The Locksmith, the Surgeon, and the Mechanical Hand: Communicating Technical Knowledge in Early Modern Europe.

This article uses a locksmith's design for a mechanical hand in the surgeon Ambroise Paré's widely influential Oeuvres (1575) to examine the transmission of technical knowledge in early modern Europe. The article interprets Paré's chapter on artificial limbs through the lens of material culture, and then uses its findings to explore the movement of craft knowledge through print. A comparison between Paré's woodcut image of the prosthesis and an extant sixteenth-century mechanical hand from Kassel, Germany grounds Paré's woodcut in ongoing practices of making prosthetic technology. Analyzing the transmission of Paré's Oeuvres in light of the creative environment of artificial limb design and construction transforms our understanding of the potential utility of the printed image for different viewers. The dissemination of this woodcut design reveals a form of technical knowledge transfer that was endlessly adaptable to the experiences of artisans from different craft groups.

[Antonio Benivieni (1443-1502), Physician of the Renaissance].

Antonio di Paolo Benivieni (1443-1502) is one of the greatest physicians of Renaissance unfairly forgotten at the present time. Benivieni, in his major work of all his life «De abditis nonnullis ac mirandis morborum et sanationum causis¼, presents not only description of pathologic alterations (including the first in history description of carcinoma of pyloric part of stomach, mesenterial occlusion, fibrinogenous pericarditis) discovered at dissection but he tries to analyze and compare pathologic anatomic and clinical data. The treatise itself is the first in history pathologic anatomic work.

The history of women in dermatology.

In the past and present, the status of men is often superior to women in most developing countries and it has a negative effect on the social development of these countries. If women are educated as men in a society, then this society can advance rapidly since the effect of educated women influence the quality of life and health in a positive way and not only for those women, but younger generations who follow them as well. This article reviews the history of some remarkable women in dermatology.

[The image of a good pharmacist in the works of Saladin di Ascoli and Valerius Cordus]. / Obraz dobrého lekárnika v diele Saladina z Ascola a Valeria Corda.

Separation of pharmacy from medicine induced the requirements formulation for an ideal pharmacist. Two prominent authors did so, Saladin di Ascoli (the first half of the XVth century) in the work Compendium aromatariorum (1488) and Valerius Cordus (1515-1544) in the work Dispensatorium pharmacopolarum (1546). Both of them formulate similar postulates of both professional and ethical nature, namely a knowledge of Latin, good education, experience, good character traits, need of satisfied marriage; both say that the pharmacist is required to be a good Christian, they condemn alcohol, relationships with women, poisons and abortifacients, remember right relationship to money. In addition, Cordus adds a good financial situation. Their considerations had a great impact on further development of pharmacy across Europe.Key words: Saladin di Ascoli Valerius Cordus ideal pharmacist.

[The oldest statutes of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Rostock]. / Die äItesten Statuten der Medizinischen Fakutät der Universität Rostock.

The statutes of the Faculties of Medicine of the Universities Rostock and Bützow are in the process of being edited and translated from Latin in to German. This article gives the first critical examination of the oldest statutes of the Faculty of Medicine of the Alma Mater Rostochiensis.

[The former medical faculty of Reims, famous place of medical training for students of Liège and the region of Liège]. / L'ancienne faculté de médecine de Reims, lieu de formation médicale réputé pour les étudiants de Liège et du pays de Liège.

The author, taking advantage of this meeting between the French Society of Medicine and the Centre for the history of Science and Technology in the city of Liège, provides us with a rectified list of all the Doctors in Medicine in Liège and its province who were promoted to the former Faculty of Medicine in Reims. New controls have been made thanks to the contribution of two registration books which give previous education establishments for the medical doctorate. This research has also been checked on the list established in the masterful work written by Marcel Florkin et Jean Kelecom, namely Kelecom Le monde médical liégeois avant la Révolution (Liège Medical World before the French Revolution).

Bedside teaching and the acquisition of practical skills in mid-sixteenth-century Padua.

Very little is known to this point about the practical skills which sixteenth-century physicians needed and applied at the bedside and even less about how these skills were taught to students. Drawing on student notebooks and on printed collections of consilia by Padua professors, this paper outlines the different settings in which case-centered and, more specifically, bedside teaching was imparted in mid-sixteenth-century Padua. It describes the range of diagnostic and therapeutic skills that students acquired thanks to this hands-on training at the patient's bedside, from uroscopy and feeling the pulse to the manual exploration of the patient's abdomen, which, historians have wrongly believed, physicians performed very rarely or not at all, and surgical skills. Taking a closer look, more specifically, at the role of teaching in the Hospital of San Francesco in Padua, the paper provides evidence that not only Giovanna Battista da Monte but also at least one other mid-sixteenth-century professor, Antonio Fracanzani, made systematic use of the teaching opportunities which the hospital offered. Ultimately, the paper will argue that clinical teaching in the hospital did not differ fundamentally from forms of bedside teaching in the patients' homes, however. Both became increasingly popular in Padua and elsewhere at the time, reflecting a growing appreciation for the practical and sensory skills which future physicians needed in addition to theoretical learning if they hoped to be successful in the highly contested early modern medical marketplace.

[Emperor personal physician Christophoro Guarinoni (1534-1604), his colleagues and eminent patients]. / Osobní císaruv lékar Christophoro Guarinoni (1534-1604),jeho kolegové a významní pacienti.

The aim of the article is to describe physicians around the Emperor Rudolf II and to bring missing information on the historically underestimated group of courtiers. As an example, the less known emperors physician Christophoro Guarinoni (1534-1604) is presented. His work "Consilia medicinalia" can mediate interesting details on the health status of eminent representatives of the Rudolfs court, e.g. William of Rozemberk, Ottavio Spinola or Edward Kelly and important information on Emperor Rudolf physicians.

[The tragic fate of physicians].

Physicians and surgeons were always involved in revolutions, wars and political activities, as well as in various medical humanities. Tragic fate met these doctors, whether in the Russian prisons gulags, German labor or concentration camps, pogroms or at the hands of the Inquisition.

[Matthias Flacius Illyricus, the younger, professor philosophiae et logicae aristotelis and professor of the practical medicine]. / Matija Vlacic Ilirik mladi, profesor filozofije i aristotelovske logike i profesor prakticne medicine.

The aim of this paper is to offer some new information on the life and work of Matthias Flacius Illiricus the Younger, especially concerning his activity as a medical doctor and university professor. According to our present knowledge, he published 17 of his writings during his lifetime. Matthias Flacius the Younger was born on September 12, 1547 in Braunschweig. His mother Elisabeth had 11 more children with Matthias Flacius the Elder.When Flacius the Younger was 15 (in 1562), his father sent him to Strassburg to study philosophy. According to some scholars (Waltraut Wienke, 2001), Flacius the Younger arrived to Rostock in August 1572 and was granted the title of magister philosophiae on April 1, 1574. According to the sources, that very year he was enrolled at the Faculty of Medicine in Rostock. On April 27, 1579 he was mentioned as lecturing at the Faculty of Philosophy, where he became Philosophiae & Logicae Aristotelis doctor in 1580. It is interesting that only a year later on September 23, 1581, when he was 33 years old, he became Doctor Medicinae by defending a dissertation entitled "De cattarrho; ward darauf zum Dr Med prom". In 1592 he exchanged his position at the Philosophy Chair in Rostock for the medical one, becoming a professor of Practical Medicine. Matthias Flacius the Younger died on April 27, 1593, when he was 46 years old.

The physicians and surgeons of Koper from the 14th to the 17th century.

Koper stands out among Istrian towns of the nordeastern Adriatic coast for its highly advanced medicine. Communal service developed between the 13th and 15th century. Beside the hospital, almshouse and a quarantine, the city also boasted highly trained physicians, surgeons and barbers. Trade, crafts and navigation prospered and numerous town intellectuals established an academy whose most active members were medical doctors. The aim of this article is to give a chronological presentation of physicians related to Koper by their birth or work and of other scientists who contributed to the development of local medicine. These includes (about forty names) S. Santorio, Ser Benvenuto, P P. Vergerio, G. Nuzio, E Nuzio, P de Castaldi, I. de Albertis, L. Zarotti, B. Petronio, I. Bratti, Z. Zarotti, A.Valdera, G. Vergerio and C. Zarotti of whom some are well known. The author wishes to systematisize the bibliography, fill the gaps and show ways for further research in the archives and museums of Istria, Triest, Venice and Vienna.

[Doctor in medicine Juan de la Fuente and the first professor's chair at the Real y Pontificia Universidad de México]. / Juan de la Fuente, primer catedrático de medicina en la Real y Pontificia Universidad de México.

In this paper, we analyze Juan de la Fuente's life and work. De la Fuente was a medical doctor with medical studies in Sigüenza and Sevilla, minor Spanish universities at that time. Born in Mallorca, he came to New Spain in 1563 and later, he was the first professor in the new Faculty of Medicine in the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico. His life could be considered as an example of a brilliant professional career developed by a Spanish Medical Doctor coming to the New World, in his case to Mexico. Being a doctor in the main Mexican hospitals, and caring for numerous and select patients. Also was selected as visitador and protomédico, important responsibilities in the regulation of medical practice and quality of medicaments. As a cultivated man, he was a typical case of a humanist. He not only was interested in medicine, but also in natural history, dialectics and philosophy, with a good knowledge of Latin, classical literature and so on. He won the first Medicine Cathedral in 1578 and continued in this place until his death.

The Homunculus and the Paracelsian Liber de imaginibus.

As William R. Newman has already shown, the alchemical homunculus described in the pseudo-Paracelsian writing De natura rerum was not the only kind of "homunculus" present in the works of (or attributed to) Paracelsus. Two other important kinds of "homunculi" indeed appeared in other treatises: one in De homunculis et monstris and the other in both Vom langen Leben and the Liber de imaginibus. This article focuses on the latter tract and its relationships with De natura rerum. After discussing the authenticity of the Liber de imaginibus, I will provide a brief analysis of its content and discuss the major topics common to the two treatises: the "signatures of things" and the homunculus. By studying the reception of the latter, I will show how the alchemical conception of the homunculus, as explained in De natura rerum, quickly established itself as the most prominent notion despite the fact that the golem-like version of Vom langen Leben and De imaginibus had nearly as much success at first among Paracelsians.

Bad Chemistry: Basilisks and Women in Paracelsus and pseudo-Paracelsus.

The basilisk of the pseudo-Paracelsian De natura rerum is the evil twin of the homunculus. Created from menstrual blood by artificial ectogenesis in an alchemical laboratory, the basilisk embodies the poisonous character traditionally ascribed to catamenial women, but magnified and concentrated by its mode of generation to the degree that it can kill by its glance alone. How does this remarkable thought experiment relate to other instances of the basilisk in the genuine and pseudonymous corpus of Paracelsus? The present paper outlines two primary uses which emerge repeatedly: first, in works other than De natura rerum, the basilisk is used by Paracelsus and his imitators as a means of explaining action at a distance, especially in the case of plague. Relying on a medieval association between the basilisk's deadly gaze and the putative ability of menstruating women to damage mirrors, the genuine Paracelsus links contagious disease to the deleterious action of the female imagination. Second, because the basilisk was traditionally held to be the product of an unnatural birth, being born from an egg laid by a rooster and incubated by a toad, the Paracelsian corpus frequently invokes the monster as a model for unnatural generation in general.