Webinar: Fluids as Dynamic and Organic Forces. Medical knowledge in Oliva Sabuco de Nantes – Karin Durin

Women’s Ideas in the History of Medicine
Fertility, Maternity, and Reproduction – 2025 Webinars Series

Organised by Jil Muller & Fabrizio Bigotti. Organised in collaboration with the Centre for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists – University of Paderborn, this series seeks to understand the role of women in the history of medicine by exploring their contributions in fields such as natural philosophy, household remedies, plant manipulation and selection, as well as midwifery.

Fluids as Dynamic and Organic Forces. Medical knowledge in Oliva Sabuco de Nantes
This work will examine the study of organic fluids and movements in the Nueva filosofía de la naturaleza del hombre, published by Oliva Sabuco de Nantes in 1587. The representation of the internal anatomy shows the dynamics that flow back and forth, combining the power of emotions and affects, the processes of digestion and the influence of the environment, all of which are expressed in Sabuco’s vision through the ebb and flow of movements of growth and decay. The categories of dry and wet are themselves governed by the emotions, in particular tristeza y descontento, when the soul and body are in discord. The regulating role of the emotions on the movement of fluids and even on the principles of digestion brings us back to the centre of the vital composition, which for Sabuco is the brain. From then, the flow of fluids in all their forms (milk, semen, bile, gastric fluid, tears, white blood, chyle) led us to follow Sabuco’s project of medical reform. But what happens in this text with the legacy of ancient and galenic physiology’s theories on fluids and humours? What philosophical interpretation stems from this interpretation of the bodily fluidity, which affects men, women and animals equally? The bodily fluidity in Sabuco gives rise to a rich metaphorical expression and highlights a vitalism correlated with a global vision of society whose reform project concludes the 1587 work.

About the Speakers…
Karine Durin is Full-Professor at the University of Nantes (France). She is a specialist of intellectual history in the Early Modern Iberian World. She recently published a chapter on Sabuco de Nantes, between Epicureanism and Stoicism (“A Female Dissenter in Counter-Reformation Spain”, De Gruyter, 2024) and a contribution on feminine reading of Baltasar Gracián in XVIIth century France (Classiques Garnier, 2024). She is currently working on the first translation of Sabuco’s treatise in French.

30 April 2025 – 4.00 PM (CEST)

Read more about the entire webinar series and find details on how to register on this website.