Diagnosis of miracle or miraculous diagnosis? Comments on early modern understanding of unnaturalness.
The paper deals with certain aspects of healing miracles in the 17th century. In the beginning I outline methods recently developed in the history of medicine to deal with unnatural phenomena. I use division suggested by Anne-Marie Korte and comment on sceptical, apologetical and hermeneutical approach. Further I demonstrate difficulties which we face in study of miracles on two specific cases: Our Lady of Foy, and (missing) burning scars of injured brewers. In the end I describe perhaps the most specific contemporary definition of "miraculous" which stemmed from tradition of forensic medicine. For this purpose I use a treaties of Johannes Franciscus Löw ab Erlsfeld, professor of Prague Medical Faculty in the beginning of the 18th century which follow work of famous papal physician of the previous century Paolo Zacchia.
Cerný
K
K
Charles University in Prague, First Faculty of Medicine, Institute for History of Medicine and Foreign Languages, Prague, Czech Republic. karel.cerny@lf1.cuni.cz
D002410:Catholicism / Q000266:history*; D003933:Diagnosis; D029221:Faith Healing / Q000266:history*; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D006801:Humans; D012068:Religion and Medicine; D012069:Religion and Psychology