Riolan, John

, an able French physician, a native of Amiens, and distinguished by his attainments both in literature and science, is said not only to have written and spoken the learned languages with facility, but to have been thoroughly intimate with the contents of almost all the writings of the ancients. We have, however, very few particulars of his life, unless that he gave lessons in natural philosophy at the college of Boncour, at Paris, where he took his degree in 1574, and held the office of dean of the faculty in 1586 and 1587. He died Oct. 18, 1606. He was a strenuous advocate for the doctrine of Hippocrates and the ancients, whom he defended with great ardour against the chemists. His works, which are indicative of genius, were collected and published, together with some posthumous tracts, at Paris, in 1610, under the title of “Opera Omnia,” and some were separately published, particularly one against the ignorance of the practitioners of surgery in his time, entitled “Ad Impudentiam quorundam Chirurgorum, qui Medicis suquari et Chirurgiam publice profiteri volunt; proveteri dignitate Medicinal Apologia philosophica,” Paris, 1567. This was followed by several pieces on both sides. ¹