The True Medicine (Volume 4) (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series)

This volume offers a new annotated translation, also with a new introduction, of the Dialogue on the True Medicine , one of a series of dialogues published in 1587 as Nueva Filosofia de la Naturaleza del Hombre ( New Philosophy of Human Nature ), under the name of Oliva Sabuco de Nantes Barrera. Believed for centuries to be a woman’s work, the book was attributed to Oliva’s father, Miguel Sabuco, in the early twentieth century, and its authorship remains a matter of controversy today. Sabuco’s work is one of the most intriguing texts of sixteenth-century medicine. Defined by its author as “a book that was missing in the world,” the work proposes a new ambitious medical theory challenging the humoral view of disease and the main tenets of Galenic physiology. This annotated translation allows the reader to locate the Dialogue on the True Medicine in the context of early modern medical and philosophical culture, identifying Sabuco’s ancient and modern sources. The editor’s introduction reviews the contested issue of authorship, offers new documentation for the history of the reception of Sabuco’s ideas in the seventeenth century, and relates Sabuco’s work to the Querelle des femmes, the protofeminist debate which had remarkable echoes in early modern medicine. Cover Title Page Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction A Book that Was Missing in the World The Precarious Fame of Doña Oliva: The Issue of Authorship Moon Milk: The Medical Heresy of Nueva Filosofia Echoes of the Querelle des Femmes in Early Modern Medicine Aftermath: Sabucus Hispanus in England and Beyond Note on the Translation The True Medicine Letter from Doña Oliva Sabuco to Sir Don Francisco Dialogue on True Medicine Of the Two Natures: one that gives birth, one that gives growth Of critical, or otherwise said, decretory days Question of the shape of the brain’s marrow, membranes, skull, scalp, and crown of the head Of the chyle, or juice, and its varieties New and old medicine compared and contrasted: the old medicine refuted Comparison and Refutation: on poisons Comparison and refutation: on purgative remedies Comparison and refutation: on hemorrhoids Comparison: on aliments Comparison: on supervening diseases Comparison: on the way the aliment enters the body Comparison: on crudities Comparison: on drink and food Comparison: on anger Comparison: on sweat Comparison: on idiopathy, sympathy, and consent Comparison: on apoplexy and epilepsy Comparison: on diverting disease to another place Comparison: on temperaments and actions Comparison: on the four moistures discovered by Avicenna Comparison: on semen Comparison: on the causes of diseases Comparison: on fevers All that has been said is proved with evident reasons Bibliography Index One of the first printed medical texts to be attributed to a female author, "The True Medicine" (1587) is radically innovative in its rejection of contemporary medical theory for a more pro-feminist physiology and cosmology. With unprecedented clarity and care, Gianna Pomata brings an important text in the history of scientific authorship to the attention of modern-day readers.