A medicina iluminista e o vitalismo: uma discussão do Nouveaux Éléments de la Science de l‟Homme de Paul-Joseph Barthez (1734-1806)

Abstract

On the thesis critical comments are made on the recent interpretations of Vitalism on the XVIII century, paying special attention on the Nouveaux Éléments de la Science de l Homme (first published in 1778), by Paul-Joseph Barthez (1734 1806). Since the second half of the XX century, as it is firstly discussed on this thesis, the Enlightenment interpreters understood the mechanist doctrine as the heiress of Scientific Revolution as well as the dominant strain in the sciences of life throughout the XVIII century. This way, on the historiographical of the last century Vitalism was scarcely mentioned or seen as a backward anti-Enlightenment school of thought. Recently, historians and researchers on history of Science of the XVIII century (above all Williams and Reill) understand Enlightenment in a more plural way, considering Enlightenment Vitalism (a name proposed by Reill) an integral part of a more dynamic Enlightenment concept. Next, the mechanist doctrine and its main concepts are shown, as well as the thoughts of some of the mechanist main followers on the XVII century and the beginning of the XVIII century, more specifically the Newtonian Mechanist. Afterwards, the vitalist doctrine and its concepts are exposed and commented with special attention to the Vitalism at the Montpellier University. Within this context, the vitalist concept are commented as they are presented on the Nouveaux Éléments de la Science de l Homme, where Barthez proposes a new physiology based on vital principles ; on this way, his researching methodology is presented as well as the vital principle concept, the sensitive forces and the principle of life motive forces , besides the concepts of sympathy , synergy and at last, the concept of temperament . Those concepts or this terminology , as it is shown, are not originally conceived by Barthez, but they were taken and reformed by him on debating with Newtonianism and others Medical Schools strain of thoughts since Antiquity until the XVIII century as well as with experiments and observations of the medical-scientific researches by his own and of his own time. As a result, understanding of the Vitalist doctrine is reached as an in the 18th Century largely well-accepted intellectual effort, fittingly interacting with the contemporaneous scientific debate, that is, vitalist physicians had seen themselves and were also seen by his peers as following the scientific standards of their own time.