The Healing Arts: Health, Disease and Society in Europe 1500-1800

The period from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment constitutes a vital phase in the history of European medicine. Elements of continuity with the classical and medieval past are evident in the persistence of a humor-based view of the body and of illness. At the same time new theories of the body emerged to challenge established ideas in medical circles. In recent years, scholars have explored this terrain with increasingly fascinating results, often revising our previous understanding of issues relating to the way in which early modern Europeans discussed the body, health and disease. In order to understand these and related processes, historians are increasingly aware of the way in which every aspect of medical care and provision in early modern Europe was shaped by the social, religious, political and cultural concerns of the age.