title: [Barbers, charlatans, and the sick: The medical plurality of baroque Spain perceived by the picaresque Estebanillo González].
abstract: In order to know about diseases and their medical treatment from the perspective of the patient in Baroque Spanish society, creative literature, especially the picaresque novel, is a valuable source that offers a representation of ideas on medicine and disease that were widespread among the population and difficult to access from other sources. The first-person narrative in the Vida y hechos de Estebanillo González (1646) offers knowledge on three different aspects of the medical world in Europe during the Thirty Years' War: Estebanillo practises various medical professions, appears in the story as a patient and comments on health practices and disease, providing highly useful material to analyze how different fields of medicine are represented in this literary work.
authors.forename: Carolin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schmitz
mesh_terms: D049670:History, 17th Century; D008093:Literature, Modern / Q000266:history*; D008513:Medicine in Literature; D010361:Patients / Q000266:history*; D010820:Physicians / Q000266:history*; D013030:Spain