In history, epidemics tend to affect not only individual groups but societies as a whole. When highly contagious diseases, such as the plague, outbursted in early modern societies they naturally became a core theme of discussion also in...
moreIn history, epidemics tend to affect not only individual groups but societies as a whole. When highly contagious diseases, such as the plague, outbursted in early modern societies they naturally became a core theme of discussion also in academic communities. This paper wants to elaborate on some scholars from the Academia Julia in Helmstedt (1576‒1810), the ducal university of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, who made attemps to address the issue of the plague inbetween 1657 and 1684, i.e. from the plague outbursts in Brunswick (1657/58) to the outbursts in Wolfenbüttel (1681) and the following threat of plague in Helmstedt. I will follow the discussion through the university faculties at Helmstedt, starting at the philosophical and medical department, and ask how natural philosophers, physicians, jurists, and theologists in Helmstedt tried to answer the question of what is right in times of plague or imminent contagion.
I will follow some of the key publications and present them in the varying contexts of scientific, medical, moral, legal and theological debates taking place at the Academia Julia inbetween 1681 and 1683.
