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Peter van den Hooff

“I would pray that the Lord were to let this medicine prosper into a blessed avail” Sickness and Health in Looted Dutch Letters. Peter van den Hooff. Sources (1). ca. 3500 letters at the Meertens Institute. Sources (2). ca. 1000 letters at the Institute for Dutch Lexicology.

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Peter van den Hooff

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  1. “I would pray that the Lord were to let this medicine prosper into a blessed avail”Sickness and Health in Looted Dutch Letters Peter van den Hooff

  2. Sources (1) ca. 3500 letters at the Meertens Institute

  3. Sources (2) ca. 1000 letters at the Institute for Dutch Lexicology

  4. Methodology (1) Examples of germane concepts: • diseases • symptoms • drugs and drug components • medical practitioners and institutions • effects of drugs (sweating, purging, etc.) • modes of drug administration (plaster, clyster, etc.)

  5. Methodology (2) Examples of peripheralconcepts: • “the body” (body parts, humors, temperament, etc.) • menstruation and fertility • mental conditions (mania, delirium, etc.) • climate (mala aria = bad air) • “matters of life” (childbirth, giving birth, pregnancy, etc.) • “matters of death” (death, dead, grave, funeral, etc.)

  6. Problems • Homonyms: • “mankeren” • “middel” • “loop” • etc. • Routine formulas: “I [in some cases: name] let you know that I’m still fresh and healthy [in some cases: praise be to God for His mercy], hoping to hear the same about you. Were it any different, it would grieve me to hear so; God knows this, for He is a knower of all hearts.”

  7. The Tale of Unfortunate Wernard (1)

  8. The Tale of Unfortunate Wernard (2) Wernard van Vloten to his sister Sara Maria: Three to four weeks ago, when I needed to get out of my hammock at night, upstairs in the attic, I made a false step, causing me to get my right leg stuck between a plank and the wall through an opening in that plank, and to get a heavy contusion on the inside of my kneecap. It seemed to heal nicely and disappear as a result of the applied medicines, but ten to twelve days ago, complaining about pain and fatigue in my members, I got a high fever that lasted six consecutive hours in addition. Hereafter, my leg was inflamed entirely, although not swollen. This latter [symptom] seems to disappear, but I keep having a severe, gnawing pain in the knee and it’s about to burst through. I wished that the latter wasn’t true, since holes or openings like that […] can cause more heavy inflammations and faster decay due to the hot climate and the penetrating air.

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