Abstract

SCHMITZ, Carolin. Barbers, charlatans, and the sick: the medical plurality of baroque Spain perceived by the picaresque Estebanillo González. Dynamis [online]. 2016, vol.36, n.1, pp.143-166. ISSN 2340-7948.

In order to know about diseases and their medical treatment from the perspective of the patient in Baroque Spanish society, creative literature, especially the picaresque novel, is a valuable source that offers a representation of ideas on medicine and disease that were widespread among the population and difficult to access from other sources. The first-person narrative in the Vida y hechos de Estebanillo González (1646) offers knowledge on three different aspects of the medical world in Europe during the Thirty Years' War: Estebanillo practises various medical professions, appears in the story as a patient and comments on health practices and disease, providing highly useful material to analyze how different fields of medicine are represented in this literary work.

Keywords : social representation of medicine; picaresque novel; medical pluralism; history of the patient; Spanish Monarchy.

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