Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 220

JEAN FERNEL (1497-1558) Universa medicina. Apud Andream Wechelum 1567 [16] 175 [1] 176-557 [2] 136 [80] pp., illus. (port.). 32.6 cm.

For more information on this author or work, see number: 219

Fernel had planned to publish a system of medicine for many years but was never able to complete it. In 1554 he issued a significant portion of his system as Medicina. It consisted of De naturali parte medicinae (1542) retitled as Physiologiae, libri VII; a new work Pathologie, libri VII and; Therapeutice, libri III. Following Fernel's death, Guillaume Plancy (1514-ca. 1568), his literary executor, edited the present work. Plancy was a younger physician and classical scholar who resided with Fernel during the last ten years of the latter's life. In addition to the works included in the Medicina, Plancy added four books to Therapeutice from manuscripts left by Fernel and also added De abditis rerum causis, which had originally been intended to follow the Physiologiae. This first edition includes Plancy's introductory letter and the profile woodcut of Fernel from the 1554 Medicina, with Plancy's Greek couplet beneath the portrait. It is in this edition that Fernel's description of "iliac passion" first appears. This is believed to be the first clinical account of acute appendicitis with intestinal perforation.

Cited references: Durling 1464; Osler 2574 (Frankfurt, 1577); Waller 2997 (Leiden, 1645); Wellcome 2202

Gift of John Martin, M.D.