This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than

Empiricism today implies the dispassionate scrutiny of facts. But Jessica Riskin finds that in the French Enlightenment, empiricism was intimately bound up with

During the 18th century medicine became an autonomous discipline and practice. Surgeons justified themselves as skilled practitioners and set themselves apart f

This book provides a full account of the concept of fiber and fiber theory in eighteenth-century British medicine. It explores the pivotal role fiber played as