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Healing the Body Politic: French Royal Doctors, History, and the Birth of a Nation 1560-1634

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Jacob Soll
Jacob Soll*
Affiliation:
Rutgers University, Camden
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Abstract

This article examines the role played by royal doctors in forming an empirical political science in France at the end of the sixteenth century. Bringing with them took from the Galenic tradition, doctors such as Rodolphe Le Maistre, Abraham-Nicolas de La Framboisière, and Jean Héroard doubled as political counselors. They not only looked for ways to heal the king's body, they also looked for ways to heal and regulate the body of the nation. Their new vision of the monarch as a practicing physician of the state is an essential yet unknown facet of the origins of political modernity.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , Winter 2002 , pp. 1259 - 1286
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2002

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