Wellbeing: A Cultural History of Healthy Living / Edition 1

by Klaus Bergdolt

Overview

This authoritative new book offers a panoramic overview on health and healthy living from classical Antiquity through to the mid-nineteenth century, when scientific medicine began to gain ascendancy.

Klaus Bergdolt offers the reader a lively and well exemplified account of the numerous historical manifestations of dietetics showing that despite the diversity of notions of healthy and ill', directions on healthy living remain surprisingly constant throughout the centuries.

Notwithstanding his admiration for the achievements of modern medicine, Bergdolt regrets that the simplest dietetic principles such as moderation, as well as the notion of individual responsibility for ones own health, are increasingly neglected, and that the old health precepts are frequently divorced from modern medicine. However, some circumstances, including economic constraints, speak in favour of a better balance between scientific medicine and traditional teachings on healthy living.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780745629148
Publisher:	Polity Press
Publication date:	05/27/2008
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Klaus Bergdolt is Professor of History and Ethics of Medicine at the University of Cologne.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Prologue: The Ancient Advanced Civilizations – Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia 7

1 Greece 14

The ideal of health in ancient Greece 14

The Presocratics 19

The Hippocratic corpus 24

Diocles of Carystus, a fourth-century health pedagogue 30

‘Knidic’ dietetics 33

Health in Plato and Aristotle 37

Dietetics in Alexandria 44

Cures and miracles, Aesculapius and Hygieia 46

Public health care and sport 53

Early Stoics and Cynics 56

2 Rome 62

People and literati: dietetics in ancient Rome 62

New doctors, new theories 73

Sport and baths 77

The sacred tales of Publius Aelius Aristides 79

The Roman Stoics: Plutarch, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus 82

Galen 87

3 Jewish and Early Christian Traditions 94

Jewish doctrines of health 94

Christus medicus 98

Early Christian doctrines of health 103

4 Medieval Traditions in the East and West 109

Jealing and health in early monasticism 109

The first German pharmacopoeia 113

Dietetics in Islam 116

Medieval doctrines of health in the West 124

Asceticism and mysticism – feasts and beauty care 131

Western and Eastern clerical scholars: Maimonides, Petrus, Hispanus, Roger Bacon 137

Hildegard of Bingen 146

Saints and miracle workers 149

The power of the stars 154

5 Doctrines of Health in the Renaissance 158

Petrarch’s conception of health 158

Alberti and other intellectuals around 1500 161

House books and manuals – health and literature 168

Further humanists – Platina, More, Luther 173

Philosophy of health and prophylaxis in Venice – Mercuriale, Rangone, Cornaro 179

Gabriele Zerbi and the Gerontocomia 185

Paracelsus’ teachings on health 187

Herbal books 191

Dietetics in daily life 194

6 Dietetics in the Seventeenth Century 199

Cartesianism and conservative tendencies 199

Van Helmont, Sylvius and other ‘iatrochemists’ 208

Doctrines of health in England – the dietetics of the state 210

Health through planning – the utopias 216

The dietetics of the Enlightenment – philosophers, pedagogues, charlatans 220

7 Doctrines of Health in the Eighteenth Century 226

Medical theories of health 226

The French Enlightenment and Rousseau 233

Tissot, Triller, Mai: health education at grassroots 239

Public health care 247

8 Around 1800 251

The notion of ‘Lebenskraft’ (vital force) – Hufeland and Kant 251

The recurrent topic of a dietetic regime for intellectuals 255

Alternative paths to health 258

Goethe 263

Romantic medicine – Schelling, Carus, Novalis 266

9 The Nineteenth Century 274

Trends in the nineteenth century 274

Rudolf Virchow and the dietetics of reason 276

Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and the philosophical critique of positivism 280

The revolution in nutrition and alternative paths to health 283

Afterword 287

Notes 289

References 327

Index 348

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Kurt M. Boughan, PhD (The Citadel)
Description: This is an overview of ideas about health and healthy living in the Western tradition from its roots in ancient Near Eastern civilization through the ascendancy of "scientific medicine" in the nineteenth century. The author, a German medical historian and ethicist, emphasizes the role of dietetics — in the premodern, expanded sense of a rational ars vivendi encompassing all physical activities in daily life, not just eating and drinking — in premodern thinking about health and its proper pursuit. He emphasizes the continuity of the notion of balance or harmony in dietetics through the ages, and laments how, in the modern conception of health as a something technical and measurable, basic traditional dietetic principles "such as moderation, seeking harmony, relaxation or regularity in the structure of one's life" have been eclipsed or "forgotten."
Purpose: The author aims to sketch broadly the entire history of Western dietetics through the nineteenth century. This is a worthy goal, for it justly shows premodern Western medicine to have been continuously rational, humane endeavor informed by, and indeed inseparable from, profound religious, philosophical, and moral currents. It thus corrects, in a fashion accessible to a broad readership, and without diminishing the revolutionary character and real efficacy of modern medicine, the erroneous but persistent popular stereotype of Western medicine before 1850 as superstitious, barbaric, hopeless, ridiculous folly.
Audience: This is a broad, synthetic work of academic intellectual history. It would serve well as a general reference for scholars in the humanities and as material for an advanced undergraduate course in the history of medicine. It would also suit the more dedicated lay students of medical history, especially general practitioners, dieticians, or any sort of professional lifestyle counselor. The style is clear, concise, and engaging.
Features: The author describes select dietetic writings and doctrines in chronological order, including dietetic prescriptions from philosophers and religious authorities. He duly notes the influence on Western dietetics, and on medical theory generally, of traditions of demonic and natural magic, of religio-philosophical controversies on the relationship of soul and body. The book has two notable shortcomings. The author, whose research expertise is in Renaissance writings on health and hygienic practice, justly gives as much attention to medieval and early modern traditions as to ancient and modern ones. A disappointing exception, however, is the later medieval scholastic (university) tradition. Despite the depth and influence of this form of Western medical learning - well documented for three generations now by medievalist historians of science and medicine — this account of it is little more than a list of prominent scholastic authors and their books. The second weakness of historical synthesis is the general neglect of important secondary sources written in languages other than German.
Assessment: However, these two faults do not detract much from the overall value of the book as a single-volume introductory survey of the premodern Western medical tradition and, more importantly, as a forceful demonstration of that tradition's rationality and humanity. To the medical professional, this work offers special, timely, and important food for thought. Modern medicine, the author ultimately contends, despite all its wondrous technical achievements, lacks the humane spirit of traditional Western dietetics, and would do well to recover it, if it hopes to meet imminent global threats to human health and happiness. The optimal future of medicine just might be a marriage of modern scientific methods with traditional wisdom.

Doody's Review Service

"A fascinating and nearly exhaustive overview of the traditional concepts of hygiene and dietetics from ancient times through to the nineteenth century."
Social History of Medicine

"The thematic and chronological scope of Wellbeing is ambitious; yet it is surprisingly readable, a testament to both its author and translator. The arrangement of chapters, clear index and thoughtful introduction draw in the reader and the comprehensive referencing provides a wealth of additional material without interrupting the flow of the text."
History

"In this scholarly, authoritative, and well-referenced monograph, Bergdolt presents the chronological development of many aspects related to well-being, including diet, cleanliness, exercise/sport, spirituality, and psychology, as well as healing (by useful and dubious means) ... Highly recommended for lower-level undergraduates and above and general readers."
Choice

"Klaus Bergoldt's masterly contribution to the bibliography of health has been a long time coming, but is no less welcome for that ... Bergdolt has achieved a heroic internal synthesis of the health genre."
Medical History

"This book is ... absolutely central to what traditionally constituted the mainstream of medicine, and Bergdolt handles his subject matter with clarity, skill and erudition."
Roy Porter

From the Publisher