Exploring innovative plague advice crafted by German physicians and clerics during the sixteenth century, this book argues that a loose medical reform movement unfolded in vernacular print inspired by the growth of vernacular print, Protestantism, alchemy and new interest in native plants and medicines. Drawing upon 385 vernacular German plague works printed between 1473 and 1600 (including single-leaf broadsides, religious texts, popular medical pamphlets, as well as specialist physicians' pamphlets) it offers new insights into medicine, religion and society. In so doing it allows scholars to analyze the relationship between theory and practice among physicians who could boast extensive learning and personal experience. This German reform of healing required a turn against traditional medical thought in favour of greater reliance on experience, as seen in the new interest in alchemy, tried-and-tested recipes and indigenous medicines unknown to the ancients. The effects on religion were also surprising, as some physicians participated in the Protestant Reformation by reforming medieval 'spiritual medicine' for plague and by spreading Martin Luther's views on natural medicine.
The broadest and deepest study of German plague pamphlets in any language, this book also recovers the contribution of many largely forgotten physicians who contributed to the process of medical reform usually credited to Paracelsus. Indeed, by identifying an early and wide-spread reform of healing, this book takes issues with the traditional historiographical view of Paracelsus as the 'Luther of physicians' and instead suggests that it was Martin Luther himself who had the greatest impact on contemporary physicians and their plague advice.