ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Monstrous, Singular, Rare: The Representation of Pathologies in Miscellanea Curiosa (1670-1750)

• In Event: Rarity in Medicine 1: New Narratives

English Abstract

The Miscellanea Curiosa, sive Ephemeridum Medico-Physicarum Germanicarum, an annual periodical published under the aegis of the German Academia Leopoldina Naturae Curiosorum, was first published in 1670. In the following decades, with several name changes, it became the first and foremost European medical journal. It was structured as a series of cases, Observationes, usually sent as epistles to the participants in the academy, who also compiled the journal. Chosen for their interest and therefore their exceptional nature, they were sometimes commented on (scholia) and often accompanied by illustrations that were an integral part of the cases. By analysing the journal from the early 18th century to mid-century, I will compare the use of terms, descriptions, comments and images defining the rarity, singularity and novelty of the pathological cases presented in the journal. A system of internal references linking articles from different years produce internal series and specific groupings of pathologies within the journal itself. What emerges in the Miscellanea is a network model, in which individual pathologies or cases, even if monstrous (monstrosi)—a term and a notion that are never abandoned—are related, losing their absolutely singular character. Rather, they are arranged along a scale of intensity in which the extremes help to define the average. The Observationes, despite their individual character, help fostering a new classification of pathologies, less centered on individual bodies and more on series and generalisations based on anatomo-pathological features, and a new awareness of the potentialities of quantification and the creation of clusters of observable symptoms.

Author

• Maria Conforti, Università di Roma