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- Title
Mechanica Medicina Sacra: Biblical Vegetarianism in Philippe Hecquet's Theological Medicine.
- Authors
Reed, Julia
- Abstract
In the early eighteenth century, the French Jansenist physician Philippe Hecquet began publishing prolifically on the benefits of what he called "meatless medicine," calling for a "Catholic cook" to guide France's physical, moral, and spiritual health. This paper analyzes Hecquet's defense of vegetarianism as an early modern example of a distinct kind of Biblical medicine – what Hecquet termed "theological medicine" – in the context of his understanding of bodily mechanism, natural history, and Biblical literalism, in his Traité des dispenses du carême (1709) and La medecine théologique, ou la medecine créée (1733). I argue that vegetarianism was the first principle of Hecquet's Biblical medicine, which he considered both a natural and revealed truth to be grasped and applied by the pious physician.
- Subjects
BIBLICAL literalism; EIGHTEENTH century; VEGETARIANISM; SACRUM; NATURAL history
- Publication
Early Science & Medicine, 2021, Vol 26, Issue 5/6, p539
- ISSN
1383-7427
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1163/15733823-12340027