ABSTRACT
By 1750, the overthrow of the old medicine of humours, based on Hippocrates and Galen and its replacement with what the Italians called medicina meccanica sperimentale, the revolutionising of medical instruction and clinical practice after the pattern which began to be introduced in northern Europe during the third quarter of the seventeenth century, the systematic replacement of the old remedies and medicines with new treatments, and general reorganisation of the hospitals and public health care policy if still far from complete, was well under way throughout the whole of Catholic southern and central Europe. Both in terms of ideas, and the practical application of the new methods and procedures, the revolution had progressed to the point that it had the upper hand and dominated the scene from Paris to Palermo and from Seville to Vienna.
