Double Nature, Double Care: Religion and Medicine in Early Modern England
Saturday 10 October
Unitarian Chapel
4.00pm
Through the lens of two pre-modern concepts – ‘double nature’ and ‘double care’ – Sophie Mann explores an innovative history of the relationship between religion and medicine in early modernity.
These ‘double’ terms were used to characterise human nature and the healing process, which involved concurrent attendance upon the body and the soul. In this context, being sick, and treating illness, involved managing an ensouled body. This necessitated ‘double care’: therapies catering to a patient’s ‘double nature’ of flesh and spirit.
Sophie reveals novel ways in which religion informed bodily experiences, regimens of health, medical reasoning and the dynamics of clinical encounters. This will prove crucial for new readings of early modern medicine more generally.
Tickets £12.00
includes refreshments
In association with
