Theo Kobusch

Dietrich H.W. Grönemeyer

Heinz Schott

This is the initial volume in a new series entitled Ars medicinae: The Science of Medicine and Human Salvation. The name of the association behind the series is Initiative Gesundheit (Health Initiative), which is made up of physicians, researchers, and university teachers working in the sciences and the humanities. This first publication is designed to reflect the broad range of subjects to be addressed in the volumes to come, the immense variety of which has prompted the editors to opt for a format that will do justice to this multiplicity. The leitmotif for the first installment is "health," a concept that both delineates the boundaries of the topics envisaged and provides an introduction to the issues and problems involved. In line with the interdisciplinary approach adopted by Initiative Gesundheit, the essays assembled in this volume approach the subject from the perspectives of medicine, medical history, philosophy, theology, and philology. Historically, the purview extends from antiquity to the present day.

Gesundheit im Spiegel der Disziplinen, Epochen, Kulturen

What does "magic of nature" mean? Starting with the placebo effect and its relevance for biomedical research and clinical practice of today, this treatise focusses on diverse historical concepts of the "healing power of nature". This topos was fundamental for natural medicine, life reform movement, suggestive therapy, hypnotism, romantic natural philosophy, and mesmerism. Such a retrospection leads to the crucial concept of "natural magic" (Latin: magia naturalis), which was essential for early modern medicine and natural science. At that time, Nature (Latin: natura) was revered as a divine creator of natural things in the service of God, as a mediator of His wisdom for the inquiring humans. So, Nature was personified in many ways as a wise woman or magician, mystically adored by alchemists. At the end, the study returns to the present age. It reflects critically modern sexology and sexual medicine confronting them with certain spritually guided practices of "sexual magic". The 68 supplementary image pages stand for themselves displaying an emblematic subtext. Each of them tells an own story and is more or less self-explaining.

Heinz Schott

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