The “Memoir on the Transfer of Cemeteries”: Critical Introduction and Translation of an Eighteenth-Century Medical Manuscript

Authors

  • João Luiz Garcia Guimarães Casa de Oswaldo Cruz

Keywords:

History of Medicine, Cemeteries, Enlightenment, History of Chemistry, Medical Police

Abstract

The article presents the first-ever translation of Mémoire concernant le changement des cimetières, a manuscript by the physician and encyclopedist Jean-Joseph Ménuret. The text provides insight into the cognitive, social, and cultural issues involved in the attempt to relocate a cemetery outside the walls of a small town in inland France during the eighteenth century. This source allows for a more detailed understanding of the gradual process of cemetery secularization and the role played by medicine in it.

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Author Biography

  • João Luiz Garcia Guimarães, Casa de Oswaldo Cruz

    Graduated in History from the Federal Fluminense University (B.A. and Teaching Degree, 2015) and recently awarded an M.A. in History by the Graduate Program in the History of Science and Health (COC–Fiocruz), João Luiz has now completed his Ph.D. in the same program.

    In his master’s dissertation, he examined the relationship between music and medicine in the encyclopedic work of Jean-Joseph Ménuret de Chambaud (1739–1815). He analyzed the social, cultural, and intellectual changes surrounding music in France and their connection to ideas about the healing potential of sound found in the entry “Effects of Music,” published in volume IX of Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie (1751–1785). He also explored the specificities of the medical thought Ménuret shared with his teachers and peers at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Montpellier, where a renewed view of the living body, disease, and health became increasingly influential from the 1730s onward. Finally, the dissertation investigated how, and under what conditions and influences, an association was formed between the concept of music (understood mainly as harmony) and the idea of health as a kind of musical harmony among the parts of human physiology.

    In his doctoral research, he focused on the intellectual trajectory of Jean-Joseph Ménuret, a physician born in Montélimar (Dauphiné, France) and trained at the University of Montpellier. Known for his participation in major debates and controversies of his time—such as inoculation, public hygiene, and mesmerism—Ménuret witnessed the decline of the Ancien Régime, the turmoil of the Revolution, his subsequent exile in Hamburg, and, ultimately, significant personal success under the First Empire. The study aims to understand the uses and transformations of the categories “observation,” “sensibility,” and “practical medicine” in eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century medicine.

References

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Published

2026-08-25

Issue

No. 21 (2026)

Section

Artigos

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How to Cite

Guimarães, J. L. G. (2026). The “Memoir on the Transfer of Cemeteries”: Critical Introduction and Translation of an Eighteenth-Century Medical Manuscript. Khronos, 21, 98-123. https://revistas.usp.br/khronos/article/view/246409