Botallus, Leonard

, an eminent physician of Piedmont, who flourished about the middle of the 16th century, was a disciple of Fallopius, and took his degree of doctor in medicine at Padua. It appears by his writings, that he was a diligent observer, and enjoyed a considerable share of practice. He was in succession physician and aulic counsellor to Charles IX. Henry II. of France, and to William prince of Orange. He was also skilled in the practice of surgery, and published, “De curandis vulneribus sclopetorum,” Venet. 1560, 8vo. This has been frequently reprinted, and continued, for a long time, to be esteemed the most useful manual that had been published on the subject. He wrote also “Commentarioli duo, alter de medici, alter de aegvoti, munere,Lion. 1565, 8vo; containing rules for the conduct of the physician, the surgeon, and the apothecary, in their attendance upon the sick. But the work by which he is most known, and which produced an important revolution in the practice of medicine, is his “De curatione per sanguinis missione, de incidendae venae, cutis scarificandae, et hirudinum arrigendarum modo,” Antw. 1583, 8vo. Though bleeding had always been occasionally used in the cure of diseases, yet in his time it was nearly constantly superseded by purging medicines, or it was too sparingly used, and seldom repeated. Our author made frequent recourse to it, with complete success, he says, in diarrhoea, dysentery, in fever, the plague, and during pregnancy; and flattered with success, he became, as he advanced in life, more and more bold and free in the use of the lancet, and bleeding became a general remedy all over Europe; but in no country was it carried to such excess as in France, where the professors of medicine, for their too frequent recurrence to it, were held up to ridicule by Le Sage, in his inimitable novel of Gil Bias. The works of Botallus were collected, and published under the title of “Opera Omnia,” in 1660, at Leyden, by I. V. Home. 1

1 Gen. Dict. —Moreri. Halter ami —Manget.Rees’s Cyclopædia.