The Endeavour Of Jean Fernel

Originally published in 1946, this book examines the writing and controversy of Jean Fernel's The Natural Part of Medicine, the 1542 publication that attempted to replace Galen's treatise on physiology. Sherrington assesses Fernel's impact on the field of medical writing, and includes multiple plates illustrating early editions of Fernel's treatise and important figures of the day. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in medical history.

Jean Fernel (1497-1558) was one of the foremost medical writers of his day, ranked by his contemporaries alongside Andreas Vesalius, reformer of anatomical studies, and Paracelsus, radical reformer of theories of disease and treatment. He is arguably the leading expositor of the Galenic system of medicine. He exemplifies in his Physiologia the method and approach of a typical Aristotelian philosopher in the period immediately before the downfall of Renaissance Scholasticism. John Forrester offers the Physiologia here in its entirety and provides, for the first time, a complete English translation of the work.

An annotated translation of Jean Fernel’s On the Hidden Causes of Things (1542). A major innovatory work in Renaissance natural philosophy and medicine, and a crucially important source for understanding the notion of occult qualities, with a scholarly introduction.

Exploring Renaissance humanists’ debates on matter, life and the soul, this volume addresses the contribution of humanist culture to the evolution of early modern natural philosophy so as to shed light on the medical context of the Scientific Revolution.

Chronicles how our understanding of stroke has evolved, drawing on primary sources and written by a renowned professor of stroke.