Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 220.3

JEAN FERNEL (1497-1558) Io. Fernelii Ambiani, De abditis rerum causis libri duo, postremo ab ipso authore recogniti, compluribusque in locis aucti, ad Henricum II Franciae Ex officinal Typographica And. Wecheli 1577 ‘Editio postrema’ (last edition). [5], 101 p. : ill. 34 cm.

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

This is an uncommon posthumous edition of Fernel’s landmark work that served as a medical textbook for many decades. Fernel is generally considered to be the person who established physiology, pathology, and therapeutics as standard and discrete categories of medical inquiry. According to PMM [sic], “Both physiology and pathology had, of course, existed in rudimentary form before Fernel; but he was the pioneer who gave these subjects their names and established them as separate systems.” The third work in this volume attacks astrology, magic, and other superstitions. Fernel was physician to Catherine de Medici, whose infertility he was credited with curing, and subsequently to Henri II, to his wife, and to his famous mistress, Diane de Poitiers. Fernel was an influential reformer during his lifetime, as he insisted that medical studies be based on clinical observation more than on ancient authorities. “His insistence that physicians should study the human body and not rely on tradition may well have inspired his pupil, Vesalius, to the latter’s great anatomical studies” (Heirs of Hippocrates). – bookseller’s blurb

John Martin M.D. Endowment