Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 896

JULIEN OFFRAY DE LAMETTRIE (1709-1751) L'homme machine. De l'imp. d'Elie Luzac, fils 1748 [20] 109 [1] pp. 13.4 cm.

La Mettrie first studied theology before completing his medical degree at Reims in 1733. He later studied and worked under Boerhaave and translated several of his works into French. By 1739 he was practicing in the Saint Malo region of France and only a few years later relocated in Paris as a surgeon to the Gardes Françaises. He continued to advance in the service and was eventually placed in charge of the military hospitals of Lille, Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp, and Worms. In 1746 the appearance of his Politique du médecin de Machiavel, which ridiculed both physicians and clerics, forced him to leave France for Holland because his personal safety was threatened. When La Mettrie had to leave Holland only two years later because of the present work, he found refuge in Berlin with Frederick II of Prussia who appointed him physician-in-ordinary and court reader. In addition to several satirical and philosophical works, La Mettrie published medical treatises on such subjects as asthma and dysentery. His observations of the sick led him to believe that psychic phenomena were associated with organic changes in the brain and nervous system. La Mettrie's views were radical and played an important role in the development of materialism. An adherent of the Iatrophysical School (see No. 496), he developed his theories more completely while in Leiden and publication of the present volume, dealing with man as a machine, hastened his departure from that city. Here he propounds his theory that the soul is only a function of the body.

See Related Record(s): 957

Cited references: Waller 19862; Wellcome III, p. 438

Gift of Hans L. Ehrenhaft, M.D