Research Vincent Van Roy

Abstract

This is a fundamental research project financed by the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO). The project was subsidized after selection by the FWO-expert panel.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: De Munck Bert
• Co-promoter: Van Hee Robrecht
• Fellow: Van Roy Vincent

Research team(s)

• Centre for Urban History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

This project examines the circulation of medical knowledge in the early modern period, an historic era in which the nature and character of that knowledge transformed fundamentally. From a bottom up perspective, medical expertise shifted towards a more theoretical and abstract type of knowledge. From a top down perspective, it tended to become more 'incorporated' and based on practical and empirical skills. Precisely the very field of tension between these two types of knowledge (and the way they gradually converged) will be focused upon. The sources consist of medical treaties, certificates, pamphlets, freemen books, guild sources of the barbers and the surgeons, primary published scientifical literature, and so on. The final aim is to shed light on the relationship between the knowledge itself and the ways in which it circulated ¿ during the period 1540-1815, a time of scientific investigations and medicalization.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: De Munck Bert
• Co-promoter: Van Hee Robrecht
• Fellow: Van Roy Vincent

Research team(s)

• Centre for Urban History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

In practice, four paths of research will be followed: 1. The evolution of medical-practical knowledge in general. What was the most important way of knowlege: theoretical or practical? Were there some specific codifications to be understood? Were the subjects of the transfered knowledge confidential or more public ones? 2. In which way knowledge circulated / was transfered? The so-called middlemen played an important role? How did theoretical and practical knowledge circulated? What was the importance of human beings, books, illustrations, shemes, ... in their role as mediums? 3. Did education matter in the spread of knowledge? Was there an evolution of informal education structures to more formal channels? Can we recognize a clear (linear?) evolution during the Early Modern Times? What forms / styles of examinations must the apprentices (or students) pass in order to obtain there official degree? 4. What kind of effects gave the institutional transformations during the Early Modern Time on the changes in medical knowledge? What was the reason for the rise of medical colleges during the seventeenth and eighteenth centrury? Was there a parallel / connection between the cancelling of the guilds in 1795 and the foundation of the obstretical or chirurgical schools at the end of the eighteenth century?

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: De Munck Bert
• Co-promoter: Van Hee Robrecht
• Fellow: Van Roy Vincent

Research team(s)

• Centre for Urban History

Project type(s)

• Research Project