By Carlo M. Cipolla; Translated by Elizabeth Potter. 101 pp. New Haven, Conn., Yale University Press, 1992. $20. ISBN 0-300-04806-8.
In Miasmas and Disease, Carlo Cipolla provides a fascinatingglimpse of illness, health care, and prevention in early-17th-centuryItaly. The first and concluding chapters set up the author'spremise and draw his conclusions about the inability of thephysicians of the time to break out of the ancient paradigmof the humoral nature of disease. "`Facts,"' he tells us, "arelike the tiles of a mosaic; on their own they mean nothing."But by presenting these facts as plainly as possible, Cipollaallows us the joy of discovery. The intervening chapters presentinformation so deftly that the reader is almost . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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