By Saskia Klerk, with Sietske Fransen Portret of Johan van Beverwijck (1594-1647)
Johan van Beverwijck (1594-1647), who we introduced in our first post, was one of the most prominent medical authors of the Dutch seventeenth century. His Steen-stuck
[Treatise on the Stone] (1637, 1649, 1656) was the first of his
publications in which he proposed not only how to prevent a disease, but
also how to cure it. The treatise was rather conventional in its
structure however. Being a learned physician, Van Beverwijck discussed
where in the body gravel and stones occured, their cause and signs or
symptoms and prevention as well.
The compiler of our manuscript (BPL3603) was exclusively interested
in chapter eleven, about both medicinal and surgical treatments.
Similar to his dealings with Van Helmont´s work on the plague, the
compiler consulted a treatise about the particular affliction he was
interested in. He copied five passages from Steen-Stuck into the manuscript, alongside his discussion of master Reijmers, which I examined previously.
As a “Nota” to Reijmers´ recipe, the compiler first copied a recipe
that Van Beverwijck singled out amongst several compound medicines. University
Library Leiden, MS BPL3606, p. 121 (selection): first passage copied
from Steen-stuck under the page heading “Tried remedies to break the
stone”.
The use of the word “Nota” signals that Van Beverwijck´s recipe
functioned as an comment on Master Reijmers´ , as another example of a
stone-breaking remedy. The compiler cited Van Beverwijck as its source,
rather than “Dr. Quercetanus´ Pharmacop. Dogm.”, to which Van Beverwijck referred.
The compilers´ choice for this recipe as the first passage to copy from Steen-stuck,
deserves further attention because it shows how he read Van
Beverwijck´s treatise. The recipe wasn’t the first in the chapter and
earlier passages in the source text are copied later in the manuscript.
The content description at the start of the chapter explains the
compilers´ choice. The eleven chapter parts are numbered and named. They
move from the lightest treatments to the severest: that is, from
treatments that would make it easier for a stone to move out from the
bladder naturally, to those requiring an operation to remove it. The
compiler disregarded this structure and skipped to number six, “on
compound medicines to break the stone“. This brought him straight to the
recipe that he copied under the page heading “Tried remedies to break the stone“. The content description thus helped him find what he was looking for, information about stone-breaking compounds.
Van Beverwijck had built in a structure by which Steen-stuck
could be read from front to back, from the causes of stones to their
cure. The content descriptions at the beginning of each chapter however,
facilitated different ways of reading the treatise. From this
manuscript, we can tell that the compiler used this navigation aid quite
effectively.
After including the anecdote about the hare-catching boy in the manuscript, the compiler apparently returned to this chapter in Steen-stuck.
His interest in stone-breaking remedies brought him to number four in
the chapter, to “those <medicines> that break the stone”. From
there, he read through the rest of the treatise and selected four more
passages to copy into his manuscript. These selections I will cover in
part two of this post.
