The ascendancy of John Brown's Elementa Medicinae on Schelling and Novalis Philosophies
Keywords:
Medicine. Philosophy. John Brown. Schelling. Novalis. German idealism.Abstract
The medical doctrine developed by John Brown, in Elementa Medicinae, understands health and disease as phenomena arising from excitability. It breaks with Hippocratic and Galenic medicine, based on the famous theory of the four humors. His ideas promote a paradigm shift in relation to classical medicine, so that the state of the body is no longer determined by a single view of its constituent parts. Brown establishes a dynamic and volatile approach, whereby the state of the body is defined by the relationship between excitability and stimuli. The theory of excitability of John Brown found fertile ground in Germany between the 18th and 19th centuries. The romantic ideal of the philosophy of this period and their appeal to individual subjectivity, found in Brownian medicine a conceptual framework and an fruitful aesthetic to its aspirations. Great German philosophers, such as Schelling and Novalis, established an intimate relationship with Brownian medicine. The purpose of this paper is to immerse in the Elementa Medicinae and, moreover, interpret the most relevant aspects of its influence on German idealism.
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