Fallibility and error's culture in medicine. Historical, epistemological and ethical aspects (1500-1650) – ERMED

Medical mistakes (germ. Kunstfehler, fr. faute opérationnelle, lat. deceptio or falsum) are the stuff of everyday practice while errors (germ. Irrtum, fr. erreur, lat. error) relate to clinical reasoning or the construction of scientific theory. The history of these two fundamental concepts (mistake/error), with their distinct ethical and epistemological implications, is inseparable from the emergence of contemporary medical thinking. Between the 16th and 17th centuries, debate about medical errors took place largely in France, Italy and Germanic countries. Medical fallibility seemed to preoccupy physicians in a completely new manner, as the prevention of mistakes and errors was increasingly included in conjectures about medical decision-making. Tradition and innovation collided. However, these indications of an awareness of medical error have been hitherto neglected. The project ERMED aims to study the genesis and development of thinking about medical fallibility.
Our three main goals are firstly, to write a forgotten chapter of the history of modern medicine, by re-charting a debate in which cultural transfers are characterized by a pronounced taste for criticism and the exercise of free speech ( parrhesia) ; secondly, through the cross-referencing of sources and the comparative analysis of the contexts which fostered the debate, we will try to demonstrate how Renaissance medicine drew simultaneously on epistemological and ethical ways of thinking to answer the challenges posed by the changes in practice; thirdly, to provide a backdrop to the current debate on medical malpractice and mistakes as well as on Personalised Medicine by throwing new light on its cultural history.