8 - Physician, Patient, Experimenter and Observer: Isaac Beeckman’s Accounts of Illness and Death

Summary

Abstract

The received opinion is that Isaac Beeckman never put his medical degree, which he gained in 1618, into practice. His medical interests are, therefore, considered to have been primarily theoretical. However, apart from theoretical treatises on medicine, Beeckman's Journal also includes notes on illnesses and ailments which he encountered during his everyday life. These include illnesses that plagued his own body, as well as those of his relatives and friends. Beeckman's notes thus contain a very human aspect, portraying a man who is generally worried about his health and that of others, but they also offer a look into the observant and experimental attitude which he shared with contemporary physicians. This chapter argues that Beeckman practised medicine in a much broader sense than has thus far been considered, which strengthens the established view that he was a practically minded scholar who attributed great value to learning through experience.

Keywords: Isaac Beeckman, medicine, physician, illness, patient

On 6 September 1618, Isaac Beeckman received his doctorate in medicine from the university of Caen. Although Beeckman pursued a number of occupations in his life, such as candle maker, schoolmaster and lens grinder, the received opinion is that he never really put his medical degree into practice and that his medical interests were mainly theoretical. This is illustrated by the many notes in the Journal on medical disputations, often in relation to his developing mechanical philosophy of atomism. However, apart from writing about medicine from an exclusively theoretical angle, Beeckman also engaged with illness and bodily ailments he encountered during his everyday life, including a few cases in which he himself was the patient. Considering the fact that he was a trained man of medicine, the question arises: in what manner did Beeckman write about his everyday aches and illnesses? Did he follow the common narrative of many patients at that time, or was he primarily looking at himself, and perhaps even others, through the lens of a trained physician?

The study of lay perceptions of illness and medicine, in addition to the common approach to the physician's view, has become a major subject in the field of medical history since Roy Porter's famous 1985 article ‘The Patient's View: Doing Medical History from Below’.