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 Harold J. Cook scrutinizes a wealth of historical documents relating to the study of medicine and natural history in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, Brazil, South Africa, and Asia during this era, and his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
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... teaching me Dutch, while during the academic year 1989–90 I lived in the Netherlands and carried out research thanks to the combined support of the Fulbright Commission and the Netherlands America Foundation for Educational Exchange ...
... teaching. The first such professor seems to have been appointed at the papal university in Rome in 1514, and he also had the use of a garden for demonstrating medicinal plants.73 Some years later, Luca Ghini became the first professor ...
... teaching of medical botany. A great circular earthen rampart, built according to the latest military construction methods and penetrated by four tunnels, closed off the garden from the rest of the (irregularly shaped) grounds while also ...
... teaching. The most valuable specimens disappeared, necessitating the removal of the rampart around 1552 in favor of a more traditional brick wall, while the very elaborate beds must have broken up any simple ordering scheme for the ...
... teach them these things.''93 Valerius Cordus took a similar view in composing the Nuremberg pharmacopoeia the Dispensatorium in order to limit the remedies sold in the shops to ones approved by the physicians—his was one of the first ...
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 |