ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the rhetorical strategies used by physicians in early modern Germany in convincing civic authorities to appoint them as town physicians. Analysis of 140 letters of application from the archives of 12 towns and cities over 200 years reveals recurring patterns of argumentation. These illustrate how physicians fashioned themselves as prospective town physicians and reveal what authorities expected. Applications featured claims to practical knowledge (experientia). Thus, historians’ standard notion of “learned physician” and the focus on physicians in scholarly communities are one-sided. Moreover, physicians’ emphasis on experientia thus reflected not only growing Hippocratic and natural-philosophical orientation, but also the rise of civic medical office. If towns and cities emphasized practical experience, why did they recruit academic instead of artisanal practitioners? Physicians’ training in the liberal arts schooled them in written communication. Recognizing and imitating structures and styles of classical texts translated into what physicians had to do as civic doctors: certify, report, and reproduce or adapt styles and structures of official documents. A letter of application itself—as a formalized text related to a genre (the supplication)—demonstrated this ability and signaled understanding of polities’ dependence on conventions of communication.
