Crafting Medicine - (Synthesis) by Tillmann Taape (Paperback)

About the Book

"How an early modern surgeon and his accessible writings changed medical expertise the communication of medical knowledge. Between 1497 and 1512, Hieronymus Brunschwig (c.1450-c.1530), an obscure craftsman from Strasbourg, wrote books on surgery and pharmacy that transformed medical expertise, how it was codified in print, and how it was communicated to new audiences. Brunschwig was an unlikely author. He apprenticed as a surgeon in the local guild and eventually kept his own apothecary shop. But he was remarkably well-read in surgery, alchemy, and medical theory, even if he lacked a university education. His unique authorial voice spoke to the healing practices of craftsmen and common people in a down-to-earth German dialect. Crafting Medicine by Tillmann Taape is the first in-depth study of Brunschwig and his works. In it, Taape argues that Brunschwig's writings shaped a nascent tradition of vernacular medicine. Brunschwig's books represent a key moment in the history of medical print, for they conveyed medical expertise to a new readership of non-academic practitioners, including laypeople who became a key audience for a flood of vernacular medical publications during the sixteenth century. Using Brunschwig's books as a unique window into the past, Crafting Medicine beautifully reconstructs the world of science inhabited by Brunschwig, his fellow craftsmen, his translators, and his readers"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

How an early modern surgeon and his accessible writings changed medical expertise and the communication of medical knowledge.

Between 1497 and 1512, Hieronymus Brunschwig (ca. 1450-ca. 1530), an obscure craftsman from Strasbourg, wrote books on surgery and pharmacy that transformed medical expertise, how it was codified in print, and how it was communicated to new audiences. Brunschwig was an unlikely author. He apprenticed as a surgeon in the local guild and dispensed medicines from his own shop. But he was remarkably well-read in surgery, alchemy, and medical theory, even if he lacked a university education. His unique authorial voice spoke to the healing practices of craftsmen and common people in a down-to-earth German dialect.

Crafting Medicine, by Tillmann Taape, is the first in-depth study of Brunschwig and his works. In it, Taape argues that Brunschwig's writings shaped a nascent tradition of vernacular medicine. Brunschwig's books represent a key moment in the history of medical print, for they conveyed medical expertise to a new readership of nonacademic practitioners, who became a key audience for a flood of vernacular medical publications during the sixteenth century. Using Brunschwig's books as a unique window into the past, Crafting Medicine beautifully reconstructs the world of science inhabited by Brunschwig, his fellow craftsmen, his translators, and his readers.

Review Quotes

"Excellent. Right from the start, Crafting Medicine grips the reader with its clarity of technical focus. It is highly specific in the best possible way, drawing on a deep engagement with a single writer to produce a novel and imaginative book."--Hannah Murphy, author of "A New Order of Medicine: The Rise of Physicians in Reformation Nuremberg"

"In this compelling, in-depth account of artisan-author Hieronymus Brunschwig, Taape tells a remarkable story of healing knowledge that emerged from a crucial intersection of hands-on craft experience and writing in the lively milieu of innovative printers, artisans, and humanists during Strasbourg's first era of print. Taape paints a vivid picture of Brunschwig's striving in his surgical and distillation books to provide a virtual apprenticeship in the use of the senses and the hands for vernacular readers of his city. Translated into Dutch and English, Brunschwig's techniques, his tools, and his material imaginary, derived from distilling knowledge, went on to influence and raise the status of generations of practitioners."--Pamela H. Smith, author of "From Lived Experience to the Written Word: Reconstructing Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern World"

"Hieronymus Brunschwig pioneered vernacular how-to books about surgery and distillation--two key sites of innovation in early modern European medicine--but until now we've lacked up-to-date scholarship about him. Taape's book gives us a dynamic and inventive Brunschwig, situated in the culture of artisanal Strasbourg, garnering authority from experience and the use of his senses, while staking a claim to better social status for surgeons."--Mary Fissell, author of "Pushback: The 2,500-Year Fight to Thwart Women by Restricting Abortion"

About the Author

Tillmann Taape is a researcher at the Institute for the History of Medicine and Ethics in Medicine at the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin.