, the third son of the preceding, was born at Paris in 1633, and after studying some years at Saumur,
, the third son of the preceding, was born at Paris in 1633, and after studying
some years at Saumur, he went to Montpellier, where he
completed his medical course, and took his doctor’s degree. He afterwards attended the marshal Turenne in
his campaigns, and was by him appointed physician to the
army. The skill and ability he had shewn in this situation,
occasioned his being nominated to succeed Vander Linden,
in 168S, as professor of medicine at Leyden, whither he
obtained permission to go, though he had been made, several years before, one of the physicians to Lewis the
Fourteenth. Two years after, he was advanced to the chair
of anatomy in the same university. He was also made
physician to William, prince of Orange, and to his princess,
Mary. As rector of the university of Leyden, he spoke
the congratulatory oration to the prince and princess, on
their accession to the throne of England. He continued
to hold his professorships, the offices of which he filled
so as to give universal satisfaction, to the time of his
death, which happened on the last day of May, 1697.
He was a voluminous and learned writer; his works, which
were much read in his time, and passed through several
editions, were collected and published together in 1671,
and again in 1680, in 4 vols. 12mo. But the most complete edition of them is that published at the Hague, in
1727, in 4to. In one of his orations he has been careful
to exculpate professors of medicine from the charge of impiety, so frequently thrown upon them. “Oratio Doctoralis Monspessula, qufi Medicos Dei operum consideratione atque contemplatione permotos, caeteris hominibus
Religioni astrictiores esse demons tratur: atque adeo impietatis crimen in ipsos jactatum diluitur.
” He also, in
his “Apologia Medica,
” refutes the idea of physicians
having been banished from, and not allowed to settle in
Rome for the space of six hundred years. He was a lover
of Greek literature, and like his countryman, Guy Patin,
an enemy to the introduction of chemical preparations into
medicine, which were much used in his time. He was
also a strong opponent to his colleague Sylvius Bayle
has given him a high character. As a man he describes
him benevolent, friendly, pious, and charitable; as a
scholar, versed in the Greek and Latin tongues, and in all
polite literature in as high a degree as if he had never applied himself to any thing else; as a professor of physic,
clear and exact in his method of reading lectures, and of
a skill in anatomy universally admired; as an author, one
whose writings are of an original and inimitable characier.