Mary Thomas | 612-624-4416 | [email protected]
511 Diehl Hall
505 Essex St SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
I am a historian of early science and medicine with a research specialty in ideas about the inner workings of nature that were developed in medieval and early modern Europe. In A Philosophical Path for Paracelsian Medicine and several articles I explore elements of a biological philosophy developed by the followers of the German iconoclastic physician and lay preacher, Theophrastus Paracelsus. I am particularly interested in the manifold connections between medicine, science, pharmacy, and religion in early thought. Recently I have undertaken research in the history of biological rhythms studies (chronobiology) and am promoting this area of research among my colleagues and developing an on-line research database of related materials (if interested, please send e-mail).I received the B.S., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in the History of Science at the University of Wisconsin.
Specialties
Early Modern European Science and Medicine, History of Paracelsianism, History of Biological Rhythm Studies
BOOKS & MONOGRAPHS IN PRINT
An Introduction to the History of Chronobiology, vol. 1: Biological Rhythms Emerge as a Subject of Scientific Research. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022.
An Introduction to the History of Chronobiology, vol. 2: Biological Rhythms in Animals and Humans. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022.
An Introduction to the History of Chronobiology, vol. 3: Metaphors, Models, and Mechanisms. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022.
Northern Light and Northern Times: Swedish Leadership in the Foundation of Biological Rhythms Research. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol.103, part 2. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2013.
A Philosophical Path for Paracelsian Medicine. The Ideas, Intellectual Context, and Influence of Petrus Severinus (1540/2-1602), Acta historica scientiarum naturalium et medicinalium 46. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen, 2004.
William Harvey and the Mechanics of the Heart, in the series Oxford Portraits in Science, ed. Owen Gingerich (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). This series is aimed at the young adult reader (secondary market; pedagogical). Translated into Japanese 2009 (ISBN 978-4-272-44050-4).
Tycho Brahe. Instruments of the Renewed Astronomy. English trans. (Raeder et al. 1946) revised and commented by Alena Hadravova, Petr Hadrava and Jole R. Shackelford. Clavis Monumentorum Litterarum (Regnum Bohemiae) 2, Facsimilia - Translationes 1. Prague: Koniasch Latin Press, 1996.
ARTICLES IN RECENT PEER REVIEWED JOURNALS AND TOPICAL COLLECTIONS
“Mechanical Arts and Biological Development on the Sixteenth-Century World Stage: The Paracelsian Mechanical Philosophy of Petrus Severinus,” in Christoph Lüthy and Elena Nicoli, eds., Atoms, Corpuscles and Minima in the Renaissance. Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy and Science 36 (Leiden: Brill, 2023), pp. 146-75.
“Chemical Paradigm vs. Biological Paradigm in the Biological Clock Controversy,” Ambix 67.4(2020): 366-388. DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2020.1826821
“Transplantation and Corpuscular Identity in Paracelsian Vital Philosophy,” in Peter Distelzweig, Benny Goldberg, and Evan Ragland, eds., Early Modern Medicine and Natural Philosophy (New York: Springer, 2016), pp. 229-253.
“Johann Hayne and Paracelsian Praxis: Chemical Physiology as a Link between Semeiotics and Therapeutics,” in Bridging Traditions: Alchemy, Chemistry, and Paracelsian Practices in the Early Modern Era, ed. Karen Hunger Parshall, Michael T. Walton, and Bruce T. Moran (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2015), pp. 19-58.