Fantoni, John

, a celebrated physician, was born at Turin in 1675. He studied philosophy and the belles lettres in the university of his native city, with distinguished success, and then passed to the medical classes, in which he gave farther evidence of his abilities, and obtained his degree of doctor. He was enabled, through the liberality of his prince, to traverse France, Germany, and the Low Countries, every where making valuable additions to his knowledge. | On his return to Turin, he commenced public teacher of anatomy, and afterwards was successively chosen to fill the chairs of theoretical and practical medicine. In the interim the king of Sardinia appointed him physician to the prince of Piedmont, his son. This office, however, did not interfere with his labours in the university, where he was still distinguished near the middle of the succeeding century, notwithstanding his advanced age. The period of his death is not known.

The first publication of Fantoni was entitled te Dissertationes Anatomicae XI. Taurini, 1701.“The second,” Anatomia corporis humani ad usum Theatri Medici accoiiimodata, ibid. 1711.“This edition, which is, in fact, a part of the preceding work, relates to the anatomy of the abdomen and chest only. 3.” Dissertationes dure de structura et usu dune matris et lymphaticorum vasorum, ad Antonium Pacchionum conscripts;, Romae, 1721.“4. a Dissertationes duae deThermis Valderianis, Aquis Gratianis, Maurianensibus, Genevas,” 1725, in 8vo, and 1738, in 4to. 5. “Opuscula Medica et Physiologica, Genevoe, 1738.” This contains likewise some observations of his father. 6. “Dissertationes Anatomicae septem priores renovatae, de Abdomine, Taurini, 1745.” 7. “Commentariolum de Aquis Vindoliensibus, Augustanis, et Ansionensibus, ibid. 1747.” His father, John Baptist Fantoni, though less distinguished than his son, was also a teacher of anatomy and of the theory of medicine at Turin, as well as librarian, and first physician to Victor Amadeus II. duke of Savoy. He died prematurely in 1692, (having only attained the age of forty), in the vicinity of Embrun, where the duke, his patron, was encamped, during the siege of Chorges. He left several unfinished manuscripts, which John Fantoni revised, and of which he published a collection of the best parts, under the title of “Observationes Anatomico medicos selectiores,” at Turin, in 1699, and at Venice in 1713. This work contains some useful observations relative to the diseases of the heart. 1

1 Moreri. —Dict. Hist. Reel’s Cyclopædia, from —Eloy.