Pietismus, Medizin und Aufklärung in Preußen im 18. Jahrhundert: Das Leben und Werk Georg Ernst Stahls (review)

Abstract

Johanna Geyer-Kordesch is well known to American and English historians of early modern medicine for her many and wide-ranging contributions to the work of the Wellcome group in England. This recently published monograph on Stahlian medicine and medical theory goes back to an earlier stage of her work. It is both valuable and welcome, although it ignores much of the more recent literature on the linkage between medical and religious reforms at the end of the early modern period. Whatever the reason for this omission, there is still much to be done to elucidate how these reforms affected specific aspects of Western medicine in general, and German medicine in particular. In contrast to previous English-language work on Stahl—in particular, Lester King's classic studies—Geyer-Kordesch was able to work from a wide range of archival sources and of forgotten or neglected secondary literature to fill some of the gap.