Learning to Cut, Bandage and Cure (2)

Building on the conference held at ENS Paris in September 2022, this workshop revolves around a number of critical challenges : how can we historicize early modern surgical instruction in the wake of what is being done for medical education ? How can texts be replaced into contexts and within reading communities ? How did notions and professional ideologies evolve, circulate and were appropriated (or not) ? Are instruments a key to reassess the transmission of knowledge and know-how ? Where did the process of learning by doing and doing to learn in surgery actually happen ?

While excellent studies have illuminated medieval and renaissance learned surgery, the quotidian knowledge cultures of vernacular practitioners warrant further exploration. This is particularly the case for the 16^th to 18^th centuries, where little scholarly attention has been devoted to surgical education and training. Although scholars agree that surgery was a highly mobile activity, implying different skills and levels of literacy and learning, not much is known about how these were actually acquired by practitioners across their life-course, diverse as they were from the modest bloodletter to the university-trained surgeon. Moreover, the relationship of theory and practice in this branch of medicine that inherently featured a bigger role for manual intervention and was often characterized as the operative part of medicine, remains relatively unproblematized.

The papers presented at the conference in Paris have highlighted our collective interest to reconsider multiple circuits of knowledge transmission and practice, both in the early stages in the education of would-be practitioners, and throughout their professional life. Two main threads have emerged. On one hand, some contributions have focused on surgical training in and for itself, examining books, images, and other learning aids, investigating their role in teaching across diverse environments, particularly hospitals, and questioning the relationship of theory and practice. On the other hand, some papers have used printed and manuscript sources to trace the appropriation of knowledge by diverse audiences within the trade, at different stages in the practitioners’ life, examining the place of textual and experiential knowledge in the practice of surgeons of various stripes. These threads intersect in multiple ways that will be discussed at this workshop in view of a collective publication.

Friday, 27 October 2023

9:15-9:30 | Coffee and pastries

9:30-10:20 | Surgical Practice in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-century Germany

Michael Stolberg (Chair : Heidi Hausse)

10:30-11:20 | “His Body, His Honour, His Health, and His Handwork” : surgical training in printed books and in the city of artisans

Tillmann Taape (Chair : Elaine Leong)

11:30-12:20 | “Proficient in Things Surgical and Anatomical”. Transforming surgeons’ apprenticeship in Italian hospitals, 1660-1770 ca.

Maria Pia Donato (Chair : Annemarie Kinzelbach)

Lunch (UCL catering, delivered to IAS Forum)

1:30-2:20 | Learning from Disaster : Surgical mishaps and pedagogy in the age of print

Heidi Hausse (Chair : Gideon Manning)

2:30-3:20 | Learning Surgery from Medieval Manuscripts

Peter Jones [Zoom] (Chair : Tillmann Taape)

3:30-4:20 | Surgery and the Artisanal Language of Techne : Leonardo Fioravanti’s Vernacular Readers

Cindy Klestinec (Chair : Peter Jones)

4:30-5:20 | Picturing Gaping Bodies. Images and surgical pedagogy in early modern Rome

Silvia De Renzi (Chair : Sandra Cavallo)

7:30 | Conference dinner

Saturday, 28 October 2023

9:15-9:30 | Coffee and pastries

9:30-10:20 | Learning and Teaching Specialized Surgical Practice in the Holy Roman Empire. Families, workshops, hospitals and illustrated manuscripts, 16^th and 17^th century

Annemarie Kinzelbach (Chair : Michael Stolberg)

10:30-11:20 | Learning to Dress : Italian surgeons and their pharmaceutical knowledge in the 17^th century

Sandra Cavallo(Chair : Juliette Rigaud) 

11:30-12:20 | Experience and Experiment in Early Modern Surgical Practice

Gideon Manning(Chair : Maria Pia Donato)

Lunch (UCL catering, delivered to IAS Forum)

1:30-2:20 | Visualizing Knowledge and Surgical Training in Early Modern London

Elaine Leong(Chair : Cathy McClive)

2:30-3:20 | How to Become a Forensic Expert. Learning by doing, master-surgeons, and legal medicine in early modern France

Cathy McClive [Zoom] (Chair : Silvia De Renzi)

3:30-4:20 | “Freedom to Learn” : A Provincial Apprentice-Surgeon in Paris at the End of the Eighteenth Century

Juliette Rigaud (Chair : Cindy Klestinec)