Jil Muller

The work of Oliva Sabuco, a Spanish philosopher and Renaissance writer, focuses on a holistic medical philosophy that intertwines physical, psychological, and social health. In her main work, Nueva Filosofía de la Naturaleza del Hombre, she explores the interaction between body and soul, emphasizing the crucial role of emotions and digestion in human health. Sabuco identifies three “pillars of health”: optimism, happiness, and digestive harmony. She argues that these factors promote harmony between the soul and body, which in turn enhances brain and bodily functions. Poor digestion or negative emotions, on the other hand, can disrupt the connection between the brain and body, leading to illness. A central concept in Sabuco’s theory is chilo, a nourishing fluid produced through digestion that sustains the brain. She highlights the importance of balanced nutrition, avoiding overeating, and selecting appropriate foods. Sabuco provides detailed dietary recommendations, including simple and nutritious meals, as well as practices for cleansing the body, such as induced vomiting and fasting. Her approach integrates anatomical knowledge, medical principles, and psychological influences to address and prevent illness. Sabuco advocates for personal responsibility and self-care, embedding her philosophy within a humanistic framework.

In this chapter, a study is proposed on Calabrian folk medicine, focusing primarily on female knowledge in the medical field and on the dual role of women as both healers and magare. Given the oral transmission of folk medicine practices and the scarcity of written records, a two-pronged analytical approach has proven necessary. First, the research began by examining studies carried out in Southern Italy during the twentieth century by ethnologists, anthropologists, and physicians, which highlight the close connection between medicine, religion, and magic. However, these studies—which are few in number and mostly focused on areas of Southern Italy other than Calabria—have not adequately emphasized the central role that women played in the development and transmission of medical-magical practices. To address this gap, a small ethnographic field study was conducted in the summer of 2024 across various locations in northern Calabria, complementing the desk-based research and seeking to gather information specifically on the role of women in relation to magical-medical knowledge. This chapter aims to synthesize the findings from both lines of inquiry.

This chapter will analyse the conception of mental disorders (i.e. illnesses that mainly affect rationality, the emotional sphere, and behaviour), as it emerges from Hildegard of Bingen’s Cause et cure. Mental disorders, in fact, serve as a touchstone for understanding the close connection between mind and body in medieval thought. The first two sections will be devoted to the causes and treatments of mental disorders; this analysis will reveal that the body defines the individual through its physical and psychic characteristics. The final section will examine the moral implications of this anthropological perspective: it appears to stand in contrast with the morality and spirituality of the time which—as also attested by Cause et cure—is based on a dualism between soul and body and exhort the soul to restrain the body.

This paper aims to advance the concept of medical pluralism in reproductive health in sub-Saharan Africa by exploring the multiplicity of antenatal practices in Villa Maria Mission Hospital in Uganda. Through analyzing various archival sources and oral history interviews, the paper zooms in on women’s experiences with providing and utilizing different antenatal care practices, and how and why different practices co-existed and changed over time. The paper examines the particular form that medicalization of antenatal care took in Villa Maria Hospital, other healthcare providers that local women could opt for, and tensions and cooperations between hospital staff and “traditional birth attendants” from the villages. This paper thus argues that acceptance and resistance to different practices and medicines available in the hospital and local communities influenced the way medical pluralism operated in this particular context but also pays attention to broader socioeconomic, cultural, colonial, and environmental factors that shaped its development.

This chapter reveals the crucial yet overlooked role of Zionist women in shaping public health and national identity in Mandate Palestine through the communal, knowledge-driven crafting of recipes. Between 1920 and 1940, immigrant women trained in nutrition and home economics transformed kitchens into experimental laboratories, adapting to a new climate and agricultural environment by testing local ingredients and refining menus. Their work combined traditional knowledge of local food preparation with emerging nutritional science—especially the understanding of vitamins and caloric balance—to create recipes that served not only domestic needs but also the Zionist vision of building a healthy population and nation. By tracing this collective knowledge-making process, the chapter reframes recipes as a form of medical and scientific literature and cookbooks as tools of public health education. This study highlights how the intersections of nutrition, gender, and science contributed to Zionist nation-building and situates these developments within the broader global histories of science, feminist scholarship, and the social history of medicine.

Studies on Hildegard of Bingen’s ideas on medicine and healing have mostly been focused on her two well-known “scientific” works, Causae et Curae and Physica, while her mystical treatises have been less referred to. This chapter seeks to contribute to a more complete understanding of Hildegard’s approach to healing by exploring how health and medicine are portrayed in Scivias, her first mystical work. To do so, I first examine her allegorical use of medical language to explain how the salvation of the soul works. Then, I explore the different ways in which soul and body are related, as each perspective adds a new nuance to her comprehension of health. In this way, I argue that, for Hildegard, physical health is included in salvation and that the body holds an important place in her visionary thought. Her interest in this realm of knowledge is not only already present in her first work but is also integrated there into a broader frame along with her views on suffering, salvation, and the relation between body and soul.

This chapter examines the connections between female medical professionals in South China. It seeks to improve our understanding of their experiences and contributions to modern medicine by analyzing them as part of a network. Its aim is not to produce a comprehensive and definitive map of this female network, but rather to explore how it developed, and how it sustained modern medicine in the Chinese southern province of Guangdong (known as Kwangtung) during the early decades of the twentieth century. Capitalizing on the perceived need for their services, sharing educational and professional experiences in a predominantly male profession, and leveraging their personal relationships, women physicians affiliated with Hackett Medical College for Women in Guangzhou (known as Canton) forged bounds that supported their development as medical professionals. Sustained by existing connexions, and equally motivated to cultivate new ones, these women became translators, producers and transmitters of modern medical knowledge. Through their network, which spanned time, space, and professional boundaries, female physicians positioned themselves as vital repositories of knowledge, essential for the development of modern medicine in the region.

During the mid-twentieth century, India witnessed an affluent growth of vernacular literature, particularly the ‘Hindi print culture’ of colonial North India. Women-oriented magazines Strī-Darpan, Chānd, Madhuri, and Sudha promote diverse social subjects, including culinary science (pāk-śhāstra), childcare (shishu pālan), women’s health (rõg chikītśā or ‘disease cure’), and suggestions of Ayurveda practitioners. This research foregrounds the contributions of ‘Yasoda Devi’, a pioneering female Ayurveda practitioner, while expanding our focus to other women writers, Ayurveda practitioners such as Jyotirmayi Thakur, Shrimati Manvrata Devi, Kumari Sukhalata, Girija Bai, Kalavati Kaul, Uttara Kumari Bajpeyi, Balwanti Devi ‘Vaidya’, Shanta Devi, and practitioners like Chapla Devi and Chameli Devi. These women played a significant role in disseminating Ayurvedic knowledge on postnatal care, health, and domestic responsibilities through traditional medicinal remedies and culinary science through the writing in vernacular literature. Their writings reflect efforts to train women as healers within their household terrain, shaping domestic life and national well-being. Through these periodicals, Hindi print media established vital networks among readers, editors, and practitioners, helping to sustain indigenous medical traditions and promoting a broader vision of national unity grounded in the revival and popularization of Ayurveda.

In this case study of an English medical practitioner’s eighteenth century notebook from the Warwickshire area according to place names referenced in case-studies, it is possible to trace the input of a particular woman, Elizabeth Milward. Milward was clearly trained to write down recipes for a range of symptoms typical in the early modern household containing the usual range of ingredients found within a well-stocked apothecary cupboard. Milward adds to recipes written in what appears to be an earlier eighteenth century hand (possibly her fathers) alongside whom she was clearly permitted to work in the field, most likely because of a familial connection. Though she signs by the name of Milward, and ‘EM’, Elizabeth also reveals Milward is her married name, her ‘first name’ being ‘ES’. Milward’s appears to bring her own experience in dispensing remedies to cure patients. Was this an apothecary business, or a practicing physician’s notebook aided by his daughter? The addition of two charms at the end of the book suggests the latter. The evidence of Milward’s involvement in and contribution to this medical ‘business’ reveals fascinating insight into the expertise possible for a woman in late eighteenth century Britain.

The Early Modern period marks a turning point in obstetrics, especially regarding midwives’ roles. Traditionally a female domain, midwifery began to attract the interest of scholars, physicians, and later surgeons, particularly after the first printed manual for pregnant women and midwives appeared in 1513. Although more male authors contributed to obstetric literature over time, midwives largely retained their monopoly on childbirth until the late seventeenth century. Historians often frame the relationship between midwives and physicians as a struggle for authority. However, less attention has been paid to their collaboration and the mutual exchange of medical knowledge and skills. German-speaking regions offer a valuable context for examining these interactions. In addition to numerous male-authored manuals, three midwives—Justina Siegemund, Anna Elisabeth Horenburg, and Barbara Wiedenmann—published treatises in German. This chapter explores how the transfer of obstetric knowledge is reflected in their works, with particular emphasis on Wiedenmann’s treatise, a product of long-term cooperation with her husband, a town surgeon. Her work exemplifies the blending of practical midwifery with surgical expertise. Finally, the chapter broadens its focus to consider other evidence of how obstetrical knowledge circulated between midwives and medical professionals during this transformative period in medical history.

Maria Deraismes (1828–1894), a pioneering French feminist and republican activist, developed a nuanced critique of experimental medicine that has been largely overlooked in contemporary scholarship. Through the antivivisection movement, she challenged Claude Bernard’s scientification of medicine based on animal experimentation, arguing that laboratory medicine lacked therapeutic value and that reductionist practices distanced medical science from patients’ lived reality. This study further identifies affinities between her arguments and vitalist traditions, drawing parallels with Montpellier vitalists whilst demonstrating how Deraismes anticipated Canguilhem’s thought. By examining Deraismes’s speeches, this research demonstrates that the antivivisection movement engaged seriously with epistemological questions, repositions her within the history of medical philosophy, challenges narratives of Bernard’s definitive triumph over vitalism, and illuminates the rigorous nature of women’s contributions to scientific discourse.

Apothecaries were one of the key groups of practitioners involved in the processing and supply of medical drugs in London in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However much of the medical contributions of women as wives, daughters and servants within the households of apothecaries remains unknown. Regulated by a guild structure which supported the continuation of family businesses by giving widows the right to keep an apothecary shop and take apprentices, traces of women’s involvement can be located in the archives of the City of London Livery Company, the Society of Apothecaries. Furthermore, the co-existence of domestic and productive spaces within the household combined with the proximity of the apothecary shop facilitated the participation of women in the family apothecary business. This preliminary study identifies widows recorded in the Society of Apothecaries’ quarterage books (which list payment of membership fees) from 1703–1743. Through uncovering fragments of women’s engagement with the institutional structure of medicine in London, this chapter aims to explore elements of women’s contributions to apothecarial practice and their roles in the custodianship and continuation of family businesses.

This chapter investigates women’s knowledge of and engagement with household medicine in eighteenth century Finland, through a previously unknown recipe manuscript from Raukko in western Finland. The recipe manuscript will be digitized and published within the framework of the Historical Recipes project at the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland—a project aimed at making historical recipes accessible to researchers and a wider public alike. The focus in this chapter is on one recipe—“The Potent Water of Mrs. Christina De la Gardie”—which is considered a utility text in the intersection between learned and traditional medicine. The sourcing of ingredients, distilling process, and potential usage of the Potent Water are considered. In doing so, the implications of what previous knowledge and experiences were required of someone using the recipe are discussed. Access to commercial remedies as well as women’s position as healers within the household and beyond are taken into account. This chapter seeks to open up this newly available source material and suggests a sociocultural belonging within a wider European context.

The involvement of gentry women in domestic medicine in fifteenth century England has been explored very little. This is not surprising, given the inherent difficulty of such study: women were not trained in universities nor organised in guilds, they were not hired by cities or retained in rich households to provide medical care. The activities of the domestic sphere often went unrecorded; caring, including providing domestic medical treatment, was undertaken by women as part of everyday life. This chapter gives an overview of how gentry women used plants and diet to promote good health. It considers how women were encouraged to take a proactive role in maintaining their household’s health. This encompasses both the production of medicine and the routine daily tasks, such as food preparation.

Seasonality was an integral feature of early modern household medicine. In contrast to historians’ pervasive focus on plant-based materials, this chapter repositions animal ingredients as a significant component of recipe collections and situates them within the framework of seasonal household provisioning in elite aristocratic estates. It further examines the role of animals and their bodies within the knowledge-generating practices of the early modern recipe tradition, exploring how the processes of procuring, preparing, and using animal-based resources fostered unique opportunities for practitioners to produce knowledge from their managerial positions. In conclusion, it examines how animal sourcing was merged with the elite pastimes of hunting and natural history.

This chapter examines domestic medical care in the seventeenth century, with a particular focus on women’s health. By analysing early modern cookbooks and medical manuscripts, the study investigates illnesses, health issues, and the daily discomforts women experienced, alongside the ingredients and remedies used to address them. Special attention is given to treatments for menstrual and pregnancy-related conditions, as well as advice on maintaining beauty - key aspects of women’s healthcare during this period. Cookbooks of the time often extended beyond culinary recipes to include practical home remedies for various ailments affecting women and their families. In contrast to the detailed medical treatises authored by male physicians, these texts prioritized accessible, pragmatic solutions over systematic analyses of disease symptoms or causes. This reflects the unique role of women as custodians of domestic medical knowledge, offering treatments tailored to the immediate needs of household care. This approach underscores the significant contributions of women to early modern healthcare, particularly in the field of home remedies and the management of women’s diseases, while also revealing how domestic medical practices differed from professional paradigms.

What does it mean to be human in an age of rapid technological advancement? Are we on the brink of transcending our biological limitations, or are we losing touch with the essence of what it means to be human? Emerging technologies challenge our understanding of identity, ethics, and existence. Bringing together leading voices from history, philosophy, science, and ethics, this volume delves into the intricate intersections of transhumanism and posthumanism, offering a thought-provoking exploration of historical and philosophical debates from the Renaissance to the present. It examines how transhumanist thought envisions the enhancement of human capabilities through science and technology, while posthumanism questions the very boundaries that define what it means to be human. A must-read for scholars, students, and anyone intrigued by the future of humanity, this volume is an essential guide to the debates shaping our technological era.

This book examines the contributions of women to the history of philosophy and medicine, as well as the traditional medical knowledge that has been employed in households. Women have played integral roles in the history of medicine, often serving as healers, caretakers, midwives and guardians of traditional knowledge surrounding food, plants, remedies, and healing practices. However, women's writings are often overlooked or marginalized in mainstream narratives because they did not write in the scientific language of Latin, and because their writings were not in the conventional form of a published book. The work, therefore, considers a diverse range of women, from Hildegard von Bingen and Oliva Sabuco to Maria Deraismes in the 19th century, midwives in Germany and numerous other women in European households. It demonstrates the significant influence of female knowledge and practices in the field of medicine, remedies, chemistry and healing practices. The chapters predominantly reflect on plants, food and practical remedies used and tested by women. Those engaged in research or teaching on the history of philosophy and medicine will find this collection invaluable, as it offers insights into a domain that has been relatively unexplored and lacks a substantial corpus of documented evidence.

By pushing Descartes to more clearly explain the union of body and soul beyond the functioning of a ‘strong’ passion, namely sadness, Elisabeth wants Descartes to review his idea of the passions, and his understanding of the ‘theory of the four humors’. This chapter aims at showing that Descartes turns away from Galen’s theory of the humors, which he globally adopts in the 1633 Treatise of Man. With the shift in his conceptualization of the humors between this Treatise and the Treatise of the Passions (1649), Descartes analyzed more specifically the inner feelings, consciousness, and the passions, by considering that a man is not simply a body, but a psychophysical being, with a body and a soul.

Space and time are geometrical notions that Sophie Germain, a French mathematician, discusses on several occasions in her Pensées diverses, however not only in a geometrical way but also in terms of a philosophical and moral understanding: she speaks of a human’s lifespan, the space they occupy, their place in creation and the knowledge toward which they always aim. This mixture of mathematical and philosophical thinking brings out Germain’s dream: she wants to apply the language of numbers to moral and political issues. As such this chapter aims to examine Germain’s mathematical understanding of space and time in order to discover her moral theory. Furthermore, in a purely hypothetical context (because one does not know which authors she has read), I compare Germain’s moral thinking to Pascal’s moral and mathematical thoughts in Pensées. We underline the possible inspiration by Pascal by highlighting the similarities between these authors concerning space and time, which both treat mathematically and philosophically. These authors agree that time and space can be measured, and thus provide constant and mathematically uniform elements. At the same time, time and space provide the framework for moral thinking. The latter is not “capable” of enjoying the present moment; he is on a quest for the future. For Germain, this results into knowledge, but for Pascal, this is a sign of an unhappy life in which people do not find rest and are constantly looking for a diversion.

Les pensées de Michel de Montaigne et de René Descartes sur le péché offrent des réponses alternatives à ce qu'on appelle aujourd'hui "l'anthropologie négative" qui caractérise l'Occident chrétien à la Renaissance. Comblant un manque dans la tradition critique, cette étude du concept de péché et de ses corrélats suit un schéma clinique et thérapeutique en analysant ce mal, mais aussi ses symptômes, ses causes et ses traitements. Se dévoile alors un processus de sécularisation qui marque l'avènement des Temps modernes, car chez Montaigne et Descartes, la religion chrétienne est réintégrée dans une nouvelle pensée morale."--Page 4 of cover.

Cet article se propose d’analyser ce que la théorie cartésienne des passions doit à la conception montaignienne du phénomène passionnel. Les deux philosophes rejettent l’idée de l’âme tripartite et conçoivent une explication similaire pour les mouvements corporels indépendants de l’âme, qui se délie de la tradition aristotélicienne et scolastique. De même, chez les deux, l’imagination joue un rôle primordial dans le déclenchement et le contrôle des passions, dépassant ainsi tout effort de la volonté. Pourtant, l’aspect physiologique de l’explication mécaniste des passions distingue Descartes de Montaigne.