Jean Fernel
Jean François Fernel (in Latin, Fernelius) (1497–1558) was a French physician who introduced the term "physiology" to describe the study of the body's function. He was the first person to describe the spinal canal. The lunar crater Fernelius is named after him.
Fernel suggested that taste buds are sensitive to fat, an idea which only recently has been shown to be correct.[1]
He was born at Montdidier, and after receiving his early education at his native town, entered the College of Sainte-Barbe, Paris. At first he devoted himself to mathematical and astronomical studies; his Cosmotheoria (1528) records a determination of a degree of arc of the meridian, which he made by counting the revolutions of his carriage wheels on a journey between Paris and Amiens.
His works on mathematical and astronomical subjects also include Monalosphaerium(1526), and De proportionibus (1528).
But from 1534 he gave himself up entirely to medicine, in which he graduated in 1530. His extraordinary general erudition, and the skill and success with which he sought to revive the study of the old Greek physicians, gained him a great reputation, and ultimately the office of physician to the court. He practised with great success, and at his death at Fontainebleau in 1558 left behind him an immense fortune.
His medical works include: De naturali parte medicinae (1542), De vacuandi ratione (1545), De abditis rerum causis (1548), and what has been called his "crowning work",[2] Universa Medicina, comprising three parts, the Physiologia (developed from the De naturali parte), the Pathologia, and the Therapeutice.
[edit] References
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- ^ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=potential-taste-receptor http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-nutr-080508-141108
- ^ Welch, G. R. in Nature 456 p. 446, 27 Nov 2008.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Jean Francois Fernel". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Jean_Francois_Fernel.
[edit] External links
- Clinical Cardiology: Fernel
- Jean Francois Fernel: Biography
- Jean Fernel by Victor de Beauvillé (in French)
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