Caring for Terminally Ill Patients

Stolberg, Michael

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-54178-5_2

Michael Stolberg⁵

Part of the book series: Philosophy and Medicine ((PHME,volume 123))

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Abstract

This chapter identifies early uses of the term “palliative cure” in the late Middle Ages already and describes its growing usage from the sixteenth century onwards. It studies the contemporary meanings of the term “palliative”, which also carried connotations of “merely” covering up the symptoms rather than providing a true, radical cure, and it traces and the eventual rise of the more specific term “euthanasia medicinalis”, referring to the palliative care of the dying. The bulk of the chapter provides a detailed overview of the extensive but so far largely ignored early modern literature on the topic and of what the authors had to say about the practicalities and challenges of terminal care.

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Notes

1.
Castro, Medicus politicus (1662); Hoffmann, Medicus politicus (1738); cf. Elkeles, Aussagen (1979).
2.
E.g., Codronchi, De christiana ratione (1591), p. 24; Augenius, Epistolarum (1602), fol. 87v.
3.
Daniel Sennert, Opera omnia, Lyon 1656, p. 758.
4.
Hippokrates, Peri technes, in: idem, Œuvres complètes d’Hippocrate. Ed. by Émile Littré (Repr. Amsterdam 1978), Paris: Baillière 1839–1861, vol. 6, pp. 2–26, here 12–14.
5.
Celsus, De medicina libri octo. Ed. by Johannes Antonides van der Linden, Leiden: Elsevier 1657, pp. 282–3 (book 5, ch. 26.1).
6.
Renate Wittern, Die Unterlassung ärztlicher Hilfeleistung in der griechischen Medizin der klassischen Zeit, in: Münchener medizinische Wochenschrift 121 (1979), pp. 731–4; Heinrich von Staden, Incurability and hopelessness. The Hippocratic corpus, in: Paul Potter (ed.), La maladie et les maladies dans la collection hippocratique. Actes du VIe Colloque International Hippocratique, Québec: Les Éditions du Sphinx 1990, pp. 75–112; Plinio Prioreschi, Did the Hippocratic physician treat hopeless cases? in: Gesnerus 49 (1992), pp. 341–50.
7.
Guido Guidi, De curatione generatim, in: idem, Opera omnia sive ars medicinalis (separate page numbering), Frankfurt: Typis et sumptibus Wechelianorum 1626, p. 121.
8.
Zacchia, Quaestiones (1651), pp. 392–3.
9.
Laurent Joubert, Oratio de praesidiis futuri excellentis medici, Geneva: Stoer 1580, p. 15.
10.
Michael Stolberg, A woman’s hell? Medical perceptions of menopause in preindustrial Europe, in: Bulletin of the history of medicine 73 (1999), pp. 408–28.
11.
Stolberg, Experiencing illness (2011), pp. 147–9.
12.
Cf. Sontag, Illness (1978); Pohland, Sanatorium (1984), pp. 146–51.
13.
Watson, Grundgesetze (1851), p. 73.
14.
Ibid., p. 76.
15.
Stolberg, Experiencing illness (2011), pp. 152–3.; Maximilian Hader, Würzburg, is currently working on a thesis about early modern notions of dropsy.
16.
Michael Stolberg, “Abhorreas pinguedinem”. Fat and obesity in early modern medicine (c. 1500–1750), in: Studies in the history and philosophy of science 43 (2012), pp. 370–8.
17.
Vettore Trincavelli, Consilia medica. Basel: Waldkirch 1587, consilium X.
18.
E.g., Heinrich Christoph Alberti, De scorbuto, germanice Von dem Scharbock. Exponit Johann Henricus Schmoller, Erfurt: Groschius 1692, pp. 22–3. Other authors used “curare” in the general sense of “treating” or “taking care” and “sanare” for successful cures.
19.
For a survey of major early modern disease concepts see Stolberg, Experiencing illness (2011), pp. 89–153.
20.
Franciscus Sylvius, De methodo medendi, in: idem: Opera medica. Geneva: Apud Samuelem de Tournes 1681, pp. 34–62, here p. 37.
21.
Biblioteca Lancisiana, Rome, Ms. 259 Tom III, fols 46r–48r, consilium by Giovanni Maria Lancisi, 29 January, 1707, for a nun with ulcerating breast cancer.
22.
Hippokrates, Aphorismoi, in: idem, Œuvres complètes d’Hippocrate. Ed. by Émile Littré (Repr. Amsterdam 1978), Paris: Baillière 1839–1861, vol. 4, pp. 458–609, here p. 572, Aphorism 6.38.
23.
Galen, Opera omnia. Ed. by C. H. Kühn, vol. 18. Leipzig 1822 (Repr. Hildesheim: Olms 1964), pp. 59–61.
24.
Pedanius Dioskurides, De materia medica libri quinque. Ed. by Curtius Sprengel (= Medicorum graecorum opera quae extant, vol. 25), Leipzig: Cnobloch 1829, e.g., vol. 1, p. 37. In another passage, Galen distinguished even more precisely “paregoric” medicines which mitigated the symptoms and, at the same time, fought the disease itself, and “prainonta”, which had no effect on the disease itself but only alleviated the pain. (Galen, Opera omnia. Ed. by C. H. Kühn, vol. 13, p. 707); see also Aretaios, Aretaei Cappadocis opera omnia. Ed. by Karl Gottlob Kühn (= Medicorum graecorum opera quae extant, vol. 24), Leipzig: Cnobloch 1828, p. 331 (On chronic diseases, book 2, ch. 3); Oribasius, Œuvres complètes. Ed. and transl. by Charles Daremberg and Cats Bussemaker, Paris: Imprim. impériole 1851–76, vol. 2, pp. 741–2 (“paregorika”).
25.
For an early account of the history of the term see Johann Konrad Dieterich, Iatreum hippocraticum: continens narthecium medicinae veteris et novae; ex nobilioribus medicis, tam veteribus, quam recentioribus, jucunda verborum serie, juxta ductum aphorismorum Hippocratis ita compositum, ut et aliarum facultatum studiis queat inservire, Ulm: Balthasar Kühnen 1661, p. 936; in the eighteenth century, expressions like “effectum paregoricum” were still in use (e.g., Oberlin, De opio 1752, p. 22).
26.
See e.g. Jacques Houllier, De morborum internorum curatione libri. With annotations by Ludovicus Duretus, Venice: Apud Iacobum Maceum 1572, fol. 136r.
27.
ÖNB, Cod. 11200, fol. 33r (Georg Handsch, “mitigativa”); Bartholomaeus Castellus, Lexicon medicum graecolatinum […] ex Hippocrate, et Galeno desumptum. Messanae: Typis Petri Breae 1598, p. 307; Emmanuel Stupanus, Lexicon medicum graeco-latinum compendiosiss[imum] a Bartholomaeo Castello Messanense inchoatum. Basel: Impensis Joh. Jacobi Genathi 1628, p. 263; Adrianus Ravesteinus, Lexicon medicum graeco-latinum a Bartholomaeo Castello Messanense inchoatum, Rotterdam: apud Arnoldum Leers 1651, pp. 371–2; Stephanus Blancardus, Lexicon novum medicum graeco-latino-germanicum, Leiden: apud Boutesteyn et Luchtmans 1690, p. 475; Ibid., 5th edn, Halle − Magdeburg 1718, p. 246; Sylvius, Praxeos medicae idea (1695), pp. 89–90, “De indicatione urgente, quibusdam mitigatoria dicta”; Louis-Jacques Bégin et al., Dictionnaire des termes de médecine, chirurgie, art vétérinaire, pharmacie, histoire naturelle, botanique, physique, chimie, Paris: Baillière, Crevot and Béchet 1823, p. 446 (“parégorique”); Dictionnaire des sciences médicales, vol. 39, Paris: Panckoucke 1819, p. 285 (“parégorique”, “paregoricus”).
28.
Cardano, De malo medendi usu (1536), pp. 8–9.
29.
Guy de Chauliac, Chirurgia, Leiden: apud Sebastianum de Honoratis 1559, fols a2(v)-a3(v); cf. Guy de Chauliac, Guigonis de Caulhiaco inventarium sive chirurgia magna. Ed. by Michael R. McVaugh, vol. 1: text, Leiden 1997.
30.
Guy de Chauliac, The Cyrurgerie of Guy de Chauliac. Ed. by M. S. Ogden, London et al.: Oxford University Press 1971, p. 302, based on Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, Ms. anglais 25; Guy de Chauliac, The Middle English translation of Guy de Chauliac’s treatise on ulcers. Book IV of the Great Surgery. Part I: Text. Ed. by Björn Wallner, Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell 1982, p. 37 and p. 39, based on a manuscript in the New York Academy of Medicine.
31.
Guy de Chauliac, La grande chirurgie. Ed. by Laurent Joubert, Lyon: Estienne Michel 1580 (printer’s mark: 1579).
32.
Vigo, Chirurgerye (1543), fol. 43v: “we wyll speake of his cure aswel eradicatyue as palliatyue”.
33.
Ibid., fol. 44v.
34.
Ibid., fols 56r–57v.
35.
Ibid., no page numbering.
36.
Franciscus Arcaeus, De recta curandorum vulnerum ratione libri II, Antwerp: Plantin 1574, pp. 99–101 and p. 102 (explanation of the term “cura palliativa”, probably by Alvarus Nonnius); the same passage can be found in the English edition of 1588 (idem, A most excellent and compendious method of curing woundes in the head, and in other partes of the body, London: by Thomas East for Thomas Cadman 1588, pp. 36r–v and 37r–v (“cura palliativa—a palliative cure”).
37.
Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen, Ms. 979, fol. 111r, “Ad conservandum cancrum et palliandum ne mollificetur”; according to a contemporary entry at the beginning, the manuscript was given as a gift to Johannes Oberndorffer in 1531, which would mean that the notes were written before.
38.
ÖNB, Cod. 11200, fol. 4v, and Ibid., Cod. 9666, fol. 43v.
39.
Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, Ms. JH msc. med. 9, Nr. 8, undated account of the results of a medical consultation on a 83-year-old patient, in response to an epistolary request by the Nürnberg surgeon Volcher Coiter, October 25, 1574 (Ibid., Nr. 9).
40.
Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, Cod med. 4° 10, student notes by Konrad Zinn, fol. 238v.
41.
Another example is Franciscus Arcaeus, De recta curandorum vulnerum ratione libri II Antwerp: Plantin 1574, p. 94 (on the pallliative treatment of breast cancer).
42.
Foreest, Observationum medicinalium (1603–1606); on this genre, which became very popular in the early modern period, see Pedro Laìn Entralgo, La historica clinica. Historia y teoria del relato patografico, Barcelona: Salvat Editores 1961; Michael Stolberg, Formen und Funktionen ärztlicher Fallbeobachtungen in der Frühen Neuzeit (1500–1800), in: Johannes Süßmann, Susanne Scholz and Gisela Engel (eds): Fallstudien: Theorie – Geschichte – Methode, Berlin: Trafo-Verlag 2007, pp. 81–95; Gianna Pomata, A word of the empirics: The ancient concept of observation and its recovery in early modern medicine, Annals of science 65 (2011), pp. 1–25.
43.
Foreest, Observationum medicinalium (1603–1606), Buch 16: De pectoris pulmonisque vitiis ac morbis: Et decimusseptimus De cordis ac quibusdam mammillarum affectibus, Leiden 1603 (orig. 1593), pp. 482–6.
44.
Ibid., p. 485.
45.
Ibid.
46.
Foreest, Observationum chirurgicarum (1601), pp. 333–43, esp. p. 343.
47.
Ibid., pp. 343–8.
48.
Heer, Observationes (1645), pp. 180–1.
49.
Zacchia, Quaestiones (1651), pp. 392–3.
50.
Daniel Sennert, Opera omnia, Lyon 1656, p. 758.
51.
Jacobus Pancratius Bruno, Castellus renovatus, hoc est., Lexicon medicum, quondam a Barth. Castello Messanensi inchoatum, Nürnberg: Sumtibus Johan. Danielis Tauberi 1682, pp. 875–6: “Palliatio, palliativa cura, vocatur medicis, quando in morbis desperatis et incurabilibus, praemisso prognostico eventus funesti, quaedam remedia mitigantia vel dolorem, vel alia symptomata urgentia adhibentur, ut, in cancris ulceratis, fistulis cancrosis, aliisque.”
52.
Robert A. James, A medicinal dictionary, including physic, surgery, anatomy, chymistry, and botany, vol. 3, London: printed for T. Osborne 1745.
53.
Stephanus Blancardus, Lexicon novum medicum graeco-latinum, Leiden: apud Cornelium Boutesteyn and Jordaanum Luchtmans 1690, p. 475.
54.
Küchler, De cura palliativa (1692); early modern medical dissertations were often written by the professor, who was usually named on the title page as the “promotor” or “praeses”, but sometimes also by the doctoral student or by both. Since Küchler did not even mention the “praeses” on the frontispiece and referred repeatedly to “my teacher” (“praeceptor meus”) in the text he probably wrote the dissertation at least largely himself.
55.
Ibid., p. 8 and p. 32.
56.
Wedel, De cura palliativa (1703); the frontispiece carries the erroneous date 1603. As in many early modern medical dissertations (see note on Küchler above), it is not clear whether the “praeses”, Wedel, wrote the text or his student, Schmeltzer. The quality and the depth of this work make Wedel the much more probable author in this case, however.
57.
Ibid., p. 4 (“toto die ita medicorum filios loqui”).
58.
Ibid., p. 24.
59.
Rosa, De curatione palliativa (1742); Rosa clearly identifies himself as the author (“auctor”).
60.
Ibid., p. 6 and p. 41.
61.
Ibid., p. 6.
62.
Boerhaave, Institutiones (1721), pp. 386–9.
63.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, letter to Carl August, August 10, 1805, repr. in Hans Wahl (ed.), Briefwechsel des Herzogs-Großherzogs Carl August mit Goethe, vol. 1, 1775–1806, Berlin: E. S. Mittler 1915, pp. 334–336, cit. p. 334; my thanks to Christiane Schlaps who pointed this letter out to me.
64.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethes Briefe an Frau von Stein. Ed. by Jonas Fränkel, vol. 1, Jena: Diederichs 1908, p. 2 (January 27, 1776).
65.
Krünitz, Oeconomische Encyclopädie (1773–1858).
66.
Ibid., vol. 45 (1789), p. 629.
67.
The early modern notion of “scurvy” differs markedly from that today. The disease was commonly attributed to some acrimonious morbid matter; see Stolberg, Experiencing illness (2011), pp. 110–3; Maximilian Mayer, Verständnis und Darstellung des Skorbuts im 17. Jahrhundert, Mit einer Edition und Übersetzung der Fallgeschichten zu “Skorbut” bei Johannes Frank. Würzburg: med. diss 2012 (URL: https://opus.bibliothek.uni-wuerzburg.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/6241),
68.
We find the same phenomenon in the Netherlands. It was here that the term palliatio first became common on a larger scale with Dutch terms like “manteln” oder “menteln” (cf. Lorenz Diefenbach, Glossarium latino-germanicum mediae et infimae aetatis, Frankfurt: Baer 1857 (repr. Darmstadt 1968), p. 407a); on the history of the term see also Stolberg, “Cura palliativa” (2007b).
69.
Vigo, Chirurgerye (1543), appendix: The interpretation of straunge words, no page numbers.
70.
Woyt, Gazophylacium (1709), p. 673.
71.
Robert Hooper, Lexicon medicum; or medical dictionary, London: Longman et al. 1825, p. 857.
72.
Johann Baptist van Helmont, Aufgang der Artzney-Kunst. Transl. by Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, Sulzbach: J. A. Endters Söhne 1683, p. 6.
73.
D. Morris, Palliation. Shielding the patient from the assault of symptoms, Academy update, in: American Academy of Hospice and Pallliative Medicine 7 (1997), pp. 1–11, cit. by Clark and Seymour, Reflections (1999), pp. 80–1.
74.
Wedel, De cura palliativa (1703), p. 4.
75.
Krünitz, Oeconomische Encyclopädie, vol. 141 (1825), p. 723.
76.
ÖNB, Cod. 11206, fol. 135v.
77.
Van der Linden, Selecta medica (1656), pp. 455–6.
78.
Rosa, De curatione palliativa (1742), pp. 36–40.
79.
Ananius Horer, Artzney-Teuffel, oder kurtzer Discurs, darinn diesem Ertzmörder seine Larve abgezogen. Sine loco 1634; cf. Barbara Elkeles, Medicus und Medikaster: Zum Konflikt zwischen akademischer und “empirischer” Medizin im 17. und frühen 18. Jahrhundert, in: Medizinhistorisches Journal 22 (1987), pp. 197–211.
80.
Küchler, De cura palliativa (1692), p. 21; Wedel, De cura palliativa (1703), pp. 12–19; cf. Rosa, De curatione palliativa (1742), p. 41; still in very similar terms Lund, Palliative medicine (1880).
81.
Pieter van Foreest, De incerto, fallaci urinarum iudicio, Leiden: Raphenlengius 1589.
82.
Balthasar Timaeus von Güldenklee, Casus medicinales praxi triginta sex annorum observati, Leipzig: Impensis Christiani Kirchneri 1667, pp. 277–8.
83.
Fabry, Wund-Artzney (1652), p. 107.
84.
Derek Doyle, Geoffrey Hanks and Nathan I. Cherny, Introduction, in: iidem (eds): Oxford textbook of palliative medicine, 3rd edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2005, pp. 3–8, here p. 3; Geoffrey P. Dunn and Robert A. Milch, Introduction and historical background of palliative care: where does the surgeon fit in? in: Journal of the American College of Surgeons 193 (2001), pp. 325–8.
85.
Detharding, De mortis cura (1723). It is unclear it whether the author was Christoph Friedrich Detharding or his father Georg.
86.
Ibid., pp. 84–9.
87.
Cf. Benzenhöfer, Der gute Tod? (2009), pp. 13–19.
88.
Martin Eisengrein, Euthanasia sive de firma spe ac fiducia in Dei misericordia, mortis tempore, collocanda, Cologne: apud Ludovicum Alectorium & haeredes Iacobi Soteris 1576; Nicolaus Heldwaderus, Omnium mater artium euthanasia [graece], Das ist die beste, nutzlichste und bewerteste Kunst unter allen Künsten dieser Welt, genant Sterbekunst […], sine loco 1625; Philippus Bebius, Euthanasia seu de praeparatione ad felicem mortem, Cologne: apud Joannem Kinckium 1708.
89.
For the history of the ars moriendi see Chartier, Les arts de mourir (1976); on the medieval tradition see Edelgard E. DuBruck and Barbara I. Gusick (eds), Death and dying in the Middle Ages, New York: Lang 1999; Daniel Schäfer, Texte vom Tod. Zur Darstellung und Sinngebung des Todes im Spätmittelalter, Göppingen: Lang 1995; Hiram Kümper (ed.), Tod und Sterben. Lateinische und deutsche Sterbeliteratur des Spätmittelalters, Duisburg–Cologne: WiKu–Verlag 2007.
90.
Francis Bacon, De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum libri IX, Paris: Typis Petri Mettayer 1624, pp. 222–3; cf. Nicolas Aumonier, Bernard Beignier and Philippe Letellier, L’euthanasie, Paris: Presses universitaires de France 2001; Benzenhöfer, Der gute Tod? (2009), pp. 58–62.
91.
According to Roelcke, “Ars moriendi” (2006), p. 35, Bacon remained “entirely isolated” in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with this call medical euthanasia; however, the passages from the works of Horst, Welsch, Detharding and others that I quote in this chapter are at odds with Roelcke’s argument. These authors made Bacon’s call their own almost 150 years before for the German physician Reil published his work who according to Roelcke, loc. cit., p. 30 was “one of the very first authors who used the term euthanasia to refer to the practice of physicians.”
92.
Johann Daniel Horst, Manuductio ad medicinam, 4th edn, Ulm: Kühnen 1660, p. 215. So far I have not been able to identify the passage in van der Linden’s writings.
93.
Georg Hieronymus Welsch, Somnium Vindiciani sive desiderata medicinae, Augsburg: Göbel 1676, p. 36 and appendix with a list of his desiderata.
94.
Joannis Walaeus, Methodus medendi brevissima […] Georg. Hieronymi Welschii […] animadversionibus illustrata, Augsburg: Göbel 1679, p. 348 (commentary by G. H. Welsch).
95.
Lucas Schröck, Scholion on observation XIX by Guy Patin, in: Miscellanea curiosa sive ephemeridum medico-physicarum Germanicarum Academiae Naturae Curiosorum Decuriae II. Annus primus, anni MDCLXXXII, Nürnberg: Endter 1683, pp. 43–5.
96.
Ehrenfried Hagendorn, Historiae medico-physicae centuriis tribus comprehensae, Rudolstadt: Arnst 1690, pp. 375–9.
97.
Schulz/Alberti, De euthanasia medica (1735).
98.
Ibid., pp. 10–11.
99.
Michael Alberti, Dn. Candidato, appended to Ibid., no page numbers.
100.
Hennig, De dysthanasia medica (1735); again it remains unclear whether Schulz and Hennig were the actual authors or only defended a text written by Alberti. Since both dissertations also contain texts that are explicitly attributed to Alberti himself and since Alberti is also mentioned in the third person in the texts there is considerable evidence that Schulz and Hennig were at least actively involved in writing these dissertations. Both dissertations are of very high quality, however, and quote an unusually wide range of works that only someone like Alberti is likely to have known.
101.
Ibid., pp. 35–6.
102.
Ibid., p. 37.
103.
<Footnote ID="Fn103"><Para ID="Par155">Codronchi, De christiana ratione (1591), pp. 25–6.
104.
Georg Ernst Stahl, Proempticon inaugurale de synergeia naturae in medendo, [Halle − Magdeburg] 1695; idem, De ministerio naturae salutariter adhibendo. Exp. Johannes Fridericus Siber, Halle − Magdeburg: Henckel 1711; idem, De abstinentia medica. Subm. Gottfried Bateldt, Halle – Magdeburg 1709; Friese, De vehementia (1723), esp. p. 32; on Stahl and Stahlianism see Axel Bauer, Georg Ernst Stahl (1659–1734), in: Dietrich von Engelhardt and Fritz Hartmann (eds), Klassiker der Medizin I. Munich: Beck 1991, pp. 190–201; Johanna Geyer-Kordesch, Pietismus, Medizin und Aufklärung in Preussen im 18. Jahrhundert. Das Leben und Werk Georg Ernst Stahls, Tübingen: Niemeyer 2000; Dietrich von Engelhardt and Alfred Gierer, Georg Ernst Stahl (1659–1734) in wissenschaftshistorischer Sicht, Halle: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina 2000.
105.
Alberti, De religione (1722b), p. 37; the author of this dissertation is uncertain but the quality of the writing and the numerous references to other works suggest that it was Alberti himself; in some places, the praeses, i.e. Alberti, is mentioned in the third person, however, which may indicate that Broesike wrote at least parts of the text.
106.
Johann Samuel Carl, Medicina aulica, Altona: Gebrüder Korte 1740, p. 363.
107.
Alberti, De abstinentia (1722a), p. 31.
108.
Meisner, De incurabilibus affectibus (1705), pp. 26–7; G. E. Stahl is quoted repeatedly with his works, which suggests that Meisner rather than Stahl was the (principal) author.
109.
Alberti, De abstinentia (1722a), p. 31.
110.
Ludwig, De officio medici (1772), especially p. 178.
111.
Woyt, Gazophylacium (1709), p. 673.
112.
Krünitz, Oeconomische Encyclopädie, vol. 106 (1807), p. 284.
113.
Van der Linden, Selecta medica (1656), pp. 463–466.
114.
Cf. e.g. Boerhaave, Institutiones (1721), pp. 386–389.
115.
Oberlin, De opio (1752), especially pp. 20–21.
116.
Pierre Darmon. Être cancéreux et mourir 1700–1850, in: Jean-Pierre Bardet and Madeleine Foisil (eds), La vie, la mort, la foi, le temps. Mélanges offerts a Pierre Chaunu, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1993, pp. 295–309, here p. 297.
117.
Giovanni Battista Sitoni, Iatrosophiae miscellanea sive sapientia medica, Einsiedeln: Wagenmann 1669, pp. 28–36.
118.
Heer, Observationes (1645), pp. 180–1.
119.
Guillaum Baillou, Consiliorum medicinalium libri II. Ed. by Jacques Thevart, Paris: Quesnel 1635, p. 476.
120.
Sylvius, Praxeos medicae idea (1695), pp. 701–2.
121.
Georg Heinrich Behr, Medicina consultatoria. Oder Sammlung einiger schwehren und seltenen Zufälle, samt denen von ihme darüber verfertigten Berathungen und eingeschickten Beantwortungen, vol. 1, Augsburg: Klaffschenckels sel. Witwe 1751, pp. 96–105, medical consilium by Dr. Bonet, Geneva, October 21, 1750 on the dropsical Mme Bram who was “extremely relieved” after eight pitchers of fluid had been evacuated.
122.
ÖNB, Cod. 11210, student notes of Georg Handsch.
123.
Fabry, Wund-Artzney (1652), pp. 52–3.
124.
Lister, Octo exercitationes (1698), pp. 28–30; when the woman eventually died from an epidemic fever, an autopsy was performed and the whole abdominal cavity was found to be filled with numerous “glands”; from a modern perspective, these descriptions suggest ovarian cysts. In extreme cases such cysts can cause a monstrous swelling of the woman’s belly and make her unable to move around.
125.
Ibid., pp. 17–18.
126.
John Ferriar, Neue Bemerkungen über Wassersucht, Wahnsinn, Wasserscheu, ansteckende und andere Krankheiten, nebst Erläuterungen durch Fälle, und Angabe der besten Heilarten, Leipzig: Johann Friedrich Junius 1793.
127.
Gmelin, Allgemeine Therapie (1830), p. 318.
128.
Jörg Zittau, Matt und elend lag er da. Berühmte Kranke und ihre schlechten Ärzte, 2nd edn, Berlin: Ullstein 2009, pp. 173–4.
129.
Johannes Brettschneider (aka Placotomus), De ratione discendi ac praecipue medicinam, Leipzig: Bapst 1552, no page numbers.
130.
Biblioteca Comunale Ariostea, Ferrara, Ms. Antonelli 531, fols 10r–15v; on clinical teaching in early sixteenth-century Italy see Michael Stolberg, Bed-side teaching and the acquisition of practical skills in mid-sixteenth-century Padua, in: Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences 69 (2014), 633–64.
131.
Ibid., fols 160v–161r.
132.
Franciscus Sylvius, Collegium nosocomicum, in: idem, Opera omnia, Geneva: apud Fratres de Tournes 1681, pp. 709–737, hier p. 715.
133.
Ibid., p. 712–3.
134.
Osler Library, Montreal, Bib.Osl. 7565, notes taken from the clinical lectures of Dr. James Gregory of Edinburgh, 1787, pp. 6–10; James was the son of John Gregory and succeeded him at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
135.
For example, a list of the patients who died in the care of Dr. Jan van Beekhoven de Wind in Haarlem, Netherlands, from September 1 until October 20, 1761, names among others a consumptive patient who had been bedridden for months before her death (Gemeentearchief Haarlem, Collegium medico-pharmaceuticum, 25).
136.
ÖNB, Cod. 11207, fols 65v–66r, fol. 70r and fols 79r–v.
137.
Bibliothèque Municipale, Avignon, Ms. 3997 (Jean-Claude Pancin), “Journal de mes malades principaux”, fol. 24v.
138.
Ibid., fols 30v–32r.
139.
Heurne, Praxis (1590), pp. 343–4.
140.
Michael Stolberg, Medizinische Deutungsmacht und die Grenzen ärztlicher Autorität in der Frühen Neuzeit, in: Richard van Dülmen and Sina Rauschenbach (eds), Macht des Wissens. Entstehung der modernen Wissensgesellschaft 1500–1820, Cologne − Weimar: Böhlau 2004, pp. 113–30.
141.
ÖNB, Cod. 11240, fol. 42r: “Incurabiles morbos non suscipere, ut est phtisis, apoplexia, asthma in senibus, hydrops inveterata. [… Item extreme affectu propinqum morti non medicatur, ne deinde mortis causam tibi ascribunt.”
142.
ÖNB, Cod. 11205, fol. 690v.
143.
Döbeln, De erroribus (1700), p. 68.
144.
Petrus Kirstenius, Trewe Warnung von rechtem Gebrauch und Mißbrauch der Artzney. Breslau: Baumann 1610, p. 99; see also Georg Detharding, Disputatio medica, quae adstruit voluntatem medici habendam esse pro effectu. Resp. Jacobus Battus, Rostock: Typis J. J. Adleri 1732.
145.
Gabriele Zerbi, Opus perutile de cautelis medicorum, [Venice] 1495.
146.
See e.g. Giovanni Battista da Monte, Consultationum medicarum opus absolutissimum. Basel: per Henricum Petri et Petrum Pernam 1565, p. 458.
147.
Guy de Chauliac, Chirurgia, Leiden: apud Sebastianum de Honoratis 1559, fol. a3 verso; see also Augenius, Epistolarum (1602), fol. 87r; Müller, Melemata (1778), p. 29.
148.
Castro, Medicus politicus (1662), p. 133.
149.
Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt, Senckenbergarchiv, letter (February 23, 1671) and detailed history of the disease (March 2, 1671) .
150.
E.g. ÖNB, Cod. 11183, fol. 82v; similarly fol. 80v (“reliqui eum”); Ibid., fol. 136v (“relictus est ab illis”), on a young man who had been sick for months and who recovered, against all expectations.
151.
Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Collegium medicum, Karton 7, supplication by Hieronymus Harder (late sixteenth century).
152.
Fabry, Wund-Artzney (1652), pp. 52–3.
153.
Castro, Medicus politicus (1662), p. 133.
154.
Cardano, De malo medendi usu (1536), p. 9.
155.
Cabrol, Alphabeton (1604), pp. 108–9.
156.
Laurent Joubert, Oratio de praesidiis futuri excellentis medici, Geneva: Stoer 1580, p. 15.
157.
See e.g. Augenius, Epistolarum (1602), fols 86v–87r; Lehmann, De moribundorum regimine (1685), p. 7; since Lehmann mentions a case that he had from his praeses, J. D. Major, he rather than Major is the more likely (principal) author.
158.
Prosper Alpinus, De praesagienda vita et morte aegrotantium libri septem, Frankfurt: Rhodius 1601.
159.
Lehmann, De moribundorum regimine (1685), pp. 7–12; Seld, De signis mortis (1747).
160.
Cf. Stolberg, Uroscopy (2009), esp. pp. 55–6 and pp. 154–7.
161.
Hohenlohe Zentralarchiv, Neuenstein, U5, recipe book of Count Wolfgang von Hohenlohe, late sixteenth century, fol. 174v, “Einen Menschen zu probiren, ob er sterben werde”.
162.
Seld, De signis mortis (1747), introduction.
163.
Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen, Ms. Thottske S 4689, Dr. Piper (archiater in Riga), Collegium pathologicum […] ut et collegium medico-politicum, fols 257v–258r.
164.
Luzern, Staatsarchiv, Archiv I, Fach 4: Polizeiwesen 740, “Report about a captured doctor and barber”, Saturday before Jubilate 1603; for a detailed account of such healing contracts between unlearned healers and patients see Pomata, La promessa di guarigione. Malati e curatori in antico regime. Bologna XVI − XVIII secolo, Bari: Laterza 1994.
165.
Pieter van Foreest, Observationum et curationum medicinalium ac chirurgicarum opera omnia, Frankfurt: in officina Paltheniana 1634, pp. 698–9.

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Stolberg, M. (2017). Caring for Terminally Ill Patients. In: A History of Palliative Care, 1500-1970. Philosophy and Medicine, vol 123. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54178-5_2

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