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Article ID: CBB929696225

Descartes’ Man Under Construction: The Circulatory Statue of Salomon Reisel, 1680 (2020)

Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period
Volume: 25
Issue: 2
Pages: 101-134

DOI: 10.1163/15733823-00252P01

URI: https://brill.com/view/journals/esm/25/2/article-p101_1.xml

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Science and society Medicine and art Brain Circulation of the blood 17th century Reisel, Salomon Descartes, René Academia Caesareo-Leopoldina Naturae Curiosorum Royal Society of London

This paper studies the “human circulatory statues” which Salomon Reisel designed in the 1670s in order to demonstrate the circulation of the blood and its effect on the brain. It investigates how Reisel intended this project to promote Descartes’ philosophy, and how it relates to contemporary diagrammatic schematizations of the blood circulation system. It further explores Reisel’s claims concerning the epistemological and practical advantages of working with a three-dimensional model and argues that Reisel intended his statua to address the concerns of his fellow physicians and, more specifically, to help in diagnostics. I consider the background, strategy and legacy of the essays in which Reisel presented his devices, as well as their relevance to the general project of the scientific journal – one of the earliest – in which they appeared, the Miscellanea Curiosa. Reisel was a leading physician who acted throughout his life as a mediator between the Royal Society and the Academia Naturæ Curiosorum. His articles, the paper argues, have much to tell us much about the role played by the recently established scientific academies and their journals in shaping the transmission of early modern science and medicine, in terms both of theories and of the knowledge embodied in scientific instruments.

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