Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 528

THEOPHILE BONET (1620-1689) Sepulchretum; sive, Anatomia practica. Sumptibus Leonardi Chouët 1679 Vol. I: [40] 720 pp.; Vol. II: [4] 721-1706 pp., port. 33.6 cm.

Bonet was born in Geneva, the son and grandson of physicians. He traveled widely as a young man and received his medical degree at Bologna in 1643. Bonet practiced for a time at Neuchâtel, then moved to Geneva where he developed an extensive and successful practice. Upon becoming deaf in 1670, he abandoned his clinical practice and devoted the remainder of his life to study and writing. In all, Bonet wrote or edited sixteen books on medical subjects. This is his greatest work and is the foundation upon which Morgagni based his De sedibus (see No. 789). The first edition appeared after he had been in practice over thirty years; it contains references to more than 400 writers and is based on some 3,000 autopsies. He includes diseases from ancient to contemporary times with emphasis on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Book I concerns the head, Book II deals with the chest, Book III with diseases of the abdominal cavity, and Book IV with fevers, tumors, fractures, ulcers, and assorted other diseases.

See Related Record(s): 789

Cited references: Cushing B485 (1700 ed.); Garrison-Morton 2274; Osler 2077; Waller 1278; Wellcome II, p. 198

Gift of John Martin, M.D.