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Friday 14 April 2023 08.30 - 10.30
V-9 SOC10 The Hospitals in the Early Modern Period and the Sensual Turn
Västra Hamngatan 25 AK2 134
Network: Social Inequality Chairs: -
Organizers: Elisabeth Lobenwein, Alfred Weiss Discussants: -
Priyanka Kaushik : The Barber-surgeon
The Nai, Nais, Sain/Sen, Sain-Thakur, Savita-Samaj, and Mangala - Barber occupational castes. The name is thought to be derived from the Sanskrit word napita. They can be found all across India. They used to work as barbers in the past. Additionally, the barber has various and significant responsibilities connected to ... (Show more)
The Nai, Nais, Sain/Sen, Sain-Thakur, Savita-Samaj, and Mangala - Barber occupational castes. The name is thought to be derived from the Sanskrit word napita. They can be found all across India. They used to work as barbers in the past. Additionally, the barber has various and significant responsibilities connected to weddings and other festivals. They assist the Brahmin and serve as the marital priest for the lower classes who cannot employ a Brahmin. Due to their prominent role in wedding ceremonies, has developed a reputation as matchmakers among all respectable castes. They acted as surgeons since Baid/Vaid (doctors), most of whom were Brahmins, did not practise it. Barbers frequently performed as musicians throughout southern India, and various other castes in Malabar hired barbers as purohits during funeral ceremonies. Barbers serve as village physicians, cleaning the ears of their customers and unobtrusively trimming their nails while maintaining their professionalism. Blooding and cupping his patients are among the treatments he uses, leeches, tooth extraction, and the lancing of blisters. Whenever he performs this activity, he adopts the role of a barber-surgeon in the Middle Ages.
The Nai community's members have now abandoned traditional occupations in favour of more contemporary ones. In the Puranas, they are called Ampitta. The term 'Ampitta' derives from the Sanskrit term "Ambistha". Ambistha has been corrupted into Ampitta. Ambistha is derived from the Sanskrit word for Physician. They were also physicians in the earlier days. They could readily perform both professions as they moved from house to house. They were also known as Ambashtha due to their physic practice. Historically, they have been associated with Indian medicine and the physician profession. In the Colonial period, due to the advent of allopathic medicine, promotion of education, and the fashion of cutting hair, these doctors were divided into educated doctors and uneducated doctors. Over time, these uneducated doctors came to be called "barbers". (Show less)

Martin Scheutz : Colors, Monitoring through Watchful Eyes and Tentative Prayers in Early Modern Hospitals
Already in the 1980s, the English social and medical historian Roy Porter pointed out that the inmates of madhouses were by no means voiceless. In the early 19th century, German writer Johanna Schopenhauer describes in her travel report, that in Manchester the ‘insane’ looked out the windows of the hospital ... (Show more)
Already in the 1980s, the English social and medical historian Roy Porter pointed out that the inmates of madhouses were by no means voiceless. In the early 19th century, German writer Johanna Schopenhauer describes in her travel report, that in Manchester the ‘insane’ looked out the windows of the hospital and communicated with the people in the market square. What was observed for the ‘insane’ was all the more true for other hospital residents who were able to temporarily leave the hospital. They met relatives in front of the gates, (illegally) visited taverns or fairs, or worked outdoors. Lepers collected alms on the streets and orphans sang in public to receive charitable donations. There were also places where hospital residents and the general population met, for example, in churches and chapels, or at public baths. There were also visitors to the hospital, namely physicians and barber-surgeons, representatives of the supervisory authorities and, above all, interested travelers. The officials received complaints from the residents; private visitors noted their conversations and observations.
Everyday hospital life was structured like a convent or monastery, so that at specific times, hospital residents prayed, recited the catechism or sang hymns under clerical supervision. But there was also incessant noise within the hospitals – a constant issue for the management, who had to repeatedly admonish the residents to be quiet at mealtimes, not to fight among themselves, and only to stay in the places intended for them – an endeavor which, unlike in monastic settings, obviously met with little success. Secret meetings with whispered conversations are also conceivable. After all, in all large hospitals there were wards in which bedridden people moaned and cried in pain, and sections for the ‘maniacs’ who rattled their chains and screamed. At Haina Hospital, these noisy ‘maniacs’ were put together with deaf residents.
In summary, early modern hospitals were places with many voices and sounds, to be explored in this paper. (Show less)

Christina Vanja : Hearing the Inmates - Cries, Whispers, Talks and Songs from the Inside of Early Modern Hospitals
Already in the 1980s, the English social and medical historian Roy Porter pointed out that the inmates of madhouses were by no means voiceless. In the early 19th century, German writer Johanna Schopenhauer describes in her travel report, that in Manchester the ‘insane’ looked out the windows of the hospital ... (Show more)
Already in the 1980s, the English social and medical historian Roy Porter pointed out that the inmates of madhouses were by no means voiceless. In the early 19th century, German writer Johanna Schopenhauer describes in her travel report, that in Manchester the ‘insane’ looked out the windows of the hospital and communicated with the people in the market square. What was observed for the ‘insane’ was all the more true for other hospital residents who were able to temporarily leave the hospital. They met relatives in front of the gates, (illegally) visited taverns or fairs, or worked outdoors. Lepers collected alms on the streets and orphans sang in public to receive charitable donations. There were also places where hospital residents and the general population met, for example, in churches and chapels, or at public baths. There were also visitors to the hospital, namely physicians and barber-surgeons, representatives of the supervisory authorities and, above all, interested travelers. The officials received complaints from the residents; private visitors noted their conversations and observations.
Everyday hospital life was structured like a convent or monastery, so that at specific times, hospital residents prayed, recited the catechism or sang hymns under clerical supervision. But there was also incessant noise within the hospitals – a constant issue for the management, who had to repeatedly admonish the residents to be quiet at mealtimes, not to fight among themselves, and only to stay in the places intended for them – an endeavor which, unlike in monastic settings, obviously met with little success. Secret meetings with whispered conversations are also conceivable. After all, in all large hospitals there were wards in which bedridden people moaned and cried in pain, and sections for the ‘maniacs’ who rattled their chains and screamed. At Haina Hospital, these noisy ‘maniacs’ were put together with deaf residents.
In summary, early modern hospitals were places with many voices and sounds, to be explored in this paper. (Show less)

Alfred Weiss, Elisabeth Lobenwein : "Fundamental Smells" in the Hospital in Early Modern Times - the Example of Austria and Bavaria
In hospitals, considered “antechambers of death” for the poor or the townspeople of average means, there was frequently a pungent “collective farmyard smell” due to the pervading uncleanliness and the severe health conditions of the residents, to which, however, people of early modern times reacted less sensitively. Nevertheless, this smell ... (Show more)
In hospitals, considered “antechambers of death” for the poor or the townspeople of average means, there was frequently a pungent “collective farmyard smell” due to the pervading uncleanliness and the severe health conditions of the residents, to which, however, people of early modern times reacted less sensitively. Nevertheless, this smell attributed to the poor was regularly criticized and repudiated. Even the Age of Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant considered this “organ sense” to be dispensable, because of – according to him – the existence of too many nauseating elements. The objects of our research have – literally – largely evaporated, because sensory events of early modern times are no longer tangible. Thus, it is only possible to use historical elements to trace sensory practices.
In early modern times, the facilities were considered to be “infectious spaces” due to the pervading miasmas, perceived as disgusting by contemporaries. The hospital’s glamor included spoiled food, the smell of sick residents, the stench of excrement and bad body odors, as well as the unpleasant “aroma” of moldy and damp walls, as Alain Corbin masterfully described these social effluviums. The French historian (born 1936) spoke in this context of the secretions of misery and of the notorious “hospital putrefaction”, a corpse smell which in the hospitals of early modern times not only preceded death, but also announced the imminent demise of women, men and sick children. It was caused by gangrenous limbs and sweat-soaked beds, as well as the rotting straw that was reserved for the dying. However, this “pervading” stench could also be interpreted as an opportunity, because as laid down in the hospital rules of the Julius Hospital in Würzburg, it served to atone for sins and achieve salvation.
Cleanliness and hygiene were therefore the new keywords in the Age of Enlightenment, of special importance to care facilities, so as to get a better grip on the “fundamental smells” and the “foul taste”. It was now the task of the “health police” to correct the hygienic conditions in the facilities, to remove the piles of excrement and dirt, to ban the consumption of tobacco from the hospitals and to improve the quality of breathing air.
The smells from privies and latrines were considered to be particularly dangerous by town councils and hospital authorities, so that the doors there of were supposed to be kept closed. Since in many facilities too many people often only had access to the single available privy, it is evident that these early toilet systems could very often become extremely soiled due to their use by aged people with diarrheal illnesses. It was therefore quite common to do one’s “business” in public. Among the examples of the efforts by the towns to attempt to intervene in a regulating manner, the installation of window glass in the Public Hospital of Hall in Tyrol or the emptying of cesspits, which in many locations had to be carried out at night, can be mentioned. If on the one hand, manure was regarded as a sought-after raw material for agriculture, on the other hand, some hospitals took precautions and disposed of human excrement by means of especially built canals (e.g. in Hall in Tirol, in Bozen or in Trento). (Show less)



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