Conditions of Difference: Scholarly Migration and Medical Book Production in the 17th Century

17th century medical science around the globe thrived on the lively exchange of information and material between centers of higher learning, such as in Europe universities and academies. Key players were not only the teaching professors of medicine themselves but students, physicians, non-affiliated scholars and sometimes missionaries who migrated from place to place and carried memorized topic lists for disputes, transcriptions of lectures and printed books for reference, and letters of introduction. They also brought, distributed, and changed miscellaneous bits of know-how: how to categorize and structure their field of knowledge, how to dissect bodies, to arrange an experiment, and to mix potions and medications. In the history of science, we want to know about the impact that the scholars' regional or imported cultures of learning had on the processes of developing and distributing information for public usage in medicine, such as entries in encyclopedias and other reference books, collected volumes containing recipes and other useful advice, published series or single pamphlets containing more or less elaborate oral disputations and dissertation, cabinets of curiosity with limited or full public reach, and lecture transcripts of professorial courses that students published. Did the distribution patterns mirror or follow the scholars' paths of migration? What happened when incoming scholars hatched different opinions from what was practiced and taught at the new place, what if they differed in technologies and information? This panel traces how migrating medical scholars dealt with conditions of difference.