Tag: Richard de Grijs
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“Marvailous Cures”: Sympathetic medicine connecting Europe and China
Richard de GrijsSydney, AustraliaDaniel VuillerminBeijing, China In Renaissance Europe the concept of curing illnesses at a distance did not seem as outlandish as it would today. A newfound interest in classical remedies at a time when new plants were being found in the Americas and Asia ushered in an interest in pharmacological experimentation but also…
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Measure of the heart: Santorio Santorio and the pulsilogium
Richard de GrijsDaniel VuillerminBeijing, China The heart is a musical organ. The irregularity of one’s inhalation and exhalation of air defies musicality, while the involuntary rumbling of moving gas in the intestines is embarrassingly analogous to the timbre of the tuba or trombone. Biomedical terminology and poetry are seemingly antithetical, but of the heart they…