Krankheit und ärztliche Tätigkeit im Dreißigjährigen Krieg. Landgraf Philipp III. von Hessen-Butzbach und sein Leibarzt und Reisebegleiter Dr. Georg Faber.

Within the scope of a widespread series of studies concerning the regional history of medicine in Hesse (Germany), the medical biography of the scholarly Landgrave of Hessen-Butzbach, Philipp III. (1581-1643), has been set in relation to the activities of the so far rarely considered physician Dr. Georg Faber (approx. 1575-after 1632). The objective of the present thesis is the presentation of illness and the coping with within Hessian aristocracy during the early modern period as well as the presentation of all extant documents drafted by Georg Faber. To achieve this, apart from general and medico-historical literature as well as some medico-pharmaceutical prints of early modern times, mainly the materials of the Staatsarchiv Darmstadt, the Staatsbibliothek Berlin, the Universitäts- und Forschungsbibliothek of Erfurt/ Gotha and the Burgerbibliothek of Berne (Switzerland) were consulted. The compiled medical biography of landgrave Philipp ranges from a seizure in early childhood and its consequences for physical development to the medical treatment of the 61-year-old aristocrat by consulted doctors such as the leading physicians Johann Schröder (1600-1664) and Johann Peter Lotichius (1598-1669) of Frankfurt. Furthermore, the thesis compasses the education and training of the young nobleman in regard to the popular dietetical theory as well as the balneological aspects of the regent’s spa therapies in Bad Ems. The elaboration of Philipp’s personality focusses on his tendency to unbridled rage and excessive consumption of alcohol, not least because these attributes emerge in etiological explanations in the Consilia Medica (1642) in reference to the subsequent paralysing disease of the Landgrave. The wide range of dietetically, pharmaceutically and balneo-therapeutically prescriptions concerning the treatment of the 61-year-old Landgrave’s apoplexy can be disclosed with regard to the concepts of their effects on the progress of disease, and create a lively picture of the contemporary understanding of apoplectical disorder. The works and activities of Georg Faber as personal physician and travel companion of Landgrave Philipp, as a translator of medical literature, as an illustrator and author of diaries additional to his private contacts with the famous surgeon Wilhelm Fabricius Hildanus (1560-1634) and the prominent professor Gregor Horst of Giessen (1578-1636) offer an extensive insight into the history of science. This has been taken into account by editing both contemporary medical correspondancies and reports as well as by posing questions of socio-cultural, anthropological and historical interest concerning the culture of spa and travelling in early modern period, the art of painting, the history of literature and current efforts of diary-research. In the extant correspondence (1612-18) among Faber and Hildanus of Berne surgical case reports, e.g. failures in popular non-operative wound care with Emplastrum Sticticum and Unguentum Armarium, were discussed „interdisciplinarily”. It can be shown that both empirically-minded doctors reject an uncritical application of these Externa and especially the underlying sympathetical theories in medicine. Finally this critical attitude dominates Georg Faber’s expert report in 1618, which was composed due to a mysterious disorder of Landgrave Philipp and wherein the physician vehemently contradicts the circulating magical interpretation with rational argumentation. The journeys of Landgrave Philipp implicated for Faber the accomplishment of non-medical, artistic-journalistic assignments like the hand-illustrated diary of the Landgrave’s wedding tour to Eastern Friesland and the description of Philipp’s journey to spa treatment in Bad Ems (both in 1632). By comparing contemporary travel-documentations and journals it can be worked out, that the medicus’ documents met the formal and contentual requirements for courtly acceptance. Faber’s report of Landgrave Philipp’s journey to Bad Ems is further compared with another not yet transcribed anonymous diary of spa treatment of Philipp in 1637. The similar analysis of both documents including contemporary monographs of spa regimens in Bad Ems facilitates the comparison of balneological issues like medical indication and practice of spa treatment. Additional the synopsis of the different travel-diaries develops a lively picture of practice and experiences in early modern travelling on land and water under the uncertain politico-military conditions of the Thirty Years’ War. Altogether the present medico-historical thesis offers a broad contemporary scenario of medical culture in the first half of the 17th century with many details concerning spa regimen and medical treatment, medical communication and professionalisation, which expands the regional History of Medicine in Hesse by some new aspects.