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Book Review
| Harold J. Cook, Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age (New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press, 2007). ISBN 978-0-300-11796-7), 576 pp.
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| Max Weber originally suggested that a positive link existed between the rise of both capitalism and science, but only as a mere consequence of the stimulative effect which the Protestant ethic had had on commerce. This hypothesis was developed further by the sociologist of science, Robert K. Merton, whose now eponymous 'Merton Thesis' established that English Puritanism encouraged the growth of early modern science. Although Merton's work involved a consideration of economic factors, the subsequent comment and criticism of the Thesis has focused almost entirely on the religious aspects of the work. Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age then, is a contribution towards a very large and conspicuous gap which historians of science are only just beginning to fill. Harold J. Cook (director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London) contends not only that commerce, rather than religion, was the major motivating social factor upon early modern science, but he also displaces the narrative of 'the scientific revolution' from its familiar setting within the confines of seventeenth century England, and from its recognised players of English gentlemen. |
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Cook's backdrop is the Dutch Republic in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His players are those naturalists, anatomists, and physicians whose presence within the Republic not only influenced their knowledge-making practices, but allowed them to establish knowledge-making networks, through the global networks of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), which extended as far as the East and West Indies, Southern Africa, the Americas, and Japan. Cook argues that those factors that were essential to mercantile pursuits, such as exchange, commensurability, accumulation, credibility, a preference for plain and precise language, interested engagement with objective knowledge, and the ability to make collective generalisations of exacting information about objects were also beneficial for, and adopted by, those involved in scientific activities. Hence, these factors influenced the kinds of knowledge that was produced in medicine and natural history, by figures such as Clusius, Bontius, Descartes, Willem ten Rhijne, Boerhaave, and Mandeville. Cook's further claim, and departure from the traditional account, is that, rather than disinterested reason, disembodied from nature, the beginnings of the new philosophy were embedded in a merging of the interests and passions of the mind and body. |
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The book is well organised, beginning its story in the centre, the Republic, with subsequent chapters moving out to the peripheries, and back again. Due to the episodic nature of the work, with its emphasis on individuals, each chapter is also capable of standing on its own. Due to the sheer variety and scope of Cook's subject matter, it is difficult to choose a particular chapter or section to relate here. 'Truths and Untruths from the Indies' explicates not only the terrible reality of the activities of the VOC in the Dutch East Indies, but also outlines the difficulties encountered by the physician Jacobus Bontius in collecting local knowledge and making it accessible to a European audience. This theme is taken up again in 'Translating What Works,' an account of how Willem ten Rhijne worked with colleagues in Japan to produce one of the earliest European analyses of acupuncture and moxibustion. Cook reveals a vast array of both manuscript, primary and secondary sources, which have been previously inaccessible to the Anglophone world. The work contains also an impressive collection of illustrations which both complement the text and divert the reader. |
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Readers with a particular interest in the history of medicine, as well as the beginnings of early modern science, have much to gain from this work. Cook's claim that medicine and natural history emerge as the big science of the early modern period marks a sharp contrast against those accounts which have focussed on the physical and mathematical sciences. Matters of Exchange is an ambitious work, seeking to combine political, economic, and intellectual history, and it provides many promising avenues for further research. |
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| CLAIRE KENNEDY
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| UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY |
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