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Botany and Medicine

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Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences

Introduction

In both theoretical and practical medicine, the study of plants played a significant role in the early modern period. As branches of medical knowledge, herbs, plants, and vegetal bodies were the subject of (1) the fabrication of therapeutics, called simples; (2) the discipline of signatures, the knowledge of the hidden key connecting bodies; and (3) the physiological study of living functions, such as growth, nutrition, and generation. Drawing on ancient scholarly tradition, the work of early modern physicians, chymists, women, and natural philosophers reveals the medical importance of botany, which slowly attained an autonomous status in the seventeenth century.

The Fabrication of Therapeutics and Pharmacology in the Sixteenth Century

In the sixteenth century, botanical knowledge progressed as a consequence of the translations of Dioscorides’ De materia medica (65 C.E.) (Dioscoride 2011) and aimed at fabricating therapeutics from simples (Ventura 2013, 141–142). The...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ICUB Humanities, Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Fabrizio Baldassarri

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  1. Fabrizio Baldassarri
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Correspondence to Fabrizio Baldassarri .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Dana Jalobeanu

  2. Dept. of Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Ghent University Dept. Philosophy & Moral Sci, Ghent, Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgium

    Charles T. Wolfe

Section Editor information

  1. Early Modern Studies, Claremont Graduate University, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Gideon Manning

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Baldassarri, F. (2020). Botany and Medicine. In: Jalobeanu, D., Wolfe, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_272-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_272-1

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