Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 219

JEAN FERNEL (1497-1558) Les VII livres de la physiologie. Chez J. Guignard 1655 [24] 384 [8] 385-773 pp. 17.1 cm.

Fernel was professor of medicine at the University of Paris where he played a major role in breaking down the Galenic tradition in France. His insistence that physicians should study the human body and not rely on tradition may well have inspired his pupil, Vesalius (see No. 280 ff.), to the latter's great anatomical studies. He elected to forgo a teaching position after finishing his master's degree in order to study the humanities and mathematics on his own. His great interest in mathematics and astronomy led him to publish a treatise on the astrolabe and, in 1528, a work in which he described the first exact measurement of the degree of a meridian. He completed his medical degree in 1530 and, under pressure from his family, turned to the practice and teaching of medicine on a fulltime basis. Fernel's Physiologiae was first published at Paris in 1542 as De naturali parte medicinae. It was later incorporated into his Medicina (1554) which was used as a standard text throughout Europe for many years, as is shown by this French translation made more than one hundred years after its publication in Latin. The book basically is concerned with the functions of the body when it is in a healthy state. It opens with a discussion of anatomy and contains an early description of the spinal cord's central canal which was overlooked by Vesalius. The remainder of the work is devoted to physiology but is organized in accordance with the prevalent humoral theories of the day. Fernel also made it clear that there were many areas of the physiological process and disease theory which were not in accord with Galenic principles. Fernel made many valuable observations in this early work devoted exclusively to physiology.

See Related Record(s): 280

Gift of John Martin, M.D.