Contagion, Medicine and Disease in the Sixteenth Century: Learned Physicians and the Plague in Vienna
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2009
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Haverford College. Department of History
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Thesis
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
In 1521, Vienna experienced a plague outbreak. University-trained physicians, also known as learned physicians, drew on their knowledge from the ancient medical texts, which served as the foundation for the medical curriculum, to produce plague tractates to show their hometowns how to cope with the disease. This thesis will examine the advice in a plague tractate by Georg Tannstetter, a member of the medical faculty at the University of Vienna and personal physician to Emperor Maximilian I, in order to determine sixteenth century learned physicians' views of contagion, disease, and the human body. By analyzing responses to the plague, this thesis will also demonstrate how physicians and towns handled a public health crisis in the sixteenth century.