Van Helmont Research Articles

Religion, Magic, and Science in Early Modern Europe and America (Allison P. Coudert)

<i>Religion, Magic, and Science in Early Modern Europe and America</i> (Allison P. Coudert)

Epistolary Community in Print, 1580-1664 by Diana G. Barnes (review)

Reviewed by: Epistolary Community in Print, 1580-1664 by Diana G. Barnes Frank Swannack Barnes, Diana G. , Epistolary Community in Print, 1580-1664 (Material Readings in Early Modern Culture), Farnham, Ashgate, 2013; hardback; pp. 262; 11 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. £55.00; ISBN 9781409445357. Diana G. Barnes introduces her fascinating study with correspondence between Edmund Spenser and Gabriel Harvey. She uses their dialogue to argue that epistolary discourse 'is a sociable form that speaks for the group rather than the individual' (p. 1). Thus, Barnes examines early modern letters that have 'appeared at key moments from the 1580s to the 1660s' with the wider community in mind (p. 15). During these periods of political upheaval, letter-writers attempted to influence public opinion. Chapter 1 examines The English Secretary (1586-1635) by Angel Day. This manual for professional letter-writers also reveals Barnes's additional interest in the importance of 'feminine' letters written by women. It appears an obvious concern given how the figure of 'the secretary' has been distinctly feminised in modern times. Barnes's analysis of the literacy women demonstrated by the reading and writing of letters is here used to chart the development of love letters. Yet Barnes's analysis is also crucial for understanding how women came to define the epistolary tradition. Michael Drayton's England's Heroicall Epistles (1597) is the subject of Chapter 2. Influenced by the epistles in Ovid's Heroides, Drayton's dialogue form uses love letters 'to challenge singular sovereignty' (p. 69). The king's disgruntled mistresses turned feminine discourse into a powerful political weapon. These epistolary dialogues lead Barnes neatly into a discussion of Jacques du Bosque's The Secretary of Ladies (1638), the subject of Chapter 3. Translated by Jerome Hainhofer and dedicated to Mary Sackville, The Secretary of Ladies invited contemporary concerns into Henrietta Maria's Roman Catholic court. Barnes argues more specifically that feminine epistolary discourse was not private, but 'a differentiating and specifying term in a public discourse' (p. 75). The early modern appetite for gossip within the aristocratic elite sets the tone for the next chapter. Chapter 4, provocatively titled 'Epistolary Battles in the English Civil War: The Kings Cabinet Opened (1645)', details how Parliament turned the public against King Charles I. Once the New Model Army had seized and published the King's private letters, Charles's ability to rule was open to public debate. Barnes reveals a dichotomy where the King was associated 'with secret language, deception and sin' and Parliament 'with plain prose, God and truth' (p. 113). More interesting is the assertion that the King was ruled by an 'evil secretary' through the Queen's ability to manipulate language (p. 128): femininity was no longer associated with love letters but with political controversy. In order to restore a positive attitude towards feminine discourse, Chapter 5 tackles Margaret Cavendish's Sociable Letters and Philosophical [End Page 163] Letters (1664). Sociable Letters contains letters promoting marital bliss. The wife of this epistolary discourse is not deceptive, but instead 'sets ideals and restores peace' (p. 157). Philosophical Letters is an extension of Cavendish's rhetoric of friendship and love. It was a serious attempt by a woman to voice philosophical opinion in a distinctly male world. Cavendish's discussion of the leading philosophers of the day, Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes, Henry More, Francis Mercury Van Helmont, and Galileo Galilei demonstrates this male preserve set against her own philosophy. In the Conclusion, Barnes reiterates the social function of what she terms 'the printed familiar letter' (p. 197).The individual voice was still retained but, upon publication, the printed letter became a communal discourse through its wide familiarity. Yet Barnes also identifies the exclusionary nature of the epistolary tradition. Referring once again to the Spenser/Harvey letters, she reflects how the 'familiar printed letter' is hostile to the unfamiliar other. Epistolary Community in Print, 1580-1664 is an excellent study for students and academics interested in the early modern letter-writing tradition. Barnes's focus on feminine epistolary discourse gives her book welcome depth. Her book is also an exciting read. Each subsequent chapter follows a logical progression to create an absorbing narrative that celebrates...

Introduction

June 01 2012 Introduction Sorana Corneanu, Sorana Corneanu Sorana Corneanu is lecturer in the Department of English and researcher in early modern studies at the Research Center for the Foundations of Modern Thought, University of Bucharest, Romania. She has written articles on various aspects of the works of John Locke, Robert Boyle, Francis Bacon, and Daniel Defoe and has recently published a book entitled Regimens of the Mind: Boyle, Locke, and the Early Modern Cultura Animi Tradition (Chicago, 2011). Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Guido Giglioni, Guido Giglioni Guido Giglioni is the Cassamarca Lecturer in Neo-Latin Cultural and Intellectual History at the Warburg Institute, University of London. Recently, he has published a book on Francis Bacon (Francesco Bacone, Rome 2011). He has written essays on Renaissance philosophy and medicine and on such authors as Girolamo Cardano, Tommaso Campanella, and Jan Baptist van Helmont. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Dana Jalobeanu Dana Jalobeanu Dana Jalobeanu is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Bucharest and Director of programs at the Research Centre Foundations of Early Modern Thought. Her current research focuses on the emergence of early modern experimental philosophy, with a special interest in the writings of Francis Bacon and their reception. She has recently edited (with Peter Anstey) Vanishing Matter an the Laws of Motion: Descartes and Beyond (Routledge 2011). Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Sorana Corneanu Sorana Corneanu is lecturer in the Department of English and researcher in early modern studies at the Research Center for the Foundations of Modern Thought, University of Bucharest, Romania. She has written articles on various aspects of the works of John Locke, Robert Boyle, Francis Bacon, and Daniel Defoe and has recently published a book entitled Regimens of the Mind: Boyle, Locke, and the Early Modern Cultura Animi Tradition (Chicago, 2011). Guido Giglioni Guido Giglioni is the Cassamarca Lecturer in Neo-Latin Cultural and Intellectual History at the Warburg Institute, University of London. Recently, he has published a book on Francis Bacon (Francesco Bacone, Rome 2011). He has written essays on Renaissance philosophy and medicine and on such authors as Girolamo Cardano, Tommaso Campanella, and Jan Baptist van Helmont. Dana Jalobeanu Dana Jalobeanu is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Bucharest and Director of programs at the Research Centre Foundations of Early Modern Thought. Her current research focuses on the emergence of early modern experimental philosophy, with a special interest in the writings of Francis Bacon and their reception. She has recently edited (with Peter Anstey) Vanishing Matter an the Laws of Motion: Descartes and Beyond (Routledge 2011). Online ISSN: 1530-9274 Print ISSN: 1063-6145 © 2012 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology2012 Perspectives on Science (2012) 20 (2): 135–138. https://doi.org/10.1162/POSC_e_00059 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation Sorana Corneanu, Guido Giglioni, Dana Jalobeanu; Introduction. Perspectives on Science 2012; 20 (2): 135–138. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/POSC_e_00059 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsPerspectives on Science Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © 2012 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology2012 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

The role of the lecturer as tutor: doing what effective tutors do in a large lecture class.

Wood, W. B., & Tanner, K. D. (2012). The role of the lecturer as tutor: doing what effective tutors do in a large lecture class. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 11(1), 3-9. Retrieved from https://dx.doi.org/10.1187%2Fcbe.11-12-0110

The Renaissance Kidney-Nephrology in and about the Sixteenth Century

The endeavor to understand the workings of the human body is as old as civilization; but it is in the intellectual movement of the Renaissance that its actual scientific study began in earnest and has not ceased growing since then. It was in the 16th century that the study of organs was launched and with it that of the kidney, which was then conceived as an accessory organ to clear the excess water ingested with food. The study of the structural basis of kidney function was launched by Bartolomeo Eustachio (1514-1574); the elements of its physiology and pathology were promulgated by Jean Fernel (1497-1558), and that of the chemical study of urine and of the principal cause of kidney disease then, calculi, instigated by Joan Baptista Van Helmont (1577-1644). The methodological approaches of these and their contemporary investigators, which were crystallized and formulated by Francis Bacon (1561-1626), opened the gates of the Scientific Revolution that followed in the 17th century, beginning with that of describing the circulation in 1628 by William Harvey (1564-1657) that would finally free the kidney from the shackles imposed on it as a mere accessory organ to the liver in Galen's physiology.

Chemical and mechanical theories of digestion in early modern medicine

The aim of this paper is to survey the iatrochemists’ and iatromechanists’ explanations of digestion, from the sixteenth to the early decades of the eighteenth century. The iatrochemists substituted the Galenic thermal digestion with a series of chemical processes, the same as those produced in the laboratory. Jean Baptiste van Helmont marked a turning point in the chemical understanding of digestion, indicating the acid ferment in the stomach as the digestive agent. In the wake of van Helmont, an increasing number of physicians rejected the traditional Galenic theory of digestion, turning to the chemical reactions taking place in the ventricles. The iatrochemists saw nutrition as the outcome of the separation of an active invisible substance, i.e., spirits, from a thick inert covering. The emergence of the mechanical physiology, with its emphasis on the shape, size and motion of parts, did not bring about a decline of the chemical investigations of digestion. Descartes ruled out chemistry in the study of physiology, while a number of physiologists—notably in England—adopted a compromise between iatrochemical and mechanical theories. In the second half of the seventeenth century, the view of acid as an agent of gastric digestion became popular among physiologists. Late in the century, the acid-alkali doctrine spurred further investigations on digestion and nutrition.

Gur, Ghur, Guhr or Bur? The quest for a metalliferous prime matter in early modern times

AbstractIt has been traditionally held that the idea of a prime matter of metals was abandoned in the eighteenth century, especially after the failure of Hermann Boerhaave to find it in mercury. However, documents tell a different story: the search for the metalliferous principle, in the form of an odd substance known as Gur, Guhr, Ghur or Bur, was very much alive in the 1700s. This was a project that involved Boerhaave himself, as is shown by his correspondence with J.B. Bassand. The first mention of this strange material appears in Sarepta, a collection of sermons by the sixteenth-century Bohemian preacher Johannes Mathesius, sometimes mentioned in the specialized literature but rarely studied. This paper discusses the various conceptions of this material held as the prime matter of metals, from Mathesius to the eighteenth century, involving reputed authors such as John Webster, Jan B. van Helmont, Georg E. Stahl and Boerhaave.

Ontological tensions in sixteenth and seventeenth century chemistry: between mechanism and vitalism

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries marks a period of transition between the vitalistic ontology that had dominated Renaissance natural philosophy and the Early Modern mechanistic paradigm endorsed by, among others, the Cartesians and Newtonians. This paper will focus on how the tensions between vitalism and mechanism played themselves out in the context of sixteenth and seventeenth century chemistry and chemical philosophy, particularly in the works of Paracelsus, Jan Baptista Van Helmont, Robert Fludd, and Robert Boyle. Rather than argue that these natural philosophers each embraced either fully vitalistic or fully mechanistic ontologies, I hope to demonstrate that these thinkers adhered to complicated and nuanced ontologies that cannot be described in either purely vitalistic or purely mechanistic terms. A central feature of my argument is the claim that a corpuscularian theory of matter does not entail a strictly mechanistic and reductionistic account of chemical properties. I also argue that what marks the shift from pre-modern vitalistic chemical philosophy to the modern chemical philosophy that marked the Chemical Revolution is not the victory of mechanism and reductionism in chemistry but, rather, the shift to a physicalistic and naturalistic account of chemical properties and vital spirits.

Margaret Cavendish's Materialist Critique of Van Helmontian Chymistry

A striking omission in the scholarship on the reception of the chymical philosophy of Jan Baptista van Helmont in England in the seventeenth century is the work of the mid-seventeenth-century natural philosopher Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. In her Philosophical Letters (1664), Cavendish offers an extended critique of Van Helmont's work (whose Ortus Medicinae had recently been translated into English by John Sadler). In this paper, I compare Cavendish's criticisms with those of Robert Boyle in his Sceptical Chymist (1661). Both Boyle and Cavendish attacked Van Helmont for the obscurity of his chymical vocabulary and concepts, and attacked his seminalism. Although their critiques had much in common, they diverged in their attitudes to Van Helmont's experiments. As an opponent of the experimental philosophy, Cavendish had little interest in the quality of Van Helmont's experimental claims, whereas Boyle was critical of their unreplicability. I also try to show that the two writers had very different polemical agendas, with Boyle defending his vision of chymistry based on a corpuscularian natural philosophy, and Cavendish being as much concerned with establishing her religious orthodoxy as with defending the truth claims of her own materialist vitalism. For Cavendish, Van Helmont was an example of the dangers of mingling theology and natural philosophy.

The fallacy of Van Helmont's tree

A campaign sponsored by the ‘happiness tsar’ Richard Layard and backed by the entire medical, psychiatric, and social policy establishment is recommending ‘evidence-based’ psychological therapies for up to one-third of the population.1 But is their evidence sound? According to Professor Layard, the scale of Britain's mental health problem is ‘massive’: one in three families are affected.2 He believes that ‘one in ten’ children and ‘one in six’ adults are suffering from a ‘diagnosable problem requiring professional help’. It is immediately apparent that these rates of diagnosis can only be achieved by the dramatic inflation of familiar diagnostic categories and the expansion of the scope of psychiatric labelling from a small …

Wellbeing: a cultural history of healthy living

Introduction. Prologue. The ancient advanced civilizations - Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia. Greece. The ideal of health in Ancient Greece. The Pre-Socratics.The Hippocratic Corpus. Diocles of Carystus, a Fourth-Century Health Pedagogue. 'Knidic' Dietetics. Health in Plato and Aristotle. Dietetics in Alexandria. Cures and Miracles, Asculapius and Hygeia. Public Health Care and Sport. Early Stoics and Cynics. Rome. People and Literati - Dietetics in Ancient Rome. New Doctors, New Theories. Sport and Baths. The Sacred Tales of Publius Aelius Aristides. The Roman Stoa: Plutarch, Seneca, Marcus Arelius, Epictetus. Galen. Jewish and Early Christian Traditions. Jewish Doctrines of Health. Christus Medicus. Early Christian Doctrines of Health. Medieval Traditions in the East and West. Healing and Health in Early Monasticism. The first German pharmacopoeia. Dietetics in Islam. Medieval Doctrines of Health in the West. Asceticism and Mysticism - Feasts and Beauty Care. Western and Eastern Clerical Scholars: Maimonides, Petrus Hispanus, Roger Bacon. Hildegard of Bingen. Saints and Miracle Workers. The Power of the Stars. Doctrines of Health in the Renaissance. Petrarch's Conception of Health. Alberti and other Intellectuals around 1500. House Books and Manuals - Health and Literature. Further Humanists - Platina, More, Luther. Philosophy of Health and Prophylaxis in Venice - Mercuriale, Rangone, Cornaro. Gabriele Zerbi and the Gerontocomia. Paracelsus' Teachings on Health. Herbal Books. Dietetics in Daily Life. Dietetics in the 17th Century. Cartesianism and Conservative Tendencies. Van Helmont, Sylvius and Other 'Iatrochemists'. Doctrines of Health in England - the Dietetics of the State. Health through Planning - the Utopias. The Dietetics of the Enlightenment - Philosophers, Pedagogues, Charlatans. Doctrines of Health in the Eighteenth Century. Medical Theories of Health. The French Enlightenment and Rousseau. Tissot, Triller, Mai: Health Education at Grassroots. Public Health Care. Around 1800. The Notion of 'Lebenskraft' (Vital Force) - Hufeland and Kant. The Recurrent Topic of a Dietetic Regime for Intellectuals. Alternative Paths to Health. Goethe. Romantic Medicine - Schelling, Carus, Novalis. The Nineteenth Century. Trends in the Nineteenth Century. Rudolf Virchow and the Dietetics of Reason. Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and the Philosophical Critique of Positivism. The Revolution in Nutrition and Alternative Paths to Health. Afterword. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

&lt;i&gt;The Salt of the Earth: Natural Philosophy, Medicine, and Chymistry in England, 1650–1750&lt;/i&gt; (review)

Reviewed by: The Salt of the Earth: Natural Philosophy, Medicine, and Chymistry in England, 1650–1750 Michael Hunter Anna Marie Roos. The Salt of the Earth: Natural Philosophy, Medicine, and Chymistry in England, 1650–1750. History of Science and Medicine Library, vol. 3. Leiden: Brill, 2007. xvi + 293 pp. Ill. $129.00, €99.00 (978-90-04-16176-4). In recent years Anna Marie Roos has published a number of articles comprising case studies of early modern authors who wrote about the nature and function of saline substances. Now, she has produced a volume comprising a series of chapters in which such case studies are used to illuminate broader themes in the evolution of ideas about salts in the period, starting with Paracelsian and Helmontian ideas and continuing with “the rise of acids” and “from saline acids to acidifying oxygen,” in which Newton and his followers play a prominent part. There is also a chapter on patent medicines and chemical satire, mainly referencing the early eighteenth century. Each chapter goes some way toward giving a general account of the topic in hand, often with a patchwork of quotations from primary and secondary sources, but each is mainly devoted to an exposition of the ideas of particular thinkers; the author is never happier than when she is telling us about some [End Page 398] obscure but intriguing theorist. There are thus lengthy accounts of books ranging from Thomas Tymme’s translation of Joseph Duchesne in his Practice of Chymicall and Hermeticall Physick (1605) to Bryan Robinson’s Treatise of the Animal Oeconomy (1734) and John Campbell’s translation of J. H. Cohausen’s Hermippus Revivus (1744). There is a particular focus on authors of the late seventeenth century, and Roos brings out well the sheer fertility of ideas in English natural philosophical circles in that period in the course of her lengthy accounts of Thomas Philipot’s chemical theory of the tides, the ideas put forward by William Simpson in his Zymologica Physica (1675), and Martin Lister’s and Nehemiah Grew’s contrasting views on the origin and function of salts. In the case of Lister, she even appends a fully annotated translation of his treatise on healing springs. Overall, Roos makes some valuable points, not least in reinforcing the recent conclusions of William R. Newman, Lawrence M. Principe, and Antonio Clericuzio by illustrating the overriding significance of Joan Baptista van Helmont in late-seventeenth-century theories on such topics. On the other hand, for all its fascinating detail, the book is weaker in weaving its parts together into a broader whole, since we do not end up with as comprehensive a picture of changing understanding of salts in the period as we might have done. Even some of the connections that are made are not pursued as fully as they might have been. For instance, although Roos intriguingly points out the similarity between Newton’s and the obscure William Simpson’s views on the role of fermentation in the atmosphere, the issue of whether this similarity is purely coincidental or whether Newton might have had access to Simpson’s ideas is not satisfactorily resolved. More surprising is the rather cursory treatment of Robert Boyle, who was central to many of the debates dealt with here, two treatises by whom on key themes in the book—Reflections Upon the Hypothesis of Alcali and Acidum (1675) and Short Memoirs for the Natural Experimental History of Mineral Waters (1685)—are not even referred to. Though Boyle is the subject of repeated allusions, often through secondary sources, no systematic exploration of his ideas on such topics is attempted. The role of thinkers like Descartes is also surprisingly little addressed. Hence, though the book contains a feast of valuable information, it is less successful than it might have been in giving a comprehensive view of the developments to which it is devoted. Michael Hunter Birkbeck, University of London Copyright © 2009 The Johns Hopkins University Press

Psychological trauma from the perspective of medical history: from Paracelsus to Freud

Psychological traumatisation, as we understand it today, was—in terms of the history of ideas—anticipated by various approaches which have had a lasting impact on modern psychiatry, psychotherapy, and psychosomatic medicine. On the one hand, there is the traditional concept of possession and exorcism with its impressive psychodynamics. On the other hand, there is the theory of the imagination, of an illusion in the sense of a pathogenic infection. Especially the pathological teachings of Paracelsus (sixteenth century) and Johann Baptist van Helmont (seventeenth century)—the latter having advanced the former’s alchemist approach—demonstrate the extent to which demonological, parasitological, and psychological ideas were amalgamated in their “ontological” notion of a disease. Only the introduction of hypnotism in the middle of the nineteenth century made possible a psychological or psychodynamic understanding of psychological trauma in the modern sense. Hypnotism was striving to strictly dissociate from the magical and natural philosophical speculations of mesmerism and its theory was quite compatible with the model representations of scientific medicine. Sigmund Freud was able to tie in his ideas of hysteria and neurosis with this concept and especially to define repression of (infantile) sexuality as the cause of a culturally ineluctable psychological trauma. Finally, a brief survey of medical history is given to explore artificial trauma as a healing factor.

A Preliminary Study of the Appropriation of Van Helmont's oeuvre in Britain in Chymistry, Medicine and Natural Philosophy

Van Helmont's work was of major importance in seventeenth-century medicine, chymistry and natural philosophy. His work was a source of inspiration and mystery and an authoritas. His oeuvre was, together with that of many others, the culminating point of an ongoing process, starting in the Middle Ages, of turning medicine into a scientific discipline. In this essay, the appropriation, that is, the process of assimilation of an author's work by other scholars, of Van Helmont's oeuvre in England will be studied among chymists, physicians and natural philosophers (the distinctions between these three groups is primarily conceptual, but in practice hard to distinguish). Appropriation reminds us that the process of assimilating ideas of an author by contemporaries or later generations is not a passive activity, for scholars actively adapt and interpret them in new ways not initially envisaged by its original author.

J. B. Van Helmont's De tempore as an Influence on Isaac Newton's Doctrine of Absolute Time

Here, 1 shall argue that Van Helmont needs to be added to the list of sources on which Newton drew when formulating his doctrine of absolute time. This by no means implies that Van Helmont is the factual source of Newton's views on absolute time (1 have found no clear-cut evidence in support of this claim). It is by no means my aim to debunk the importance of the other sources, but rather to broaden them. Different authors help to explain different aspects of Newton's conception of absolute time.

The critical Role of CO2 on Respiratory Control, PeriodicBreathing and Apnea in Neonates

Background- CO2 is a gas present in the atmosphere. Its linear shaped molecule contains two double bonds linking carbon and oxygen. It was discovered in 1630 by Jan Van Helmont who obtained the CO2 by fermenting grape and burning coal. From the beginning it was clear that CO2 is essential to life due to its warming effect on the planet and its role in photosynthesis. In the beginning of the 20th century Haldane (1905) first suggested that breathing is controlled by a negative feedback system in which CO2 is both the controlled and the controller variable. Phillipson and others have shown that without CO2 breathing is absent. During most of the last century the consensus was that CO2 acted centrally on the rostral ventro-lateral surface of the medulla oblongata (Loeschcke;1958, Mitchell, 1963) Only in the end of the last century this action was located on the respiratory neurons of the Pre-Bötzinger region. These are inspiratory pacemakers neurons highly sensitive to CO2. The dendrites of these neurons are located adjacent to the surface of the medulla previously thought to be responsible for this response. The CO2 receptors of these cells are likely to be located in the dendrites of these neurons, mimicking CO2 receptors described for more primitive species, but this has not yet been documented. Breathing Pattern- CO2 is known to be a powerful regularizer of breathing pattern. Our observations show that the coefficient of variability of tidal volume is much less with CO2 than with other regularizers of breathing, such as O2 or Methylxanthines. The CO 2Threshold-Our data in 16 preterm and 16 term infants (JAP 98:1171–76,2005) suggested that periodic breathing occurs due to a periodic fall in baseline PCO2 below the apneic threshold (CO2 level below which breathing stops). InhaledCO2 to Treat Apnea- When assessed in the clinical laboratory, under strict administration control, both CO2 and theophylline decreased apnea time by 71%, and prolonged apnea (=20s) by 92% (n=20). When measured in the Nursery, in a double blind randomized control trial, inhalation of 1% CO2 and theophylline decreased apnea time by 68% and 49% respectively (Pediat Res: 106, 2, 2007; n=79). Prolonged apneas also decreased by 87% and 33%. The fall was always more pronounced with theophylline. Seven infants with residual lung disease did not respond to CO2, but responded to CPAP. Adverse side effects such as tachypnea, tachycardia, emesis and jitteriness predominated with theophylline. We surmised that CO2 inhalation may be a safe alternative to theophylline in the treatment of apnea of prematurity in infants without residual lung disease.

The Acid-Base balance history (Part II)

In the History of Medicine, the Acid-Base balance is unusual in that it has undergone constant evolution, not merely and not so much as a result of the progress of knowledge in physiological and physiopathological and clinical fields - which is common to all fields of Medical Science, but rather in relation to its very biochemical foundations, as was demonstrated by P. Stewart’s recent critical review and the reviews of J. Corey and J.A. Kellum, which are still valid today - and this is rather unusual. Although it started centuries ago, the history of the acidbase balance has experienced a slow and difficult evolution, and modern concepts almost exploded a couple of decades into the 20th century. It is therefore with even greater wonder and admiration that we look back on the pioneering intuitions of scholars such as R. Boyle, J.B. van Helmont and A.L. Lavoisier, to mention but a few of the scientists who laid the foundations for current knowledge in this fascinating chapter of physiology and clinical practice that belongs transversally to all medical and clinical disciplines.

The Acid-Base balance history (Part I)

In the History of Medicine, the Acid-Base balance is unusual in that it has undergone constant evolution, not merely and not so much as a result of the progress of knowledge in physiological and physiopathological and clinical fields - which is common to all fields of Medical Science, but rather in relation to its very biochemical foundations, as was demonstrated by P. Stewart&rsquo;s recent critical review and the reviews of J. Corey and J.A. Kellum, which are still valid today - and this is rather unusual. Although it started centuries ago, the history of the acidbase balance has experienced a slow and difficult evolution, and modern concepts almost exploded a couple of decades into the 20th century. It is therefore with even greater wonder and admiration that we look back on the pioneering intuitions of scholars such as R. Boyle, J.B. van Helmont and A.L. Lavoisier, to mention but a few of the scientists who laid the foundations for current knowledge in this fascinating chapter of physiology and clinical practice that belongs transversally to all medical and clinical disciplines.

Book Notes

Book Notes Patrick Dandrey. Anthologie de l'humeur noire: Écrits sur la mélancolie d'Hippocrate à l'Encyclopédie. Paris: Gallimard–Promeneur, 2005. 791 pp. E39.99 (paperbound, 2-07-077547-X). This collection of translated and annotated primary sources is divided chronologically, with an introduction preceding each section. "L'antiquité classique" encompasses works by Hippocrates, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Celsus, Rufus of Ephesus, and Galen, among others. "L'antiquité tardive" includes essays by Jean Chrysostome, Évagre le Pontique, Oribasius, and Alexander of Tralles. "De la médicine arabe à la clergie médiévale" comprises works by Constantine the African, Rhazes, Avicenna, Averroes, Hugues de Fouilloi, Hildegard of Bingen, William of Auvergne, and Bernard of Gordon. "Les renaissances" takes the reader from Petrarch to Ficin, Ofhuys, Melanchthon, Wier, and Huarte. Finally, "Du zénith baroque au crépuscule des Lumières" includes writings by Garzoni, Du Laurens, Guibelet, Robert Burton, Van Helmont, Sydenham, and Boissier de Sauvages. The book's concluding chapter is followed by a lexicon and an index. The Editors [End Page 496] Susan Hamilton, ed. Animal Welfare and Anti-vivisection 1870–1910: Nineteenth-Century Woman's Mission. 3 vols. London: Routledge, 2004. Vol. 1: Frances Power Cobbe, lxv + 390 pp. (facsimile), ill. (0-415-32142-5). Vol. 2: Anti-Vivisection Writings, ix + 353 pp. (facsimile) (0-415-32143-3). Vol. 3: Pro-Vivisection Writings, viii + 311 pp. (0-415-32144-1). Set $765.00 (0-415-32141-7). These three volumes in the series History of Feminism provide an incredibly important set of materials on the nineteenth-century controversy in England over the use of live animals in scientific research. The editor is Susan Hamilton, assistant professor in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta, Canada. She is the editor of another important collection of Victorian writings called Criminals, Idiots, Women, and Minors: Victorian Writings by Women on Women (2004), and the author of Frances Power Cobbe and Victorian Feminism (2006). The first volume is completely dedicated to Frances Power Cobbe's writings. Born in 1822, she was not only one of the best-known feminist thinkers of her day, but also the leader of the antivivisection movement. In 1875 she founded the Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to Vivisection, one of the most important antivivisection organizations in England. The second volume presents other important antivivisection papers. The third volume is a collection of provivisection writings; particularly interesting are the pamphlets published by the Association for the Advancement of Medicine by Research founded in 1882. The sources collected in these volumes include articles in the established press (periodicals as well as newspapers), daily news clippings, medical editorials, propagandist pamphlets, government documents, and educational material. As Hamilton suggests, this collection not only "encourages an awareness of the cultural work of gender in the vivisection controversy" (1: xiv), but also "shows the ways in which questions asked from the perspective of women's history can complement those posed by the history of medicine in its approach to the vivisection controversy" (1: xiv–xv). In fact, the discussion about the scientific use of live animals was a complicated mix of different voices: there were those who advocated the new attitudes toward "pets" and new ideas about pain; those who defended the scientific status of physiology; those who tried to introduce and explain the effect of a new medical technology, anesthesia; and those who redefined the concept of "scientific expertise." The bringing of all these papers together will help historians writing their own stories to appreciate the complexity of this rich controversy. Massimo Petrozzi Johns Hopkins University [End Page 497] Eric von der Luft. SUNY Upstate Medical University: A Pictorial History. North Syracuse, N.Y.: Gegensatz Press, 2005. viii + 184 pp. Ill. $18.95 (paperbound, 1-933237-34-1). Histories of medical schools (usually celebratory) continue to appear in a regular fashion. While most are of interest primarily to those...

Johann Heinrich Cohausen (1665–1750), Salt Iatrochemistry, and Theories of Longevity in his Satire, Hermippus Redivivus (1742)

Johann Heinrich Cohausen (1665–1750) was a physician and well-known author in the Germanies, France, and England He was best known for medical satire such as the Pica Nasi, a Latin parody on snuff in which Apollo ordered Mercury to confiscate the noses of snuff-takers. When the satyrs returned them, the desperate victims grabbed the wrong noses and were unrecognizable. The subject of this article however is Cohausen’s last and most famous medical satire, his Hermippus redivivus (1742), a treatise on the prolongation of life. Studies of Cohausen and the Hermippus have been largely antiquarian; the only scholarly works are a French dissertation concerning his medical biography done in 1900 and a short German bibliographic study. Because Cohausen has been primarily known for medical satire, his large number of serious treatises on iatrochemistry and medicine, which served as the basis for his more humorous works, have been largely unexamined. This paper will thus demonstrate that Cohausen’s Hermippus and its comedic presentation of longevity had a profound reliance on earlier scholarly works of his that analysed the theories of the seventeenth-century chymist and physician Jean Baptiste van Helmont (1577–1634).