Continuity and Change: “Fiber Body” in the Era of Iatro-Vitalism, c.1750–1800

Abstract

This chapter examines the ways in which the fiber body both remained and changed in the era of iatro-vitalism. Through the medical systems of Adair and Macbride, the chapter shows how the new medical theory of nervous vitalism compromised with the lasting influence of iatromechanism. This period saw the rise of a new group, the “Irritable Fiber” school, who reinvented the notion of irritability as the primeval life-principle. This school distinguished itself from the nervous one in proclaiming the priority of fiber’s irritability over nervous sensibility. Highlighting the impact of the laws of irritability formulated by Girtanner, it further argues that the fiber model disintegrated itself within the “Irritable Fiber” school rather than the nervous one.