The aim of this study is to show how the emotions - in particular the so-called "passions of the soul" - were understood and interpreted in the medical thinking of the late Enlightenment. We focus chiefly on three innovations in 18th century medicine: the "discovery" of the neuro-cerebral system (the ’birth’ of neurology); the search for the "seat" of illnesses in particular organs (the "birth" of pathological anatomy); and the gradual separation of the body and the soul as objects of medical enquiry (the "birth of psychiatry). We consider whether, and to what extent, these innovations contributed to the breakdown of the "old" diagnostic paradigms of the "passions of the soul", or whether in fact they helped to maintain them. We also discuss to what extent the consideration of these passions fostered a new approach to the relationship between the body and the soul in Enlightenment medicine. Some of the phenomena studied are illustrated by specific examples of (erotic) love and melancholy. and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
The study is based on an analysis of content and themes of the correspondence of the wellknown Enlightenment Era "provincial intellectual", a bank clerk from Čáslav Jan Ferdinand Opiz (1741-1812), with a country priest from the highlands on the border of Bohemia and Moravia, Karel Killar (1745-1806). Their correspondence - in most part hitherto unstudied - is deposited in the National Museum in Prague. It consists of more than 300 letters, written over a long period of 16 years (1793-1806), and it is fascinating for several reasons: it is conducted in French, which represents one of the very rare testimonies of a good knowledge of French in some members of other classes than the nobility in the 18th and 19th centuries; in this case, the use of French can be read as an implicit adherence to (French) Enlightenment, and perhaps even to the principles of the French Revolution. And it is the Enlightenment, the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars around which the entire correspondence revolves. Thanks to this we may not only form a deeper and more nuanced insight into Opitz, a wellknown sympathizer of the French Revolution, but also into the lesser known figure of Killar, a man of universal education and an Enlightenment era priest of Josephine stamp, who tried to integrate both the Enlightenment and the French Revolution within his firm Christian (Catholic) worldview., Daniela Tinková., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy