par Moreau, Elisabeth
Référence Scientiæ: Disciplines of Knowing in the Early Modern World (5-7 July 2016: Oxford, UK)
Publication Non publié, 2016
Communication à un colloque
Résumé : The present paper is centered on the role of Galenic physiology in the emergence of early modern matter theories. I will consider the French physician Jean Fernel (1497-1558), well known for his dialogue On the Hidden Causes of Things (1548), describing a Platonic theory of seeds, contagion and diseases of the “total substance”. Fernel also wrote a didactic synthesis on the composition and functioning of the healthy human body in his Physiology (1567). Widely successful in the early modern period, this treatise provided a Platonic view of the Galenic philosophy. In particular, it suggested an original interpretation on a traditional concept: the complexion (temperamentum). This medical notion of a bodily set-up is actually based on a philosophical matter theory with four qualities and elements, blending into a mixture. In this paper, I will show that (1) Fernel’s account of the complexion opened the door to a discontinuous interpretation of the elements; (2) his humanist resort to Ancient medical authors (Plato, Aristotle and Galen) was much indebted to medieval medicine (Avicenna). As Fernel’s account of the bodily nature considerably influenced later atomist physicians such as Libavius, Sennert and Beeckman, this presentation finally supports the reappraisal of seventeenth-century matter theories in a longer time span, namely the long medical Renaissance.