Early concepts of nutrition, digestion, diseases of the gastrointestinal tract and their treatment: from Hippocrates and Galen to Maimonides

For over a thousand years, Hippocrates and Galen have been the Alpha and Omega of medical knowledge. Despite the importance of their contributions to clinical and theoretical medicine, they lacked a true understanding of anatomy and physiology. Hippocrates is commonly associated with proposing the doctrine of «tissue fluids», or humoral pathology, and his book, «On the Nature of Man», promotes this point of view. Galen became inherited the knowledge of Hippocrates. Ultimately, he was recognized as one of the most influential physicians of all time. The number of his works was enormous: he wrote more than a hundred books, which were widely distributed. One of Galen’s main commandments was the rule of harmony: all body systems are balanced; disease is a result of an imbalance. As one might expect, some of his ideas, however, were erroneous. Aristotle considered the pancreas, due to its location in the abdominal cavity, as an organ which only task was to protect the adjacent vessels. In an era when unknown diseases wreaked havoc, the concept of known causes of diseases led to the fascination with the study of food poisons and their antidotes. This was common among aristocracy who felt particularly vulnerable to this kind of threats. According to legend, one of the most famous connoisseurs of poisons was Mithridates VI. Pedanius Dioscorides was a Greek who served in the Roman army during the reign of the emperor Nero. The wandering nature of life led him to study a large number of diseases and medicines. The catalogue of his medicinal herbs and plants became the basis for the study and understanding of the medicinal properties of plants. Liver was considered the source of divine prophecy in many ancient cultures. The anatomy of liver was well known in ancient Babylon: a huge number of clay tablets and objects were left, which testify to the importance of «hepatoscopy» in the Middle East as a form of prediction. Those who used the insides of animals for divination (e.g., haruspices — divine interpreters of the future, using the liver as a prediction tool), could be considered the first official anatomists, since the understanding of the future depended on accurate knowledge and interpretation of certain liver components. After the victory of the Assyrian king Sargon over the forces of Urartu and Zikirti in 718 BC, Sargon wanted to appease the gods by sacrificing animals; in doing so, he studied their livers for predictions. Although the concept of pancreas is rooted in ancient times, as evidenced by the comments of haruspices and priests, knowledge of the organ functions eluded humanity until the works by Danish physiologists Francis Sylvius and Regnier de Graaf. Prior to their studies of pancreatic secretion and the elucidation of the role of pancreas in digestion, described by van Helmont and Albrecht von Haller, most researchers focused on the anatomical description of the organ. If the ancient Assyrians and Mesopotamians did not believe that liver predicts the future, but believed that it was pancreas that did it, then pancreatology may have earlier origins. Maimonides, a Jewish scholar and humanist, was also influential in other fields: he condemned astrology and its attempts to calculate the time of the Messiah’s coming. In the field of medicine, he paid attention to prevention, and was interested in the treatment of diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. By the beginning of our era, ideas about digestion, diseases of the digestive tract and their treatment remained very vague. There was a long and difficult way ahead in this area.

Wie man mehr als 9000 Rezensionen schreiben kann. Lesen und Rezensieren in der Zeit Albrecht von Hallers

Zusammenfassung Albrecht von Haller – Professor für Anatomie, Botanik und Chirurgie in Göttingen, später Politiker und Dichter in Bern und einer der führenden Gelehrten der Aufklärung – war auch als Rezensent bemerkenswert. Die Zeitgenossen waren von der schieren Zahl seiner Buchbesprechungen überaus beeindruckt; ähnlich ergeht es Historikerinnen und Historikern heute. Die Erklärungen, die für seine Produktivität als Rezensent ins Feld geführt wurden und werden, verweisen typischerweise auf Hallers beeindruckend breite Lektüre und sein außergewöhnlich gutes Gedächtnis. Wir argumentieren, dass diese Erklärungen nicht hinreichen: Nur wenn wir auch Hallers Lese- und Exzerpierpraktiken berücksichtigen, gelangen wir zu einer zufriedenstellenden Erklärung seiner Produktivität als Rezensent. Denn es zeigt sich, dass seine erhaltenen Exzerpte und seine veröffentlichten Rezensionen eng miteinander verbunden waren. Wie wir weiter argumentieren, waren die kognitiven Praktiken und der Einsatz von „paper technology“, die Hallers wissenschaftliche Lektüre charakterisierten, zeitgenössisch durchaus üblich. Während die Rhetorik vieler Aufklärer suggeriert, dass sie sich zugunsten des autoptischen Wissens vom Bücherwissen abwandten, sprechen ihre Buchbesprechungen und die erhaltenen Exzerpte oftmals eine andere Sprache. Das aufklärerische Projekt der „Kritik“ baute auf denselben gelehrten Praktiken des Lesens und Exzerpierens auf, die damals oft verpönt waren, und es profitierte von ihnen.

Leonhardi Euleri Opera Omnia IVA/7: Commercium Epistolicum (Euler – French speaking scientists from Switzerland). Editors: S. Bodenmann, V. Hug, M. Ilić, A. Kleinert. Basel: Birkhäuser, 2017, XII+621 pages – A volume overview

We give an overview of the seventh volume of series IVA of the Birkhäuser edition of Leonhard Euler’s complete works and correspondence. This volume contains Euler’s correspondence in French with ten of his Swiss countrymen: Louis Bertrand, Charles Bonnet, Marc-Michel Bousquet, Jean de Castillon, Gabriel Cramer, Philibert Cramer, Gaspard Cuentz, Albrecht von Haller, Georges-Louis Lesage and Johan Caspar Wettstein. A letter of the German Johann Michael von Loën to Euler, mentioned in the Euler-Bertrand letter exchange is also included as well as the recently rediscovered first letter of Euler to Jean le Rond d’Alembert in supplement. The letters cover a large range of topics also outside Euler’s mathematical and physical interests giving a new insight into his non-scientific activities, and thus casting also a new light on this great scientist as a person.

„Nasze śląskie Alpy”, a skały „jak ruiny Palmiry czy Persepolis” — albo różne optyki karkonoskich podróżopisarzy

The present article focuses on eighteenth-century German-language descriptions of the Giant Mountains and Izera Mountains included in selected eighteenth-century accounts of trips to the high est mountains of Silesia and Bohemia by travellers from various German-speaking countries. The analysed fragments refer primarily to sites on the Silesian side of these mountain ranges, although the Bohemian part is mentioned in one case. Differing in terms of their countries of origin, the authors of these works — who included Silesians, a German from Bohemia as well as a man from Berlin and a man from Saxony — liked to refer in their accounts to well-known Swiss models, primarily to the poetic works of Albrecht von Haller and scholarly works of Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, comparing the Giant Mountains to the Alps and using in their descriptions of nature metaphors inspired by the famous Swiss authors, whose oeuvres were quite popular across the entire civilised Europe. The present article provides a detailed analysis of the descriptions of the various natural sites and phenomena, in which the authors use the vocabulary of the history of art and culture, comparing, for example, the view of valleys seen from a mountain top to miniature painting, a waterfall to a performance and music, and rock formations to architectural objects and ancient ruins.

P1836GOUT A PAPAL DISEASE: A STUDY ON 20 PONTIFFS (540-1830 AD)

Background and Aims Pope Gregory I (Magnus)―born c.540 AD, Pope 580-604 AD―in a letter to Bishop Venanzio ofLuni (later venerated as a saint) wrote “I have been confined to bed for the last eleven months, because of pain and malaise and suffer because of goutand my life has been turned into a penitence for my sins thus I am waiting death as a physician who will give me health”. He was the first Pope to suffer of gout and opens a list including in the years 20 pontiffs that includes Sisinnius, (b.650, pope 21 day in 708); Boniface VI (b. 806, Pope 15 days in 886), Honorius IV (b.1210, Pope 1285-1287); Boniface VIII (b. 1230, Pope 1294-1303); Clement VI (b.1281,Pope 1342-1352), Nicholas V (b.1387, Pope 1447-1455); Pius II( b. 1405, Pope 1458-1464); Sixtus IV (b. 1414, Pope 1471-1474); Pius III (b.1440, Pope 26 days in 1503); Pius IV (b. 1499, Pope 1559-1565); Julius II (b. 1443, Pope 1503-1516); Julius III (b.1481, Pope 1550-1555); Clement VIII (b. 1536, Pope 1592- 1605); Clement X (b.1581, Pope 1670-1676); Innocent XI (b.1681, Pope 1676-1689); Innocent XII (b.1649, Pope 1676-2692); Innocent XIII (b.1655, Pope 1721-1724); Benedict XIV (b. 1765, Pope 1740-1758), and Pius VIII (b.1761, Pope 1829-1830). Their mean age at death was 69.4 years, the youngest being Sisinnius (59 years), the oldest being Clement X (96 years). Results Some popes were strong eaters like Boniface VIII. He was chronically affected by gout and renal stone disease and by the fear for death, and the search for therapies capable to prolong life. Cosmacini says “podagroso e gottoso”… the Pope is affected by arthritis and renal disease due to overalimentation very rich (straricca) in meat”. He enrolled various archiaters among them Taddeo Alderotti (1223-1295), Pietro da Abano (1257-1315), Anselmo da Bergamo (artisphysicae professor), Simone of Genova (author of Clavissanationis), Accursino from Pistoia, Manzia from Fabriano, Gugliemo da Brescia, Angelo da Camerino and Campano da Novara (Magister Campanus), the naturalist he too affected by renal stone disease. Julius III too was a strong eater (he loved fatty foods seasoned with garlic) as was Pius IV, the hard worker who everyday used to take a nap after lunch and a long walk later in the day. By contrast Nicholas V (his Pontiff saw in 1453 the Fall of Costantinople and the end of the Hundred Years War) was a sober eater and drinker as were Pius II who made use of simple common foods, little wine and slept up to 5-6 hours. Probably Nicholas V died uremic since his pale natural color switched into yellowish-brown (itaque ex naturali et subcandido in croceumsubcinericiumque color suusconversusest). Pius III “was a sober eater and drinker and used to dine every two days. Some of the above popes were patrons of universities (Boniface VIII, Nicholas V, Pius II), some were patrons of arts and science (Nicholas V, Sixtus IV). Boniface VIII is remembered for the Bulla detestandeferitatis (against dismemberment and evisceration of cadavers), issued on September 27, 1299). For thatBulla, during the subsequent centuries he was wrongly accused even by Herman Boerhaave and Albrecht von Haller to have retarded the advancement of medicine by impeding anatomical dissections. By contrast Sixtus IV is remembered not only for modernizing Rome and embelling it, but for the 1482 Breve to the University of Tubingen allowing―for teaching purposes ―dissection of dead bodies of people sentenced to death.

,Medizin und Naturwissenschaften in deutscher Literatur‘

Die vorgeschlagene Thematik soll eine Forschungslücke anvisieren, die wachsendes Interesse findet. Selbst über die Germanistik hinaus in der Weltliteratur stößt man auf die vom 20. Jhd. gezeichneten Spuren der übergreifenden sachlogischen Disziplinen, die sich in der Literatur breitmachen. An auffallender Stelle steht die Sci-Fi-Literatur, die Generationen von Lesern in Spannung hält und sich auf Entdeckungen der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik stützt, obwohl die Lektüre auf phantastischen Tatbeständen aufbaut. Unter den Schriftstellern lehnt sich deren Interesse oft an die Objektivität der Wissenschaften, was in Adalbert Stifters Nachsommer oder in Thomas Manns Der Zauberberg ebenso durchdringt wie schon früher bei Adelbert von Chamisso, der romantischer Dichter, aber auch Botaniker war. Der Schweizer Arzt Albrecht (von) Haller schrieb in seiner Jugend Naturgedichte; der junge Medizinstudent und Naturwissenschaftler Georg Büchner fasziniert durch seine Dramen.

Naturwissenschaft als Naturpoesie: Eine Stellungnahme Christoph Wilhelm Hufelands (1762–1832) gegen die naturphilosophische Medizin

At the turn to the 19th century, medicine in Germany became strongly influenced by the teachings of John Brown, who was a scottish physician. He had advocated a theory which regards and treats disorders as caused by defective or excessive excitation. His teachings were welcomed by natural philosophers like Schelling or Hegel. They modified it and integrated it into their systems of thinking. On the other hand Hufeland, who was one of the foremost physicians at that time, heavily opposed Brunonian System. This becomes evident in a fragmentary text that had been found only recently. In it he criticizes that these teachings were based on pure speculation and not on sound science as executed by Albrecht von Haller. It was meant ironically when he concluded that it thus resembled natural poetry. As viewed from today, evidence based medicine eventually established our modern ways for successfully diagnosing and treating disease. However, Hufelands disapproval appears to be still relevant. There are many people that even now advocate alternative ways and who consult quacks, healers etc.