Introduction: Caravita’s Oil
Part One: Authorities
1. Poison on Trial: Theriac
2. Condemned Bodies: Oleum Clementis
Part Two: Experiments
3. Experimenting with Drugs: Mattioli’s Scorpion Oil
4. To Cure a Thief: Silesian Terra Sigillata
Part Three: Wonder Drugs
5. Powerful and Artful Substances: Bezoar Stone
6. A Universal Cure: The Panacea Amwaldina
Conclusion: Testing and Testimony: Orviétan
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Alisha Rankin is associate professor of history at Tufts University. She is coeditor, with Elaine Leong, of Secrets and Knowledge in Medicine and Science, 1500–1800 and author of Panaceia’s Daughters: Noblewomen as Healers in Early Modern Germany, also published by the University of Chicago Press, which won the 2014 Gerald Strauss Prize for Reformation History.
"Rankin describes the cruel human experiments in grisly detail in
her book. . . . Her anecdotes are riveting. . . . But the
book's fascination lies in its exposure of the early attempts at an
approach to medicine that we would now call scientific—along with
the revelation of how quickly and seemingly instinctively these
attempts became enmeshed in a primitive version of what we would
now call medical ethics. These tensions, like contagions, have
always been with us."
*Nature*
"[Rankin] brings us her half-a-decade's worth of research in the
disturbing monograph The Poison Trials. . . . Rankin goes to
lengths to not just tell the stories, she also analyses them to
reconstruct the journey of moving from coercion to informed consent
in clinical trials. With this, Rankin succeeds in uncovering a part
of history most readers might be unfamiliar with. . . . I have
to give a standing ovation for the work that has gone into the
book."
*Chemistry World*
"Poison Trials is a book that deftly and masterfully interweaves
archival sources and the contemporary printing press, addressing
long-standing que-tions in the history of medicine, and it does so
in a style that is both lively and engaging."
*Early Science and Medicine*
"Brilliantly researched, described, analysed and reported. . .
. Rankin tells a highly comprehensive tale of a fascinating
piece of Renaissance medical history. It is thoroughly researched
and presented in exhaustive detail. A true academic work, it has
extensive endnotes (unfortunately not footnotes), a voluminous
bibliography of both primary and secondary sources, and an
excellent index. . . . Despite the academic rigour, Rankin has a
light, literary style and her prose is truly a pleasure to read. .
. . This volume is a must read for anybody involved in the
history of Early Modern and/or Renaissance medicine but also more
generally for those working on the history of Early Modern and/or
Renaissance science, or simply Early Modern and/or Renaissance
history. I would also recommend it, without reservations, for any
general readers, who like to read well written accounts of
interesting episodes in history."
*Renaissance Mathematicus*
"Rankin immerses her readers in the early modern world of
variegated medical practice, contested medical authority, and
competing kinds of evidence. . . . Readers will quickly cherish the
vividness that Rankin brings to early modern texts, their authors,
and medical debates. Specialists and nonspecialists alike will
appreciate Rankin's energetic and conversational prose, as well as
the fluidity with which she moves between micro and macro analysis.
. . . A significant contribution to our understanding of
experience, experiment, and evidence in early modern Europe."
*Bulletin of the History of Medicine*
"In this sharp and engaging analysis of these fascinating yet
widely overlooked experiments, Alisha Rankin persuasively
demonstrates that the poison trials shed much light on the shifting
definitions of medical ethics and the relationship between the
marketplace and scientific authority in the Renaissance."
*Seventeenth Century News*
“The Poison Trials is a painstakingly researched and shrewd
analysis that links a burgeoning experimental tradition to larger
shifts in the scientific and political culture of early modern
Europe."
*Celeste Chamberland, Roosevelt University*
"Alisha Rankin’s new book The Poison Trials is a rich new
contribution to the subject of sixteenth-century experimentalism...
knotting together experimentation with another subject that has
grown in importance in the latter period: poisons."
*Annals of Science*
"This entertaining and insightful study is warmly recommended to
anyone interested in the early modern period and the history of
medicine and science."
*Historische Zeitschrift (translated from German)*
"Rankin’s book offers an important new perspective on the
development of experimental methods in early modern medicine as
well as an entertaining and immersive read."
*Journal of the History of Biology*
“This is an exciting and original book that examines the role of
poison trials in early modern medicine and science and brings up
important issues about the role of experiential knowledge, the
ethical and legal implications of medical testing, the role of
courtly patronage in the shaping of scientific practice, and the
culture of exotica in sixteenth-century Europe. Rich and dense, it
deals with important issues, provides strong and unexpected
arguments, and presents a fascinating narrative that will captivate
readers.”
*Daniel Margócsy, author of Commercial Visions: Science, Trade, and
Visual Culture in the Dutch Golden Age*
"The Poison Trials is a deeply researched and brilliantly
constructed history of early modern tests of antidotes against
poison. But, far more than that, it is also a cultural history of
poison in the early modern era that targets experimental tests,
raising the ingenious argument that the poison trials provided a
kind of medical model for experiments in a time when experimental
science was emerging. Rankin tells the story of the battle of
physicians against empirics in a fiercely competitive marketplace,
with physicians asserting their power and priority against the
ragged street-corner ‘doctors’ who hawked their antidotes and
panaceas, and of wary rulers fearful of being poisoned by enemies.
This is rich cultural history and Rankin is an excellent guide
through the thickets of the archival and printed sources detailing
these sometimes bizarre events. The Poison Trials makes a major
contribution to the history of early modern science and culture,
and casts light on ethical concerns that still haunt us."
*William Eamon, New Mexico State University*
"Alisha Rankin’s book, The Poison Trials, asks how this period of
cases across Europe—especially concentrated in Renaissance Italy
and the Holy Roman Empire—came to be and explores nuances in the
relationship between these trials, empiricism, and anxieties about
authority. It is a story of 'medical innovations, professional
rivalries, and political power' (6)—a fascinating window into early
modern Europe with questions and themes that will resonate for
modernists interested in the histories of medicine and ethics."
*Journal of Modern History*
Ask a Question About this Product More... |