221–223, 250, 277, 290, 307n4

407

epilepsy, 333 fevers, 2, 17, 86, 170, 178, 219, 274, 276–284, 333, 349–350, 362 ‘French disease’/syphilis, 68, 126, 154, 221 gangrene, 281, 352 heart disease, 301 hydropsy, 363 lisping, 86 madness, 172 melancholy, 9 occult (see Natural philosophy) odontalgia, 363 pain, 84–85, 192, 207 paralysis, 333 phthisis, 222 plague, 25, 57n117, 57n119, 86, 96n36, 125, 154, 217–233, 235n27, 250, 266n45 plethora, 353 pleuritis, 363 pneumonia, 363 putrefaction, 221–222, 279, 363 rheumatism, 353, 363 smallpox, 333, 353, 362 ulcers, 84 urinary, 26 See also Drugs/pharmacy; Medicine; Physiology Dodart, Denis, 117n41, 361, 386 Dolfin, Paolo, 25, 220, 234n7 Donzelli, Giuseppe, 227 Dordrecht, 139 Doring, Michael, 130 D’Orléans, Duc, 373 Drugs/pharmacy, 16, 71–72, 111, 140, 143–144, 154, 158, 241, 258, 282, 303–304, 319, 334, 338–339, 351, 371, 373, 375 amulets, 249, 259 antimony, 110, 144 arsenic, 144, 279

408 

INDEX

Drugs/pharmacy (cont.) chemical remedies, 107, 110 diaphoretics, 17, 338–339 gems, 249 guaiac wood, 126 mercury, 144 opium, 127–128, 197 panacea, 79, 305 perfumes, 332 rhubarb, 127 sal ammoniac, 338–340 Talbot’s powder, 245 weapon-salve, 245, 259 Du Chesne, Joseph, 192 Duns Scotus, John, 144 Duveen, Denis, 375 E Egypt, 278 Elizabeth of Bohemia, 172–173, 176 Emanuele, Pietro, 275 Empedocles, 77, 354 England, 111–112, 114, 239–240, 323, 377 Enkhuizen, 325 Epicureanism, 221, 264n26 Epicurus, 137, 246 Ethiopia, 228 Etna, Mount, 276 Ettari, Maria Stella, 5 Euclid, 147 Elementa, 153 Experimentalism, v–vi, viii, 3, 13, 17–19, 32, 67, 72–73, 75, 85, 107–108, 110, 112–113, 120, 170–171, 179–180, 208, 240–247, 250, 253–259, 273–274, 294, 319, 323, 327–328, 339, 351–352, 354, 356, 359, 361–362, 364, 375–378, 380–390 See also Instruments; Statics

F Favaro, Antonio, 37, 62n167 Fernel, Jean, 68, 126, 141–142, 144, 149, 155 De abditis rerum causis, 68, 141, 153–154 Physiologia, 140–141, 143, 151 Ferrara, 103 Ficino, Marsilio, 141, 209n1, 302 Fioravanti, Leonardo, 231 Del reggimento della peste, 218 Florence, 223–224, 275 Floyer, John, 2 Foglia, Giovann’Antonio, 237n45 Fonseca, Rodrigo, 230 Fouet, Claude Le secrets des bains … de Vichy, 374 Fracastoro, Girolamo, 65, 221–222, 228, 230, 279 Syphilis, 221 France, 117n41, 139, 292, 373, 377 Franeker, University of, 167 Franklin, Benjamin, 90 French, Roger, 363 Friend, John, 359 Frisi, Paolo, 262n13 Fuchs, Leonhart, 140, 142–143 Fugger, Georg, 32 Fuoli, Cecilio, 220 G Gabrieli, Andrea, 7 Galen, v, 2, 11, 19, 33–38, 65–66, 68, 78–79, 82–84, 90–91, 105, 113, 115n8, 124–125, 138–141, 144–146, 152–154, 198–200, 221, 228, 241, 278–279, 281, 319–320, 322–323, 325–326, 329, 332, 339, 342n28, 354, 363 Ars medica, 154 Commentary on Hippocrates, 83

 INDEX 

De elementis secundum Hippocratem, 140–141, 145–146, 150 De methodo medendi, 11 De sanitate tuenda, 107 De simplicibus medicamentorum, 83–84 De temperamentis, 36–37 De usu partium, 149 Galenism, 66, 105–106, 138–140, 142, 144, 148, 151, 154, 157–158, 188n83, 230, 239–240, 252, 338, 380 Galilei, Galileo, vii, 3–5, 9, 13, 17, 26–37, 59n135, 60n142, 60n143, 67, 90, 94n22, 111, 131, 262n13, 270n83, 273–274, 276 Il Saggiatore, 26 Istoria e Dimonstrazioni Intorno Alle Macchie Solari, 71 La Bilancetta, 381 Galliero, Nicolò, 8 Gassendi, Pierre, 139, 246–247, 282, 307n4 Gatta, Francesco Antonio, 231, 238n54 Gatta, Geronimo, 217, 220, 226–231 Di una gravissima peste, 217, 226–231 Gaubius, Hieronymus, 337 Geber (pseudo), 123, 132 Summa perfectionis, 120–121, 145 Gehem, Janusz Abraham, 190n116 Gemelli, Benedino, 150 Geology, 201, 373 crystals, 71–72, 95n30 earthquakes, 221, 278, 290–291, 307n4 fossils, 373 volcanoes, 276 See also Natural philosophy Germany, 52n66, 55n104, 278

409

Gessi, Berlingero, 23 Gillan, Hugh, 381 Giornale de’ Letterati, 276 Glisson, Francis, 266n50 Goclenius, Rudolph, 203 Lexicon philosophicum, 203–205 Grandi, Giacomo, 26 Grassi, Orazio, 33 Greatrakes, Valentine, 249 Greeks, 23 Griselini, Francesco, 5 Groningen, University of, 168, 333 Guettard, Etienne, 373–374 H Haarlem, 333 Hague, The, 322 Hall, Marie Boas, 131 Hall, Rupert, 130–131 Halle, University of, 131 Haller, Albertus von, 11, 24, 323, 327, 329, 333, 377 Harderwijk, University of, 318, 335, 343n32, 349, 354 Hartlib, Samuel, 247 circle, 246 papers, 247 Harvey, William, 2, 91, 245, 254, 274, 276–277, 281, 293–294, 319n20, 355 Exercitationes de generatione animalium, 375 Hecquet, Philippe, 290 Hellot, Jean, 374 Helmontianism, 239–240, 252 archeus, 296 See also Van Helmont, Jan Baptist Heraclitus, 353 Heron of Alexandria, 28, 65, 148 Pneumatica, 148 Heurnius, Otto, 168, 230

410 

INDEX

Highmore, Nathaniel, 245–247, 250–251, 262n16, 263n18, 263n19 History of Generation, 245 Hippocrates, 2, 13, 24, 32, 177, 278–279, 294–295, 305, 320, 349, 353–354, 362–363 Airs, Waters and Places, 350 Aphorisms, 168, 256, 260n4, 350, 363 De alimento, 296 Epidemics, 342n28 Hirai, Hiro, 141, 146 Hody, Humphrey, 269n74 Hoffmann, Friedrich, 347, 349–350 Home, Francis, 117n41 Homer Iliad, 222 Hooke, Robert, 240, 252, 262n13, 268n65 Micrographia, 240 Hulshof, Herman, 322 Hungary, 8, 128 Hunter, Michael, 256 I Ingenhousz, Jan, 332, 334 Ingram, Robert G. 112 Ingrassia, Giovanni Filippo, 229, 237n45 Instruments, v, 3, 12, 19, 24–25, 27–28, 34–39, 60n141, 60n144, 66–67, 69, 81, 85–90, 92n6, 106, 108, 111, 114, 156, 166, 170, 249–250, 258–260, 334, 374–376, 378, 380–281, 384, 391 aerometer, 259 air-pump, 244, 250, 255 anemometer, 7, 111 balance, 258, 378, 380–381 barometer, 38, 88–89, 262n13, 373 clinical, 34

cupping/paracentesis, 87–88, 101n77 eudiometer, 375 gravity bottle, 271n91 hydrometer, 259, 323, 373–374, 381 hygrometer/hygroscope, 24, 32, 34, 67, 87, 111, 335–336, 381 lens, 170, 242–243 microscope, 170, 240, 245–247, 250, 252, 297, 319, 326–328 pendulum, 28, 33, 87, 284, 381 pulsilogium, 12, 24, 27–28, 34–35, 70–71, 87, 89, 111, 156, 284, 381 spirometer, 389 surgical, 34, 67, 87–88 telescope, 27, 32, 60n144 thermometer/thermoscope, 13, 24, 27–28, 32–37, 59n140, 67, 86–87, 89, 111, 241–244, 261n10, 262n13, 335, 373–374, 381 weighing chair/steelyard, vi, 3–4, 14–15, 19, 34–35, 83, 87–88, 107–108, 111–112, 240, 253, 256–257, 268n63, 275, 317–323, 325–326, 329, 335, 375, 377–379, 386–390, 400n75, 402n87 weather-glass, 244, 261n10 wind and water gauge, 34 See also Mechanics/mechanical philosophy J Jessenius, Johann, 125 Johann Friedrich, Duke of Hanover, 191–192, 205–206 John of Rupescissa De consideratione quintae essentiae, 147 Jungius, Joachim, 12

 INDEX 

K Kaau, Abraham, 96n36, 323, 327–329 Perspiratio dicta Hippocrati, 327 Keckermann, Bartholomaeus, 150–152 Systema logicae, 150 Systema physicum, 150 Keill, James, 2, 38, 90, 112, 117n41, 117n43, 323, 325–326, 359, 361 Medicina statica Britannica, 39, 113, 358 Tentamina medico-physica, 359–360 Keill, John, 359 Kepler, Johannes, 17, 33 Strena, 153 Kircher, Athanasius, 307n4 Klickstein, Herbert, 375 Kulmus, Johann Adam L Laertius, Diogenes, 137 La Grue, Philippe, 322 Landriani, Marsilio, 375 Lapland, 349, 353–354 Lasswitz, Kurd, 121 Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent, vi, 2, 4, 90, 131–132, 371–391, 398n59, 398n60, 398n62 Mémoires de physique et de chimie, 384, 397n49, 399n64, 399n65 Premier mémoire sur la transpiration des animaux, 376–378, 382, 384–386 Seconde mémoire sur la transpiration des animaux, 377–378, 384, 386–384, 386 Traité élementaire de chimie, 131–132, 378 Leeuwenhoek, Antoni van, 326, 352, 362 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, vi, 1, 12, 90, 112, 131, 139, 165–167, 180, 191–194, 201–208

411

On Memory, 207 Outline of the Catholic Demonstrations, 207 Leiden, 291, 322 University of, 112, 139, 147–148, 322, 327, 337, 343n33, 350 Lemnius, Levinus, 349 Leopoldo de Medici, Prince, 275 Le Paulmier, Julien, 222 Leucippus, 137, 246 L’Hullié, Nicoló, 290–291, 308n9 Libavius, Andreas, 134n13, 145–147, 150 Novus de medicina veterum…tractatus, 146 Life sciences, 4, 273 animals, 253–254, 256, 275–276, 280, 330–332, 334, 338, 353–354, 365, 384–385 botany, 140, 168, 291, 319, 330–331, 340, 349–350, 364 natural history, vi, 247, 257, 349–350, 364 plants, 2, 206, 245, 280, 329–332, 334, 338, 340, 365, 373 tarantula, 303–304 taxonomy, 349, 364 zoology, 349, 353 See also Natural philosophy; Physiology Linnaeus, Carl, 2, 90, 347–365 Bibliotheca medica, 349 Clavis medicinae duplex, 350 Diaeta naturalis, 347–365 Dissertatio medica inauguralis, 349–350 Fundamenta botanica, 364 Lachesis naturalis, 348–365 Philosophia botanica, 364 Lister, Martin, 39, 96n36, 103, 112–113, 291, 294, 354, 379 Locke, John, 19, 123, 250 Lollino, Alvise (Luigi), 11

412 

INDEX

London Philosophical Transactions, 259 Royal College of Physicians, 23 Royal Society, 253, 268n63 Lucretius, 65, 149, 155–156, 282 De rerum natura, 137, 148–149, 221, 282–283 Ludwig, Christian Gottlieb, 364 Lull, Ramon (pseudo), 123 Lund, University of, 365n8 Lüthy, Christoph, 65 Lyon, 290 M Mack, Stephan, 16 Magalotti, Lorenzo Saggi di naturali esperienze, 283 Magnenus, Johann Chrysostom (Magnen), 90, 246 Malipiero, Alessandro, 50 Malpighi, Marcello, 253, 267n60, 275, 279, 283, 297, 352 Manfredi, Fulgenzio, 12 Manzoni, Alessandro, 236n32 Marchetti, Alessandro, 282 Maria Theresa, Empress, 332 Massaria, Alessandro, 11, 230 Mathematics, vi–viii, 7, 9, 11, 27–28, 33, 36, 90, 108, 110–111, 131, 145, 147–148, 152–153, 168, 170, 246, 259–260, 273–276, 283, 325, 350–353, 364, 372, 380 geometry, vii, 72–74, 80, 86, 90, 94n22, 114, 147, 152–153, 155–156, 260, 275, 283–284, 351 See also Natural philosophy; Quantification Mayow, John, 268n65 Tractatus quinque, 375 Mead, Richard, 359

Mechanics/mechanical philosophy, v–viii, 3, 7, 12, 33, 36, 66–67, 74, 76, 79, 90, 113, 120, 123, 125, 131–132, 139, 147–148, 156, 158n5, 167–168, 171, 174, 176, 179–180, 201, 246, 247–248, 250–252, 255, 274–276, 279, 284, 294–295, 299, 307n4, 319, 323, 325, 350–351, 359, 361–362 clockwork, 12, 67, 73–74, 89, 96n36, 154–155, 158n3, 230–231, 275, 299 hydraulics, 139, 147–148, 155–156, 251, 275, 300, 350 See also Instruments; Natural philosophy; Statics Medical practitioners apothecary/pharmacist, 113, 225, 303, 371–373 barber, 225, 236n32 empirical, 11–12, 69 physician, viii, 2–3, 8–9, 11–14, 18, 23–26, 53, 65, 68, 70, 79, 91, 103, 105–107, 110, 112, 114, 138–140, 142, 153, 157–158, 176, 190n115, 218–222, 224–227, 229–230, 239–241, 249, 252, 273–274, 282, 289–290, 293, 301–305, 319, 322–324, 332–334, 337, 339–340, 351–352, 363, 373, 377, 386 quack, 34, 105, 280 surgeon, 225, 343n32 Medicine, vi, viii–ix, 2, 4, 27–28, 33–34, 37, 66–69, 79, 105–106, 110–111, 114, 138, 140–141, 151, 157–158, 165–166, 170, 173–176, 180, 240–241, 252–253, 258, 267n55, 275–276, 289, 292–294, 305, 361, 364, 375, 391

 INDEX 

anatomy/dissections, 1, 9, 11, 24, 27, 36, 66, 77–78, 101n82, 105, 150–151, 154–155, 231, 245, 250–251, 275, 281, 293, 295, 297, 312n35, 319, 325–327, 329, 337, 339, 343n32, 349, 375 bloodletting, 14, 53n79, 229–230, 240, 304 commentaries, 3, 11, 13–14, 24–25, 52n71, 66, 112–113, 289–292, 294, 320, 354 diagnosis/indications, 14, 35, 66, 69–71, 79, 83, 90, 98n48, 105, 294–296, 301, 333 dietetics, vi, 14, 16–17, 53n79, 106–107, 111–112, 221, 229, 241, 347–365, 390 education, 10, 12–13, 19, 23–25, 60, 66, 110, 112–113, 125, 139, 147–148, 166–168, 170, 225, 230–231, 238n55, 241, 250, 290, 320, 322, 327–329, 339, 343n32, 348–349, 351–353, 361–363, 373 experimental, 2, 9, 110–111, 240, 257, 259, 294, 351–352, 390–391 germ theory, 222 hygiene, 241, 256 iatromechanism, viii, 96–97n36, 252, 273–277, 283–284, 289, 292–293, 304, 325, 350, 352–353, 359–360 non-naturals, vi, 13, 17, 295, 317–318, 339, 353, 357–358 occult qualities (see Natural philosophy)

413

poisons, 124–126, 128, 141, 144, 154, 221, 227, 239, 250, 260n2, 279–281, 303 prolongation of life, 14, 16, 24, 294, 302, 350, 361 purging, 14, 53n79 surgery, 34, 67, 231, 343n32, 349, 375 See also Balance/equilibrium/ homeostasis/eukrasia; Disease; Drugs/pharmacy; Instruments; Medical practitioners; Physiology; Statics Meinel, Christoph, 247 Melanchthon, Philipp Erotemata dialectices, 151–152 Mercado, Luis, 142–143, 230 Mercuriale, Girolamo, 7, 9, 34, 218–220, 230 Mersenne, Marin, 33, 90, 139, 190n15, 246 Messina, 24, 223, 275–277 University of, 275–276 Micanzio, Fulgenzio, 5, 11 Michael, Emily, 143 Milan, 223–224, 226, 235n32 Mondella Luigi, 230 Montanari, Geminiano, 262n13 Montpellier, University of, 168 Mora, Gian Giacomo, 226, 236n32 Moray, Sir Robert, 268n63 Morgagni, Giovanni Battista, 273 Morosini family, 7 Andrea, 7, 10–11 Giovanni Francesco, 290, 307n4 Nicolo, 7, 11 Paolo, 7 Ridotto Morosini, 7, 10–11, 27 Mulerius, Nicolaus, 168 Müller-Wille, Staffan, 364 Muys, Johannes, 190n116

414 

INDEX

N Naples, 110, 116n25, 217, 226, 231 Academy of Investigators, 116n25, 227, 236n37, 237n46 Accademia degli Oziosi, 236n41 plague, 226–228 Studio, 231 University of, 237n45, 238n55 Nardi, Giovanni, 282 Natural philosophy, v–viii, 2, 8, 9, 11, 65–67, 71, 82, 90, 112, 120, 132, 137, 139–140, 147, 167, 173, 192, 202, 227, 250, 258, 263n25, 275, 350, 363 atomism, vii, 68, 76–77, 79, 120–126, 129–132, 134n13, 137–140, 143, 145–146, 148–153, 155–156, 227, 245–247, 264n27, 282–283 corpuscularianism, v, vii–viii, 3, 26, 65, 67, 75, 77, 80, 84–86, 93n10, 120–121, 123, 129–131, 138, 144–145, 171, 201, 227–228, 236–237n41, 245–250, 264n27, 265n31, 265n32, 274, 279, 282–284 elements, 121–122, 124, 127, 131–132, 137–143, 145–147, 149–151, 154, 158n4, 158n5, 193, 195–196 ether, 201 extension/position, 73–77, 79–80, 95n26, 127–130, 148–149, 152, 154–155, 158, 168, 170, 196–197, 199–201 forms, vii–viii, 75–77, 79, 94n22, 124–127, 129, 139, 141–147, 149, 153–155, 158n4, 193–194, 196–197, 199, 201–202, 204 gravity, 201, 258–259, 275, 373

heat/cold, 36–37, 74–75, 79–82, 84–86, 94n22, 127, 147, 170–171, 195, 197–198, 241–243, 255–257, 270n79, 278 intensity, 79–80, 86–87 magnetism/attraction/loadstone, 71–72, 125–126, 128, 153, 201, 229, 245, 263n22, 348, 359–362 mechanical philosophy (see Mechanics/mechanical philosophy) minima naturalia, vii–viii, 65, 77, 94n22, 122, 142, 144–145, 150–152, 155, 158, 194–195, 208, 247, 249, 281 motion, vii–viii, 74–75, 79, 120, 131, 138, 144, 148, 155, 168, 170–171, 173, 175, 178, 201–202, 206–207, 231, 247–248, 253–254, 257, 276, 281–284, 297–301, 303, 319, 328, 333 occult qualities, 11, 68–69, 71, 74, 76, 90, 119, 124–128, 141, 148–149, 153–155, 158, 168, 199–200, 245, 247–248, 265n34 optics/colours, vi, 8–9, 24, 33, 51n65, 67, 71–72, 95n26, 128–129, 196–197, 244, 258 pneuma, 201–202 qualities, vii, 68–74, 79–80, 90–91, 94–95n22, 119–120, 123–129, 140, 143, 146, 158, 168, 193–197, 199, 245, 247, 278, 283 rarity/density, 73–76, 82, 84, 87, 89–90, 94n22, 127–129, 196, 200, 283–284

 INDEX 

sympathy/antipathy, 125, 201, 222, 228, 230, 248, 359–361 vacuum/void, 66–67, 87–88, 101n77, 148, 157, 244, 283 vortex, 76, 79 world-soul/spirit, 141, 154 See also Astronomy; Chemistry; Geology; Life sciences; Mathematics; Mechanics/ mechanical philosophy; Philosophy; Physics; Statics; and names of individual natural philosophers/movements Nedham, Marchamont, 240, 260n4 Medela medicinae, 240 Newman, William, vi, 143–145 Newton, Isaac, vi–vii, 131, 265n34, 275, 359 Opticks, 131 Newtonianism, viii, 112 Nicholas of Cusa Idiota, 105, 107–108, 115n17 Nollet, Jean-Antoine, 2, 262n14, 372 Northampton, 325 O Obizzi, Ippolito, 18–19, 33, 36, 50n53, 103–109, 241, 280, 361 Staticomastix, 18, 103–109 Occupations bombardier, 7, 46n28, 46n29 bookkeeping, 7, 46n30 bookseller/publisher, 28–9, 241–244, 290, 292, 308n9, 308n10, 322, 346n80 clergyman/priest, 11–12, 222, 349 engineer, 138–139, 147–148, 156 guard, 224 gravedigger, 224, 230 lawyer, 7, 372 munitions, 7

415

notary, 5, 7, 45n23 porcelain manufacture, 373 salt pans, 7, 45n27 soldier, 226, 274 street cleaner, 224 tanning, 376 teacher, 5 See also Medical practitioners Ongaro, Giuseppe, 108 Overkamp, Heidentryk, 190n116, 322 Oxford, 245, 247, 250–251, 254, 328 ‘Experimental Club,’, 250 P Pacchioni, Antonio, 290 Padua, 219 Conti Palatini, 19 Hortus Botanicus, 170 Museum of the History of Medicine, 26 Natio Germanica, 23, 55n104 University of, viii, 2, 5, 8–9, 11–13, 19, 23–24, 27–28, 47n37, 51n64, 57n117, 58n124, 68, 77–78, 92n6, 105, 107, 143–144, 155–157, 166–170, 180, 183n23, 218–220, 244 Palermo, 237n45 Palmer, Richard, 218 Pancirolli, Guido, 92n6 Papadopoli, Niccolò Comneno, 47n37 Paracelsianism, 105, 121, 124, 139–140, 143–145, 147, 218, 254, 350 Paracelsus, 221 Paré, Ambroise, 230 Paris, 207, 226, 372, 376, 378 Académie des Sciences, 375–376, 381, 389 Arsenal, 376 Collège de pharmacie, 373

416 

INDEX

Paris (cont.) Collège Mazarin, 372 Musée des Arts et Métiers, 386 University of, 51n64, 372 Pascal, Blaise Traitez de l’équilibre des liqueurs, 374 Pascoli, Alessandro, 297 Il corpo umano, 297 Paterno, Bernardino, 7 Paulze-Lavoisier, Marie-Anne, 378, 381–386 Pavia, 24, 223–224, 226 Perspiration, vi, 17–19, 52n71, 82–84, 100n61, 107, 113, 155–156, 170, 176–179, 276–277, 302, 305, 319–340, 350, 355, 361–363, 377–378 effluvia, 2, 84, 94n22, 192, 200, 245–257, 263n22, 331, 339, 348, 354, 360–361 exhalations, 218, 221, 225, 240, 279–280, 283, 330–331, 353, 356, 360, 376 insensible, vi, viii, 3–4, 13–14, 26–27, 38, 82–85, 87, 101n82, 112, 116n34, 167, 170–171, 180, 240–257, 276–277, 284, 292, 317–340, 353–356, 359–360, 362–363, 380 respiration (see Physiology, air/ respiration; Physiology, lungs) sweat, 170, 178, 229, 253, 281, 319, 326–328, 332–339, 353–354 transpiration, 343n38, 375–378, 381, 385, 390 See also Statics Philip II of Spain, 142 Philoponus, John, 80–82 Philosophy, 7, 8, 11, 70–71, 113, 139, 143, 146, 150, 155, 166–168, 180, 201, 221, 302, 350

emanative causation, 193–194, 198 emergentism, 193–203 ethics/morals, 11, 264n25, 302–304, 348 logic, 11–12, 51n65, 67, 69–71, 114, 147, 150–152, 155, 372 metaphysics, 9, 171–174, 176, 191, 202, 208 scepticism, 9, 108, 110–111 supervenience, 196 See also Natural philosophy; and names of individual philosophers/movements Physics, 3, 13, 37, 51n65, 73, 90, 130–132, 137, 147, 273, 372, 380 electricity, 2, 124, 362 lightning, 280 meteorology, 46n30 See also Mechanics; Natural philosophy Physiology age, 200 air/respiration, 221–222, 225, 227–228, 241, 248–249, 253–254, 277–279, 281, 284, 334–335, 337, 356, 363, 374–376, 381–382, 384–387, 390–391 bile, 252 blood, 173–176, 199, 226, 229, 248, 250–252, 254–255, 274, 276–277, 281–283, 293–295, 297, 299–301, 304, 309n20, 328–329, 333, 355, 362–363, 377 brain, 173, 175, 186n50, 197, 205, 281, 298–300, 303, 320, 328, 358 cardimelech, 296 chyle, 156, 330

 INDEX 

digestion, 2, 17, 82, 156, 173, 178, 248, 251, 256, 281, 302, 305, 317–318, 320, 322–323, 325–326, 329, 339, 377, 385, 389–390 dura mater, 290, 297–301 fibres, 290, 294–301, 328, 337 fluids/solids, 2, 171, 173, 251–252, 258, 283, 291, 294–295, 299–301, 304–305, 318–319, 330–331, 351 generation/embryology, 69, 81, 140, 198–199, 245, 250, 299 glands, 253, 297, 326–328, 342n24 heart, 27, 86, 170, 173, 175, 178, 197, 230, 253–254, 281–282, 297–301, 303 human (see also Balance/ equilibrium/homeostasis/ eukrasia; Disease; Life sciences; Medicine; Perspiration; Statics), 3, 36, 105, 138–140, 151–158, 166, 171–174, 179, 248, 250, 274–277, 293–294, 327–328, 334, 339, 347–349, 359, 361, 376–377, 384–385, 391 humours, 17, 82, 86, 107, 138, 156, 167, 170, 173–174, 176, 179–180, 186n50, 221, 229, 252, 281–282, 303, 317, 320, 323, 327, 363, 377 immortality, 191–193, 198, 208 innate/vital heat, 198–200, 250–251, 253, 268n65, 377, 385 liver, 27, 281, 327 lungs, 86, 128, 176, 225, 232, 254–255, 281, 283, 299, 322, 327, 335, 338–339, 354, 361–362, 377, 385, 389–390 metabolism, 2, 17, 38, 170, 179

417

mind-body relations, 166–167, 171–172, 175, 180, 193, 202, 204–207, 298–304, 328, 333, 358 muscles, 297, 328 nerves/nervous fluid, 150, 199, 298, 318–319, 323–329 nutrition, 2, 72, 140, 156, 178, 245, 251, 255, 330, 356–357, 376 palingenesis, 192 passions/affections, 166–167, 172–80, 200, 301–305, 358 sensation, 94n22, 173, 204–207, 299, 328, 344n46 skin, 82–84, 100n61, 228, 240, 251, 253–256, 268n65, 276, 281–282, 323, 326–329, 335, 338, 352, 354, 362, 385, 389 spirits, 82, 112, 167, 173–175, 206, 240, 251, 281, 303, 328, 331, 333 spleen, 173, 176 urine, 75, 82, 252, 339, 362 water, 227–228, 258–259, 350, 356, 374 Piazza, Guglielmo, 226, 236n32 Piccini, Jacopo, 19, 21, 23 Pignoria, Lorenzo, 52n71 Pinelli, Gian Vincenzo, 8 circle, 8, 9, 27 Pisa Academia del Cimento, 275–276, 282–283 University of, 275–276, 282–283 Pitcairne, Archibald, 2, 293, 359 Platonism, 141, 154–155 Plato Timaeus, 153, 354 Poland, 8 Pollaroli, Nicolò, 26 Pomponazzi, Pietro, 302 Pourbus, Franz II, 19–20

418 

INDEX

Power, Henry, 251, 266n50 Experimental Philosophy, 251 Priestley, Joseph, 375 Principe, Lawrence, vi Procopio, Marco, 5 Ptolemy, 114n8, 147 Puccinotti, Francesco, 292 Q Quantification, vii–viii, 9, 12, 14, 16, 18, 34–40, 66–67, 70–73, 79, 86–87, 90–91, 101n82, 108, 113, 152, 167, 170–171, 177, 179–180, 208, 241, 245–247, 250, 254–255, 257, 273, 283, 319, 325–326, 353–354, 380, 389–390 See also Mathematics; Statics Quincy, John, 50n55, 91, 101n82, 112–113, 225 R Ragusa (Dubrovnik), 223 Ramism, 147, 150, 155 Redi, Francesco, 352 Regius, Henricus (Hendrik de Roy), 166–180 Dissertatio de animi affectibus, 166–167, 174–176 Explicatio mentis humanae, 172 Fundamenta physices, 171–172, 174 Religion angels, 206 Bible, 353, 358 Calvinism, 149–150 Christianity, 223, 264n26 design, 149, 153–155, 158 Jews, 223 miracles, 249 Muslims, 223

papacy, 10–12, 23 Piarists, 275–276 prayers, 223 predestination, 149 Protestantism, 12, 19, 23 providence, 112, 149, 158 punishment, 222–223, 266n45 resurrection, 2, 112, 191–192, 244, 255, 269n74 soul, 127, 138, 166–167, 171–174, 177, 191–197, 203–204, 206–207, 298, 302, 304, 358 thanksgiving, 223 theology, 9, 12, 112–113, 129, 146, 149–150, 155, 194, 244, 255, 264n26, 358 Renbourn, Edward Tobias, 354–355 Reneri, Henricus, 171 Ris, Henricus, 325 Riverius, Lazarus, 168 Rocke, Alan, 131–132 Rogers, Joseph, 38 Medicina statica Hybernica, 40 Rome, 226, 275–276, 292, 308n9 Anatomical Theatre, 295, 312n33 Archiginnasio, 290 Sapienza University, 307n5 Rouelle, Guillaume-François, 372–373 Rosarium philosophorum, 147 Rothman, Johann Stensson, 348–349 Rotterdam, 139 Rüdiger, Andreas Johannes, 354, 361 Diaeta eruditorium, 361 Rudio, Eustachio, 9, 68, 73–77 De morbis occultis, 68–69 Ruysch, Frederik, 326, 342n24 Rye, George, 117n41 S Sagredo, Giovanni Francesco, 28, 32, 36 Sala, 227

 INDEX 

Salerno, 227 University of, 238n56 Santorelli, Antonio, 238n55 Santori family, 5–7, 25–26, 45n24, 58n126 Antonio (father), 5, 7, 45n27 Antonio (nephew), 25 Diana, 5 Elisabetta (nee Cordoni), 5 Franceschina, 5 Isabetta, 58n126 Isidoro, 5, 7, 45n23 Santori, Santorio career, 5–26, 55n106 Commentaria (1612), 13, 59n141, 67, 75–76, 82–83, 138, 154–155, 198 Commentaria (1625), 14, 24, 68, 81, 88–89, 154–156, 194–198, 200, 241–244 Commentaria (1629), 24–25, 198–199, 231 De instrumentis medicis non amplius visis, 24–25, 66 De remediorum inventione, 25, 156, 197, 231, 281 Medicina statica (see also Statics), vi, 2–3, 9–10, 13–19, 25, 28, 32, 35, 53n78, 82–84, 103–117, 155–156, 167, 176–180, 200, 217–233, 238n55, 239–259, 270n83, 281–282, 289–305, 347–365, 375, 377, 379, 381, 387 Methodi vitandorum errorum … libri XV, 11, 25, 67–86, 125, 127–128, 138–139, 151, 153–156, 168, 170, 196, 199–200, 240 plague, 217, 220–206 politics, 10–12, 23, 34 portrait, 19–23

419

religion, 10–11, 23, 55n104 Santorian lectures, 26 sex, 10, 18, 107 translations and editions, 103, 239, 260n1, 290, 294, 322, 377, 387–388, 395n33 wealth, 7, 26, 34, 46n31 Sarpi, Paolo, 5, 8–12, 23, 26–27, 32–33, 60n144, 67, 93n10, 111, 155, 310n20 Pensieri Medico Morali, 10 Pensieri Naturali, 9, 67 Saumur Academy, 139, 148 Scaliger, Julius Caesar, 65, 134n13, 144 Exotericae exercitationes, 144 Schuler, Conradus Discursus philosophicus de veris causis lapidis philosofici, 231 Secker, Thomas, 106, 112–114, 322 Disputatio medica, 112–113 Séguin, Armand, 2, 376–391, 398n59, 398n60, 398n62 Sendivogius, Michael, 254 Seneca, 303, 307n4 Sennert, Daniel, vii, 4, 86, 90–91, 119–136, 138–147, 149, 153–157, 192, 246–247, 264n26, 349 De chymicorum … consensu (1619), 123–124, 127, 129, 140, 143–146 De chymicorum … consensu (1629), 124, 130, 139–140, 143–146 Epitome naturalis scientiae, 143 Hypomnemata physica, 120–122 Institutiones, 123, 139–143, 145–146 Paralipomena, 119–120, 126–129 Seton, Alexander, 254 Settala, Lodovico, 13, 230 Settala, Senatore, 13, 24, 380

420 

INDEX

Severino, Marco Aurelio, 227, 229, 231, 236n34, 236–237n41, 237n44 Sèvres, 376 Sherard, William, 291 Sherborne, 245 Sicily, 276–281 Siena, 223–224 Silvatico, Benedetto, 57n117 Simoni, Simone, 225–226 Slovenia, 5 Snel, Rudolph (Snellius), 147 Spain, 11, 23, 276 Spigelius, Adrianus (Adriaan van den Spiegel), 66, 168, 183n23 Spilimbergo, 5, 45n24 Sprengel, Kurt, 17, 106 Stahl, Georg Ernst, 131–132, 375 Stalbridge, 245–247 Starkey, George, 246 Statics, vi, 3, 13–19, 35, 38, 82–87, 107–108, 113, 132, 176–180, 239–259, 281–282, 293–295, 301–302, 304, 317–326, 352–354, 361, 363, 377–379 hydrostatics, 2, 240, 258–259, 270n87, 325, 381 See also Mechanics; Perspiration Stefani, Giovanni, 50n53 Stenbrohult, 348 Steno, Nicolas, 253 Stevin, Simon, 147 Stoics, 202 neo-Stoics, 177 Stolberg, Michael, 146, 198 Strazzoni, Andrea, 179 Stubbe, Henry, 249, 256–257 Sydenham, Thomas, 266n47, 349 Sylvius, Franciscus, 323

T Talbot, Sir Gilbert, 245 Tebaldi da Oderzo, Girolamo, 14, 24, 26, 95n26, 107 Temkin, Owsei, 90–91 Thessalus, 74 Thomson, George, 240 Thucydides, 222 Tinelli, Tiberio, 23 Toinard, Nicolas, 19 Trevisano, Nicolo, 55n106 Tschirnhaus, Ehrenfried Walter von, 262n13 U Udine, 45n24 Uppsala, University of, 348, 353, 361–363, 365n8 Utrecht, 139 University of, 168, 172 V Valdera, Marc’Antonio, 8 Epistole d’Ovidio, 8 Van Foreest, Pieter, 230 Van Hearne, Johan (Heurnius), 140 Van Helmont, Jan Baptist, 221, 246, 247, 271n91, 323 Ortus medicinae, 246, 375 Tomb of the Plague, 221 See also Helmontianism Venice, 5, 7–9, 12, 22, 24–26, 28, 32–33, 52n66, 56n114, 57n118, 57n119, 57n121, 57n122, 60n142–144, 60n146, 219, 223–241, 244, 278 Ateneo Veneto, 19, 22, 26

 INDEX 

Collegio dei Medici Fisici, 19, 26, 106–107, 219 Collegio Veneto, 19, 55n107 Convent of Servites, 9, 22, 26 doges, 10 fleet, 46n30 giovani, 11 Health Board, 218–220, 223–225 interdict, 11–12 Lazaretto, 224 Maggior Consiglio, 218 nobility, 9–12, 34, 106 plague, 217–225 Senate, 7, 12, 19, 23–25, 46n28, 55n106, 60n144, 290 Vermeer, Gerhardus, 343n32 Vesalius, Andreas, 11, 319 Viete, François, 33 Viviani, Vincenzo, 28, 275–276 Vlacq, Adriaan, 322 Vorstius, Adolphus, 170, 183n23 Vorstius, Aelius Everhardus, 168

421

W Ward, John, 250 Wear, Andrew, 90–91 Westfall, Richard, 131 Wikman, Karl, 359 Willis, Thomas, 266n50, 268n65, 328, 349 Wittenberg, University of, 124, 129, 132, 138, 140 Worsley, Benjamin, 246 Wotton, Sir Henry, 12, 52n66 Z Zabarella, Jacopo, 7, 9, 51n65, 67, 81, 143–144, 150, 196, 198, 204 De rebus naturalibus, 143 Zacchia, Paolo, 225 Zeeland, 139 Zerbi, Gabriele, 332 Zuiderzee, 335