Learned medicine is the European medical tradition in the

Early Modern The early modern period is a Periodization, historical period that is defined either as part of or as immediately preceding the modern period, with divisions based primarily on the history of Europe and the broader concept of modernity. There i ...

period, when it experienced the tension between the texts derived from ancient Greek medicine, particularly by followers of the teachings attributed to

Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (; ; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician and philosopher of the Classical Greece, classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is traditionally referr ...

and those of

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus (; September 129 – AD), often Anglicization, anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Ancient Rome, Roman and Greeks, Greek physician, surgeon, and Philosophy, philosopher. Considered to be one o ...

vs. the newer theories of

natural philosophy Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe, while ignoring any supernatural influence. It was dominant before the develop ...

spurred on by Renaissance humanistic studies, the religious

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

and the establishment of scientific societies. The Renaissance principle of ''"

ad fontes ''Ad fontes'' is a Latin expression which means " ackto the sources" (lit. "to the sources"). The phrase epitomizes the renewed study of Greek and Latin classics in Renaissance humanism, subsequently extended to Biblical texts. The idea in bo ...

"'' as applied to Galen sought to establish better texts of his writings, free from later accretions from Arabic-derived texts and texts of medieval Latin. This search for better texts was influential in the early 16th century. Historians use the term medical humanism to define this textual activity, pursued for its own sake. Learned medicine centred on the ''practica'', a genre of Latin texts based on description of diseases and their treatment (

nosology Nosology () is the branch of medical science that deals with the classification of diseases. Fully classifying a medical condition requires knowing its cause (and that there is only one cause), the effects it has on the body, the symptoms th ...

). Its interests were less in the abstract reasoning of medieval medicine and in the tradition of

Avicenna Ibn Sina ( – 22 June 1037), commonly known in the West as Avicenna ( ), was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian peoples, Iranian ...

, on which it was built, and instead it was based more on the diagnosis and treatment of particular diseases. ''Practica'', covering diagnosis and therapies, was contrasted with ''theorica'', which dealt with

physiology Physiology (; ) is the science, scientific study of function (biology), functions and mechanism (biology), mechanisms in a life, living system. As a branches of science, subdiscipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ syst ...

and abstract thought on health and illness. The tradition from Galen valued ''practica'' less than ''theorica'' concepts, but from the 15th century the status of ''practica'' in learned medicine rose. "Learned medicine" in this sense was also an academic discipline. It was taught in European universities, and its faculty had the same status as those of theology and law. Learned medicine is typically contrasted with the

folk medicine Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous medicine or folk medicine) refers to the knowledge, skills, and practices rooted in the cultural beliefs of various societies, especially Indigenous groups, used for maintaining health and treatin ...

of the period, but it has been argued that the distinction is not rigorous. Its Galenic teachings were challenged successively by

Paracelsianism Paracelsianism (also Paracelsism; German: ') was an early modern medical movement based on the theories and therapies of Paracelsus. It developed in the second half of the 16th century, during the decades following Paracelsus's death in 1541, ...

and Helmontianism.

Learned medicine and syphilis

Around the year 1500 an issue for learned medicine was the nature of '' morbus gallicus'', now identified as venereal syphilis. Alessandro Benedetti, in particular, advocated the line that it was a novel disease, not described in the traditional authorities. Niccolo Leoniceno conceded that in terms of symptoms it could not be identified as known to the ancients; but denied that novel diseases could exist.

Notes

{{Reflist History of medicine

Learned medicine and syphilis

See also

Notes