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Платоническая традиция и теория эпидемий в раннее Новое время
Recent studies on the history of medicine pay special attention to how the plague epidemics in 14th–16th centuries had changed medical theory and practice. In the medical discourse, those epidemics helped to shape the “epistemology of particulars” (particolaria) which contrast with the “scholastic epistemology” dealing with search of universal causes. Marsilio Ficino, one of the most influential natural philosophers of the Renaissance, combines scholastic medicine and philosophy of ancient authors in order to develop his theory of epidemics in the treatises Consilio contra la pestilentia and De vita. He identifies the external and internal causes of plague and describes ways to combat the disease. The external cause is the constellations of planets which cause putrid exhalation in certain territories. The internal cause is identified with the inability of the body to resist the disease “from within”. I argue that, based on different philosophical and medical traditions, Fisino constructs the image of Socrates as an example of a philosopher capable of countering plague epidemics “from within”. The heritage of Aulus Gellius contributes to Ficino's argument as well. Ficino brings to the medical discourse a rather original idea that Platonic philosophy can protect from epidemics or significantly facilitate the course of the disease.