Zoonomia de Erasmus Darwin: uma análise epistêmica

Abstract

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1803) was a doctor, botanist, philosopher, inventor and poet. A closer look into his life and work unveils an active 18th-century English man of science, who had a significant role in the foundation of learned societies, such as Birmingham s Lunar Society. Mostly known in the present time as Charles Darwin and Francis Galton s grandfather, he was eventually attributed some anticipations of the former s ideas on evolution. However, Zoonomia was written to introduce the foundations of medical theory and practice to colleagues. According to Darwin, the laws of organic life corresponded to the operation of the faculties of the principle of motions, which he named as spirit of animation. Having resource to some of the ideas most prevalent in his time, he listed such faculties as being four: irritation, sensitivity, sensitivity, volition, and association. Consistently, in his nosology, Darwin applied Carl von Linné´s botanical taxonomy to those faculties to formulate a rational classification of disease, which could also serve as a therapeutic guide