Elementorum Medicinae physico-mathematicorum Tomus I

The Elementa medicinae physico-mathematica (1731) by Johann Friedrich Schreiber (1705-1760) rightly deserve a special place within the history of the impact of Wolff's philosophy. They represent a successful attempt to apply Wolff's philosophy to both the exposition and substantiation of medical theory. Schreiber does not limit himself to applying Wolff's methodus scientifica to the treatment of medicine. He theorizes a medical ontology, a theoretical introduction from which the principles of physiology can be derived. Without this basis it would not be possible to give the data of empirical observation the form of a science. With these considerations he advocates on the one hand the primacy of philosophy among disciplines and university faculties, but on the other hand the autonomy of medicine as a science. Embedded in the debate between the various schools of medicine, the work provides an accurate picture of the state of the discipline in the second half of the eighteenth century and evidence of the vitality and spread of Wolff's philosophy.