Georg Philip Nenter and medicine "by notes" in the 18th century

Even though it is true that the medical historiography of the 18th century is lacking in great scientific personalities, it is equally true that the entire century is characterized by continuous efforts to encapsulate the medical area of knowledge, acquired until then, in precise and systematic outlines, to serve the academic teaching of the subject of medicine. Georg Philip Nenter, a pupil of Georg Ernst Stahl and a professor of medicine in the University of Strasburg, could not help being influenced by that atmosphere. He added though, in our opinion, a touch of remarkable modernity. In fact his volume Fundamenta medicinae teoretico-pratica (Venice, 1735) is a wonderful collection of the notes taken during his lectures. The description of various diseases - renal diseases in particular - maintains a very systematic development of the subject through various chapters (definition, clinical manifestations, differential diagnosis, prognosis, treatment and examples of specific prescriptions), as if students were being addressed.