Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Medical Charlatanism in Early Modern Italy

2007; Oxford University Press; Volume: 63; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/jhmas/jrm033

1468-4373

George McClure,

Historical Philosophy and Science

In a book destined to become a classic in the field, David Gentilcore offers a remarkably textured view of the somewhat elusive history of early modern charlatans. This is no simple task, for, as he remarks, the history of charlatanism has often “been parceled out to historians of medicine, of theater, of peddling” (117)—a result of the multidimensional nature of a profession that is simultaneously medical, performative, retail, and itinerant. This project thus necessitates that the medical historian become a social and cultural historian as well—a challenge to which Gentilcore deftly rises. Ranging over licenses, handbills, patents, prescription books, prosecutions, literary satires, self-defenses, wills, and artistic depictions, the source base is quite broad and receptive to both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Of all these sources, the ones unique to this study are the licensing applications and approvals, which the author has compiled into a Charlatans Database consisting of 1,596 licenses (for 1,075 charlatans) issued in Italy between 1540 and 1800. This database, which the author plans to post on the Internet, yields information on the various types of charlatans, the authorities attempting to regulate them, the remedies they offered, the patents they received, and other matters.