CfP: HUMOURS, MIXTURES, & CORPUSCLES 18-20 May 2017
A Medical Path to Corpuscularism in the Seventeenth Century
International Conference
Domus Comeliana, Pisa, 18-20 May 2017
Organisers
Fabrizio
Bigotti & Jonathan
Barry
The Centre for Medical History of the University of Exeter (United Kingdom) and the Fondazione Comel -
Institutio
Santoriana
(Italy) are pleased to announce an International Conference
humours, mixtures and corpuscles. a medical path to corpuscularism in the seventeenth
century, organised by Dr Fabrizio
Bigotti and Prof. Jonathan
Barry, to be held at the Domus Comeliana of Pisa
on 18-20 May 2017.
The conference aims at exploring the interplay between
minima naturalia, corpuscles, and atoms in the medical thought of
the seventeenth century (broadly considered, 1550-1720) by especially
focusing on the legacy of the Italian physician
Santorio Santori (1561-1636). Santorio, who is credited to
be the first to introduce a quantitative approach into medicine and
biology by means of his studies on the insensible perspiration of the
body (perspiratio insensibilis), was also
the first to conceive the action of corpuscles and atoms mechanically
as a result of his experiments on the properties of drugs and mixtures.
As the impetus towards the quantification of compound substances which
led European physicians to embrace corpuscular
theories remains largely unknown to scholars, this conference will shed
light not only on the context and influence of Santorio’s legacy, but
also on the many directions taken by medical experimentation in the
seventeenth century.
Keynote Speakers:
Georgiana
Hedesan (University of Oxford)
Christoph
Lüthy (Radbound University)
William R.
Newman (Indiana University)
Vivian
Nutton (University College of London)
Papers
from scholars of any nationality are invited on any aspect of early
modern medicine and science.
Contributions on general aspects (e.g. Renaissance Aristotelianism and
Galenism, Medical School of Padua, alchemical medicine, properties of
mixtures, preparation of drugs, etc.) as well as on single authors
(Baglivi, Basson, Boyle, Descartes, Falloppia, Fracastoro,
Glisson, Iungius, Santorio, Sennert, Spinoza, etc.) are equally
welcome. In the spirit of the conference, however, particular attention
will be devoted to papers referring to Santorio and the history of
perspiratio insensibilis (from Dodart to Keill).
PhD students are strongly encouraged to join the event which will be supported by 5
Santorio Fellowships for Medical Humanities and Science (500 euros each) funded by the
Fondazione Comel - Institutio Santoriana, whose application process will be advertised separately in December 2017.
Papers should be a maximum of 20-25 minutes followed by 10 minutes of reply. Abstracts of a max. 300 words
should be sent to Dr Fabrizio Bigotti at f.bigotti@exeter.ac.uk
by the end of January 2017 with successful papers notified by the end of February.
A publication of the conference proceedings is anticipated from Springer in 2018.