Sanctorius

, or Santorius, an ingenious physician, was born in 1561, at Capo dTstria, a town on the borders of the gulf of Trieste. He studied medicine and took his degree at Padua, and then settled at Venice as a practitioner, where he had considerable success. In 1611 he was recalled to Padua, and appointed professor of the theory of medicine in that university; an office which he held with great credit for the space of thirteen years, until his reputation occasioning his being frequently sent for to Venice by the people of distinction in that city, he resigned his chair in order to dedicate all his time to medical practice. His resignation was accepted, but the salary continued; and with this testimony of the public esteem, he removed and settled finally at Venice, where he died in 1636, aged seventy-five. He was buried in the cloisters, and a statue of marble raised to his memory.

Sanctorius was the first who directed the attention of physicians to the importance of insensible perspiration in the animal ceconomy, concerning which he had gone through a long course of experiments upon himself. For these he constructed a kind of statical chair; by means of which, after weighing the aliments he took in, and the | sensible secretions and discharges, he was enabled to determine with wonderful exactness the weight or quantity of insensible perspiration, as well as what kind of food or drink increased and diminished it. On these experiments he erected a curious system, which was long admired by the faculty. It was divulged first at Venice in 1614, under the title of “Ars de Statica Medicina,” comprehended in seven sections of aphorisms; and was often reprinted at different places, with corrections and additions by the author. It was translated into French, and published at Paris 1722; and we had next an English version of it, with large explanations, by Dr. Quincy; to the third edition of which in 1723, and perhaps to the former, is added, “Dr. James Keil’s Medicina Statica Britannica. with comparative remarks and explanations; as also physico-medical essays on agues, fevers, on elastic fibre, the gout, the leprosy, king’s-­evil, venereal diseases, by Dr. Quincy.”

Sanctorius published other works; as, “Method! vitandorum errorum omnium, qui in Arte Medica contingunt, libri quindecim,” 1602; “Commentaria in primam sectionem Aphorismorum Hippocratis,” 1609; “Commentaria in Artem Medicinalem Galeni,” 1612; “Commentaria in. primam partem primi libri Canonis Avicennae,” 1625; “De Lithotomia, sen Calculi vesicle sectione, Consulta.­tio,” 1638. All these, which raised his character very greatly among his own profession, were in 1660 printed there together in 4 vols. 4to.

Sanctorius unquestionably conferred a benefit on medical science, by directing the observation of medical men to the functions of the skin but unfortunately, the doctrines were extended much too far and, coinciding with the mechanical principles, which were coming into vogue after the discovery of the circulation, as well as with the chemical notions, which were not yet exploded, they contributed to complete the establishment of the humoral pathology, under the shackles of which the practice of medicine continued almost to our own times. Sanctorius was also the author of several inventions. Besides his statical chair, he invented an instrument for measuring the force of the pulse; and several new instruments of surgery. He was the first physician who attempted to measure the heat of the skin by a thermometer, in different diseases, and at different periods of thesanie disease; and it is to his credit | that he was an avowed enemy to empirics and empirical nostrums, as well as to all occult remedies. ¹