Blutkreislauf und Dreieinigkeit. Medizinischer Antitrinitarismus von Michael Servet (1511–1553) bis Giorgio Biandrata (1515–1588)

This paper centers on the relationship between renaissance medicine and antitrinitarianism forming an important part of the radical reformation in 16th century. Antitrinitarians denied the theological concept of the triune Christian God. Modern antitriniarianism was first formulated by Michael Servetus, a Spanish physician. The doctrine soon won disciples in northern Italy (Padua, Pisa, Rome) and in some countries of eastern central Europe (Poland, Moravia, Transylvania). Physicians who believed in or sympathized with antitrinitarianism revolutionized the theory of blood flow. They developed new concepts leading to Harvey's theory of the circulation of the blood. Parts of Servet's theory looked like Paracelsus's mystical idea of the eternal flesh of the body of Christ (Latin limbus aeternus), but later the medicine and natural philosophy of antitrinitarian physicians tended to be empiristic, rational and sometimes materialistic. They contributed heavily to the diffusion and physiological foundation of antitrinitarian concepts like unitarianism, tolerance and irenism.     

Alltagswissen – Körperwissen – Praxiswissen – Fachwissen. Zur Aneignung,Bewertungs‐ und Orientierungslogik von Wissenskulturen

Everyday knowledge – body knowledge – knowledge of experience – specialized knowledge: Acquisition, assessment and the orientation of logic concerning cultures of knowledge. – The essay explores changes in the understanding, legitimisation, and practice of midwifery. It was one of the earliest professional activities for women. During the eighteenth century a new culture of expertise emphasized theoretical knowledge and adherence to medical disciplines over the empirical practice gained by women. This early phase of professionalisation, with its hierarchies and preferred use of medically accredited knowledge, was not, however, solely divided along gender lines. Female professionalism was not just supplanted by male academic medicalisation. New ways of attaining and assessing knowledge, a different perception of how it is organised, and above all, social change created new patterns of understanding. This process achieved a new professional ethos. In pursuing the issue of gender, various examples are chosen to illustrate how changes in scientific knowledge and its relevant application are mediated. The construct of scientific knowledge and how it is used reflects gender relations and power structures. There is not only competition between female and male perceptions of knowledge, but also male stereotyping of female knowledge, in particular male notions of what kind of knowledge is necessary and how this is perceived by women. Karen Offen used the term ‘knowledge wars’ to describe how a monopoly of scientific expertise and relevant knowledge works within the professions.     

Kleinstadt und Bibliothek in der Frühmoderne. Zu Genese und Struktur der Ratsbibliothek der fränkischen Reichsstadt Weißenburg

Small town and library in early modern times: Even small German imperial towns in particular were unable to conduct their daily business without maintaining a library with a wide range of excellent and usefull books suitable for employment by the judiciary, the administration, the health-care services, the church and school system as well as for supporting the interests of the town effectively. It is clear that the municipial council placed high value on the acquisition of the most important works in the field of law, theology and literature treated in school considering the relatively rational manner in which the “Ratsbibliothek” (library of the council) of the imperial town of Weißenburg (Bavaria) took stock of its books in the early modern times (16th to 18th century): this can be seen in the contemporary cataloguing (1600/1745/1829) of the library. Since the library orientated itself pragmatically towards the administrative interests of the town, there was hardly any inclination towards the acquisition of works in the fields of philosophy or poetry. — This study is based on the first edition of the “Beringer-catalogue” included (1600).     

„Und setzet eure Worte nicht auf Schrauben”︁ Medizinische Semiotik vom Ende des 18. bis zum Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts - Gegenstand und Forschung

There is no doubt that medical semiotics are having a revival at the moment. Different aspects of yesterday's and today's interest in semiotics and in the historical interpretation of signs of disease in the context of theory and history of medicine can be illuminated: their deciphering as the history of the sign in medicine by historic science, their overestimation by philosophy during the Age of Enlightenment, their reduction to a phenomenology of medicine and natural science during the first half of the 19th century and their transformation to medical diagnostics since the middle of the 19th century and recently even their functionalization as methodical instrument within the history of science. The following will show the change in meaning of medical semiotics. Modern development and especially the transition to medicine, based on natural science, will be emphasized.     

Zur Pluralisierung im Luthertum des 17. Jahrhunderts und ihrer Bedeutung für die Deutungen von ‚Natur’︁

Building on methodological considerations in cultural history and historical anthropology, the following contribution proceeds from the concept of ?nature’? rather than from ?natural science’?, with the former understood here as the object of culturally determined projections, values and practices. This ?constructive’?, practice‐oriented concept of nature exposes perceptions of and attitudes towards nature that, owing to the usual reduction of nature to natural science, would otherwise have remained hidden, but which may well be essential to its constitution. To a certain extent, the term ?nature’? continues the terminological extension from ?natural science’? to ?natural philosophy’?, but as a heuristic device it more strongly implies the significance of culturally mediated practices and dynamics. The essay raises the following questions: Which religious conceptions entered into which attitudes towards nature and which religious expectations and interpretive matrices were the motivating forces behind which studies of nature? The figures within seventeenth‐century Lutheranism who shaped and promoted nature‐oriented attitudes and practices were not the ?orthodox’? scholars more strongly tied to academic and controversialist theology, but rather reform‐oriented theologians critical of the church. In the context of the inner differentiation and pluralization of seventeenth‐century Lutheranism, these reform‐oriented groups not only inspired innovate theological projects but also assumed a leading role, along with liked‐minded Christian laypersons, in interpreting and studying ?nature’?.     

Schweretheorie und Weltbild des Nikolaus von Kues: Zu ihrer vermeintlichen Modernität

Regarding his world view and his heaviness theory Nicolaus Cusanus is imputed to having used (at least to some extent) forebodings and anticipations of modern conceptions. In the dialog Idiota de staticis experimentis he imputed the quantitative points of view of modern physics programmatically. In contrast with this, this article will show that the quantitative point of view is proposed for an inapt object at least. Cusanus based his reflections on one hand on the Aristotelic theories of elements and their heaviness with ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ weight (only thus, assumed inconsistencies can be explained), on the other hand he wants to determine the essential, qualitative properties of the forma, while only their complete abstraction by reduction on the mass without properties should result in an object for comparative weighings — lately in different ways by René Descartes and Isaac Newton. The putative modernness of cusanian conceptions compared with Aristotle are based on the tradition of platonian and stoic modifications which sooner were compatible with christian ideas.     

Zum Verhältnis von Religion und Zoologie im 17. Jahrhundert (William Harvey,Nathaniel Highmore,Jan Swammerdam)

Jan Swammerdam was one of the first scientists to do biological research on the basis of physico-theology. He was a very religious man and thought that by studying the secrets of nature he could best serve the Almighty God. He saw his life's work in demostrating the importance of God in the world of the smallest animals. The most important works of Swammerdam refer to the world of the insects and other lower animals, which he called the ?legions of the God of Israel”?, through which God tells mankind to recognize their sins, to desist from them and to honour him with greater humility. ?The miracles of nature”? he said ?are an open bible, which everywhere points to God as its eternal origin.”? This is one of the reasons for the title of the work Biblia naturae. It was Swammerdam's declared aim to demonstrate that the insects were no less perfect than the higher animals. Therefore, he tried to refute all three arguments used by his contemporaries to show up the difference between the higher animals and the insects: 1. insects were believed to have no inner anatomy; 2. they were thought to originate by spontanous generation; 3. development occurred through ?metamorphosis”?. Swammerdam succeeded in refuting all three arguments by exact studies of the nature and development of the insects. Most important for him was his aim to demonstrate that even the structure and the development of the smallest of animals demonstrate that they could only be made by God himself. Science as God's worship must be strictly objective, he said, because only than could one understand the laws of nature and in this way the real nature of God himself.     

Britische Politiker als Liebhaber der Wissenschaft (ca. 1850–1914) — Zur Ideologie des Amateurismus

The various scholarly and scientific endeavours — comprising both arts and sciences —, which British statesmen persued in their leisure time, transcend the mere biographical aspect. In the light of the slow, yet steady professionalisation of educational and political institutions, many of them modernised or newly created in order to achieve what came to be called “National Efficiency”, the literary and scientific pastimes of men, like Gladstone, Morley, Salisbury, Balfour or Haldane, seemed soon to become somewhat obsolete. Yet, it is argued, that the often professedly amateurish activities did not merely display the traditional hobby attitude to the sciences, so characteristic of the wealthy aristocrat, but in some cases revealed a good understanding of the scientific and educational needs of society, leading up to their active advancement. The British amateurs, it would seem, were pleading for providing a balanced higher education and training, rather than going for the technical excellence of the political rival Imperial Germany, which dazzled and, at the same time, intimidated some of them.     

“Gedankenaustausch über Probleme und Methoden der Forschung”. Transatlantische Gastprofessoren aus Emigrantenkreisen in Westdeutschland nach 1945

The history of the sciences and humanities follows cycles in some of which there is greater emphasis on the continuity of developments, in others on the breaks in continuity. In recent years the main focus of research for the 20^th century has been on the continuities extending beyond the boundaries of 1933 and 1945. The main aim of this study, however, is to examine the impulses for the internationalization of German universities provided by a transnational group of academic migrants. These migrants, whose origins were in the German academic community, represented an alternative continuity beyond the boundaries of this period: they were visiting academics who were the conveyors and interpreters of ideas from Germany into the USA and Britain and vice versa. The study of this group therefore combines remigration history and the history of universities as institutions, focussing on actors, networks and innovations in teaching, with the history of individual subjects and disciplines.