4 - Consilia on the French Disease

Summary

Abstract

The consilia for patients suffering from the French disease written by selected physicians are the main topic of the second part of the book. The disease is first presented in the historical context and its ontology is briefly mentioned. Attention is paid to the number of consilia for luetics in each individual collection of the selected physicians, the detail of the indications of patients, the prescription of the two most important medicines, guaiacum and mercury, and certain other specific interesting points, which could supplement known facts. Only a couple of the especially interesting consilia are analyzed in greater detail.

Keywords: humoralism, French disease, medical discourse, 16th century consilia, diagnosis, treatment

An Excursion into Early Modern Physiology and Pathology

In order to understand the early modern approach and questions regarding the pathology (not only) of the French disease, but it is also essential to familiarize oneself at least generally with humoral physiology, or according to early modern physicians, how a healthy organism functioned. An explanation of these principles can be found in every popular scientific publication devoted to the history of medicine of this period. There is no need to overemphasize how important a role was played by the classic physicians Hippocrates (d.377 B.C.) and brilliant compiler and author Galen (d.199), the main originator of the theory that governed European medicine for almost two thousand years. Its foundation was the septem res naturales (seven natural things), which included the four basic elements (air, fire, earth, water, and according to some even the so-called fifth essence) and their corresponding qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry). This was completed with innate heat (calidum innatum) and especially the four bodily fluids (humores), which gave the entire theory its name: blood (sanguis), bile (chole), black bile (melanchole) and phlegm (flegma) of which all appendages and organs were comprised. Fluids originated in the body from food in the course of so-called concoction (concoctio), which took place in the stomach, liver and heart. The proportions of the combination of these fluids in the body (temperies) were never completely perfect and within the scope of normality, one of the fluids could predominate and thus determine the physical constitution of a person (temperamentum). This furthermore included several types of pneuma (spiritus naturales, vitales, animales), which were distributed throughout the body with the blood and variously reshape one another and their corresponding bodily and spiritual “facultates” or “vires.”