Medical misinformation in early modern Germany / Christopher Hutchinson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hutchinson, Christopher (Professor of German), Author.

Series:

The early modern exchange

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Medicine--Germany--History--16th century.

Medicine.

Medicine--Germany--History--17th century.

Medicine--Germany--History--18th century.

Medical misconceptions--Germany--History.

Medical misconceptions.

Communication in medicine--Germany--History.

Communication in medicine.

Communicable diseases--Germany--History.

Communicable diseases.

Physical Description:

pages cm

Place of Publication:

Newark, DE : University of Delaware Press, [2026]

Summary:

"Medical Misinformation in Early Modern Germany traces the genealogy of "virality"--the notion that information and disease circulate analogously--to sixteenth-century German lands. It contends that a rhetoric of virality emerged at this time as a response to the arrival of new diseases such as syphilis and the English sweating sickness, and the development of novel networks of communication centered around the printing press. The "virality" of diseases-their tendency to circulate simultaneously as biological and media phenomenon-is very familiar to us today. We are all too aware, in our digital age, of how lies, rumors, and misinformation circulate alongside epidemic disease. Medical Misinformation in Early Modern Germany explores the genealogy of this phenomenon and locates the origin of virality--the notion that information and disease circulate analogously--at the turn of the sixteenth century. It investigates literary texts alongside popular vernacular medical pamphlets to reveal the emergence of the notion of the "contagious" in the context of both media and disease. The growth of print, alongside the development of new forms of media, new literary genres, and new forms of visual representation led writers and thinkers to reconsider the ways in which information could be communicated. These anxieties were often expressed through metaphors of disease, creating an emergent rhetoric of virality"-- Provided by publisher.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version Hutchinson, Christopher (Professor of German) Medical misinformation in early modern Germany

ISBN:

9781644534281

1644534282

9781644534298

1644534290

OCLC:

1541907624

Publisher Number:

90104832405