Appetite in Early Modern Science and Medicine

Introduction

In the Western tradition, theologians and philosophers often discussed the appetite for food within the larger frame of the “sensual appetites,” thereby associating the desire to eat with error, folly, or sin. At the same time, a parallel discourse addressed the origin and character of appetite as a natural function. The latter frequently entailed consideration of the mind-body relation; indeed the question of whether appetite was a corporal or psychic phenomenon was almost always integral to discussions of the urge to eat. As the early modern era unfolded, the moral dimensions of the desire to eat drew less attention, while questions of how appetite worked and the role it played in health and disease became more prominent. Amid this process, a significant shift occurred in thinking about the nature and functioning of appetite. From antiquity to the eighteenth century, observers who commented on appetite saw it as highly individual in character and as the most reliable, or...