Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden AgeA new and unexpected history of the Dutch pursuit of commerce in the 16th and 17th centuries and how it triggered the Scientific Revolution In this wide-ranging and stimulating book, a leading authority on the history of medicine and science presents convincing evidence that Dutch commerce—not religion—inspired the rise of science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Harold J. Cook scrutinizes a wealth of historical documents relating to the study of medicine and natural history in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, Brazil, South Africa, and Asia during this era, and his conclusions are fresh and exciting. He uncovers direct links between the rise of trade and commerce in the Dutch Empire and the flourishing of scientific investigation. Cook argues that engaging in commerce changed the thinking of Dutch citizens, leading to a new emphasis on such values as objectivity, accumulation, and description. The preference for accurate information that accompanied the rise of commerce also laid the groundwork for the rise of science globally, wherever the Dutch engaged in trade. Medicine and natural history were fundamental aspects of this new science, as reflected in the development of gardens for both pleasure and botanical study, anatomical theaters, curiosity cabinets, and richly illustrated books about nature. Sweeping in scope and original in its insights, this book revises previous understandings of the history of science and ideas. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 77
... specimens. Apothecaries eagerly accumulated information about the goods that passed through their shops, displayed strange bits of nature to draw in customers and demonstrate their command of information about the world, and dug gardens ...
... specimens cultivated on grand garden estates, the subject of the eighth chapter. The next gives an account of how a Dutch physician, Willem ten Rhijne, worked with colleagues in Japan to produce one of the earliest European analyses of ...
... specimens. What this book takes up that Sarton and his like did not, then, are two underlying questions. Why did an enormous amount of personal time and effort, and economic and other resources, come to be devoted to seeking out and ...
... SPECIMENS The high value placed on the knowledge that came from acquaintance with objects (kennen) rather than discourse (weten) began to dominate natural philosophy from the Renaissance. One of the most important problems solved by ...
... specimen was attached for later reference. Yet the case of Padua's famous garden clearly shows how much was owed not only to medical utility but to the patrician interest in pleasure gardening. The Venetians constructed the Paduan ...
Contents
1 | |
42 | |
82 | |
Four Commerce and Medicine in Amsterdam | 133 |
Five Truths and Untruths from the Indies | 175 |
Descartes in the Republic | 226 |
Seven Industry and Analysis | 267 |
Eight Gardens of the Indies Transported | 304 |
The Medicine of East Asia | 339 |
Sticking to Simple Things | 378 |
Eleven Conclusions and Comparisons | 410 |
Notes | 417 |
Bibliography | 473 |
Index | 537 |
Other editions - View all
Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age Harold John Cook No preview available - 2007 |