Ciencia y prácticas : la imagen del médico “perfecto” en tres autores españoles (siglos XIV-XVII)

Abstract

Through the analysis of three medical treatises dated from the fourteenth, the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries –master Estéfano, Enrique J. Enríquez and Antonio de Trilla– we intend to characterize what was considered, on behalf of academical medicine, the ideal to which every doctor should aim when exercising his profession. In one first part, we draw attention to the scientific aspects that the health professional should have. In a second part, to the practices to which every doctor pursuing excellence in his performance should restrain himself. Finally, we highlight the clear intention in the discourse of these three authors who seek, in last instance, a modification in the behaviour and the attitudes of “bad doctors” or “false doctors”. That is the purpose of writing their treatises, which they consider a model to be followed in order to achieve perfection in medical activities.