The Early Modern Commons

The Medicine Chest

Recent Posts

The Historical Relevance of Reconstructing an Early Modern Lemon Pie

28 May 2021

In the spring of 2021, students of the Huizinga Institute, the Dutch national graduate school for cultural history, took part in the course “The Sensory Archive”. In this course,...

Boerhaave’s furnace: the search for peat

20 April 2020

Last week, I heard on the news that global oil demand is expected to fall to a record low in 2020 due to the corona crisis. Given the significant role of fossil fuel combustion in climate...

A short history of respiratory illness epidemics (2)

6 April 2020

*This blog post first appeared in Dutch on NL-lab.net. * Last week, I discussed that from antiquity until well into the nineteenth century, the idea that contagious diseases were caused...

A short history of respiratory illness epidemics (1)

31 March 2020

*This blog post first appeared in Dutch on the NL-Lab website on 31 March 2020* The Netherlands are in lockdown to curb the covid-19 epidemic since prime minister Mark Rutte announced...