“The Architecture of the Body: From Anatomy to Surgery”

Cynthia Klestinec (Miami University)

The role of techne and the rise of the technical arts in the Renaissance has received considerable attention (e.g. P. Smith, P. Long, among others), medical techne, by contrast, is underdeveloped. The techne of medicine differed from that of the technical arts because its object was the body and the body’s health, and yet, in the sixteenth century, the technical arts supplied a vocabulary for medical techne, for the art of medicine. In a range of sixteenth-century Latin and Italian texts, the surgeon’s technical skill is expressed through 2 analogies to architecture. Surgeons manipulated the body’s architecture, and their work was articulated in light of men who both conceived and built architectural fabrications. Not only did the architectural analogies, which originated in Galen, emphasize the usefulness of anatomical knowledge to medical practice, but they indicate how surgery acquired an artisanal character by the late sixteenth century.

“Visual Representations of Tactile Knowledge: Early Modern Japanese Images of Bone Manipulation and Abdominal Palpation”

Daniel Trambaiolo (Hong Kong University)

Japanese understandings of human body structure underwent a radical transformation over the course of the eighteenth century. Historical accounts of this transformation have generally privileged its visual aspects, especially the new ways of looking at the body developed and popularized by scholars of “Dutch studies” (rangaku). However, the eighteenth century saw not only the emergence of new ways of looking at the body, but also new ways of touching and manipulating it: bone-setting methods derived from Chinese sources, techniques of physical manipulation for intervening in difficult births, and the conviction that disease could be more reliably diagnosed by palpation of the abdomen than by the pulse-taking techniques that had traditionally been privileged by Chinese style doctors. Although true mastery over these forms of tactile knowledge required direct personal experience, authors of manuscripts and printed books sought ways to convey their knowledge through images accompanying their texts, aiming to help viewers understand the connections between internal structures and the external appearances of intact living bodies. I argue that by paying close attention to the visual language of these images, we find unexpected connections among the different forms of tactile knowledge that flourished prior to and alongside the emergence of European-style anatomy, suggesting a new interpretation of the eighteenth-century transformation of Japanese ideas about body structure.

“Hieronymus Brunschwig’s Distillation Manuals and the Making of Vernacular Medicine in Early German Print”

Tillmann Taape (University of Cambridge)

In the early 1500s, Hieronymus Brunschwig, a surgeon and apothecary from Strasbourg, published the first printed manuals on pharmaceutical distillation, written in his native German. Brunschwig was more craftsman than scholar and drew extensively on his handson experience as a distiller and shopkeeper as well as medical and alchemical texts. In this paper I investigate how texts and practice shape Brunschwig’s understanding of nature and the human body, and his expertise of making medicines. By close reading of Brunschwig’s practical instructions, I argue that he articulates an artisanal way of knowing based on direct engagement with materials and processes, through the body and its senses. I show how his 3 books combine this approach with alchemical ideas about the ‘quintessence’ of things to produce reliable remedies which are safe for the use of laypeople. Considering the books as remarkable printed objects in themselves, I explore how they endeavour to communicate the embodied knowledge of making medicines to a wide audience beyond medical specialists, through the innovative use of print technology in text and image. As I will show, Brunschwig’s works were seminal among the earliest vernacular publications, and tell a story about distilling remedies, producing printed books, and the making of the vernacular medical tradition at the eve of the Reformation.

“Wood, Plaster, Texts and Acquaintances: Making Anatomical Models around 1800”

Marieke Hendriksen (Utrecht University)

Around 1800, anatomical models were not yet mass produced, but made in small numbers, from a variety of materials. We know that medical men frequently collaborated with visual artists and craftsmen to realize such models, yet we know very little about these collaborations. This paper investigates and compares the role of printed texts, images, and one-on-one instruction in the making of plaster and wooden anatomical models in two case studies: the creation of plaster models in Edinburgh and the making of wooden models in Philadelphia. By the late eighteenth century, there were strong ties between these two medical centers, yet approaches to making anatomical models were very different. While plaster casts could be produced in relatively large numbers and were fairly cheap, wooden models took much more time to make, could not be reproduced on a large scale, and were much more expensive. However, an analysis of plaster casts and wooden models in Edinburgh and Philadelphia collections suggests this did not define the choices anatomists made. On the contrary, by the early nineteenth century, we see comparable percentages of plaster and wooden models. Combined with my reconstruction of plaster modelling based on Pole’s 1790 Anatomical Instructor, I use this analysis to argue that it is a misunderstanding that plaster casting was an easy and widely used option. Finally, I will discuss how collaborations in the production of these plaster and wooden models were reflected in the textual recording and transmission of techniques for anatomical modelling.