Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 301

JOHANN WEYER (1515-1588) Medicarum observationum rararum liber I. Per Joannem Oporinum 1567 108 [12] pp., illus. 22.3 cm.

Weyer (often spelled Wier) was a native of Grave in northern Holland and initially studied medicine in Bonn, later at Paris, and completed his degree at Orleáns in 1537. He began practice in Grave, became town physician at Arnheim in 1545, and in 1550 was appointed private physician to Duke William of Cleves. Because of his strong stand against witchcraft, Weyer was forced to leave the duke's service in 1578 when William became ill and could no longer control the witch hunters in his realm. Weyer then came under the protection of Countess Anna of Techlenburg and held a post in her court for the remainder of his career. Although Weyer's voice was one of the most rational among the new breed of enlightened physicians of the Renaissance, he was considered to be irrational, controversial, as well as a wizard by many of his contemporaries. He is best remembered for his efforts to counter the widespread beliefs in witches, demons, and witchcraft. Weyer believed that many witches and supposed victims of witchcraft were suffering from mental illnesses. He tried to convince the clerical, legal, and medical professions that mental disturbances were a form of disease due to natural causes and that the afflicted needed treatment by physicians rather than persecution by the Law and Church. His best known work, De praestigiis daemonum (Basel, 1563), is a rebuttal of Malleus maleficarum and is a plea for the understanding of mental illness. It was in that work that he described some of his methods for diagnosing depression, acute anxiety, malingering, and other forms of mental illness. He was one of the first physicians to take a major interest in mental diseases and may be credited as one of the earliest psychiatrists. The present work contains the tracts: De scorbuto, De quartana, De pestilentiali angina pleuritide, & peripneumonia, De hydropis curatione, and De curatione meatuum naturalium clausorum, & quibusdam aliis. His discussion of the clinical signs and treatment of scurvy is among the best of the period and includes illustrations of cochlearia officinalis ("scurvy grass") which he introduced as a therapeutic agent for the disease. His observations on the quartan fever are followed by descriptions of the epidemics of angina maligna, pleursy, and pneumonia which were common in lower Germany during 1564 and 1565. He gives a number of remedies for curing dropsy and concludes with a long section on maladies of the genital system which includes discussions of carcinoma of the testicle, occlusion of the neck of the uterus, and imperforate hymen.

Cited references: Cushing W183; Durling 4738; Osler 4235 (1657 ed.); Waller 10294 (1657 ed.)

Gift of John Martin, M.D.