View source for Biography:Jean Fernel

{{short description|16th-century French physician}}
{{Infobox scholar 
| name        = Jean Fernel
| image       = Jean Fernel.jpg
| other_names = Ioannes Fernelius
| birth_date  = 1497 
| birth_place = Montdidier
| death_date  = 26 April 1558
| death_place = Fontainebleau
| nationality = French
| discipline  = [[Medicine:Medicine|Medicine]]
| education   = 
| workplaces  = [[Organization:University of Paris|University of Paris]]
| influences  = [[Biography:Galen|Galen]]
| influenced  = 
| academic_advisors = 
| notable_students  = Andreas Vesalius<ref name=O'Malley>Charles Donald O'Malley, ''Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514-1564'', University of California Press, 1964, p. 47.</ref>
}}

'''Jean François Fernel''' (Latinized as '''Ioannes Fernelius'''; 1497 – 26 April 1558)<ref name=EB1911>{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Fernel, Jean François |volume=10|page=281|short=1}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pQdEBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA136 |page=136 |title=The Endeavour of Jean Fernel |author=Charles Sherrington |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2014|isbn=9781107453784 }}</ref> was a French [[Medicine:Physician|physician]] who introduced the term "[[Biology:Physiology|physiology]]" to describe the study of the body's function.<ref name=tubbs/> He was the first person to describe the spinal canal. The lunar crater [[Astronomy:Fernelius (crater)|Fernelius]] is named after him.

Fernel suggested that taste buds are sensitive to fat, an idea which research in the early 21st century proved to be correct.<ref>[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=potential-taste-receptor Potential Taste Receptor for Fat Identified]. Scientific American</ref><ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1146/annurev-nutr-080508-141108|title=Is There a Fatty Acid Taste?|year=2009|last1=Mattes|first1=Richard D.|journal=Annual Review of Nutrition|volume=29|pages=305–27|pmid=19400700|pmc=2843518}}</ref>

==Life==
He was born in Montdidier and, after receiving his early education at Clermont,<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/historians-miscellaneous-biographies/jean-fernel |title=Fernel, Jean François |encyclopedia=Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |year=2008 |first=Ragnar |last=Granit |via=Encyclopedia.com |access-date=2019-04-12 |df=dmy-all}}</ref> he entered the College of Sainte-Barbe, [[Place:Paris|Paris]]. At first he devoted himself to mathematical and astronomical studies; but from 1534 he gave himself up entirely to medicine, in which he graduated in 1530. His general erudition, and the skill and success with which he sought to revive the study of the old Greek physicians, gained him a reputation, and ultimately the office of physician to the court. Catherine de' Medici, wife of [[Biography:Henry II of France|King Henry II of France]], sought his advice regarding their difficulty in conceiving a child. He practiced with success, and at his death at Paris in 1558 left him a large fortune.<ref name=EB1911/><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ejpfAAAAcAAJ&pg=PR3 |title=Pharmacopée raisonnée, ou traité de pharmacie pratique et théorique |last1=Henry |first1=Noël Étienne |last2=Guibourt |first2=Nicolas Jean Baptiste |publisher=J. B. Balliére |year=1847 |edition=3rd |pages=iii |language=fr}}</ref> His remains were entombed at the Church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_XTZAAAAAYAAJ |title=Dictionnaire administratif et historique des rues et monuments de Paris |last=Lazare |first=L. C. |publisher=Bureau de la revue municipale |year=1855 |location=Paris |pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_XTZAAAAAYAAJ/page/n455 447] |language=fr}}</ref>

==Work==
[[File:Houghton FC5.F3945.528d - Fernel, De proportionibus.jpg|thumb|''De proportionibus libri duo'' (1528)]]
[[File:Titelpagina voor Johannes Fernelius, Universa medicina, bewerkt door Johannes Heurnius en Otto Heurnius. Utrecht Gijsbert van Zijll en Dirck van Ackersdijck, 1656. NL-HlmNHA 1477 53009885.JPG|thumb|Jean Fernel. ''Universa medicina''. Utrecht: Gijsbert van Zijll en Dirck van Ackersdijck, 1656.]]

===Astronomy and geodesy{{anchor|Arc measurement}}===
Fernel's ''Cosmotheoria'' (1528) records a determination ([[Earth:Arc measurement|arc measurement]]) of a degree of arc of the meridian, which he made by counting the revolutions of his carriage wheels on a journey between Paris and Amiens. Using his measurements he calculated the circumference of the earth to within one percent of the correct value. He computated a degree of a meridian would have been long 56,746 [[Toise|toise]]s instead of the 57,024 that were subsequently measured.<ref>{{cite journal|first1=David Eugene|last1=Smith|title=Medicine and Mathematics in the Sixteenth Century|pmc=7927718|pmid= 33943138|journal=Ann. Med. Hist.|date=July 1, 1917|volume= 1|issue=2|pages=125–140|oclc=12650954}} (here cited p. 131).</ref> His works on mathematical and astronomical subjects also include ''Monalosphaerium, sive astrolabii genus, generalis horarii structura et usus'' (1526), and ''De proportionibus'' (1528).<ref name=EB1911/>

===Physiology===
As a physician and professor of medicine at the Collège de Coenouailles for over 20 years, Fernel is credited with the neologism, ''[[Biology:Physiology|physiology]]'', a discipline which became one of the central topics of education and research in the field of medicine.<ref name="tubbs">{{cite journal|pmid=25676717|year=2015|last1=Shane Tubbs|first1=R|title=Anatomy is to physiology as geography is to history; it describes the theatre of events|journal=Clinical Anatomy|volume=28|issue=2|pages=151|doi=10.1002/ca.22526|s2cid=19322528|doi-access=free}}</ref> His early understanding of physiology, especially of the brain, was represented by three statements commonly quoted in physiological history:<ref name=tubbs/>
*“Anatomy is to physiology as geography is to history; it describes the theatre of events.”
*The brain was “the seat of the mind and its parts; the mind being endowed with numerous faculties, man has rightly been provided with a larger accommodation for it than the other creature possess, and this accommodation is associated with more instruments.”
*“The brain is the citadel and dwelling of the human mind, the abode of thoughts and of the reason, the wellspring and origin of movement and of every sense; it occupies the highest point of the body, looking upwards, nearest to heaven.”
  
His medical works included ''De naturali parte medicinae'' (1542), ''De vacuandi ratione'' (1545), ''De abditis rerum causis'' (1548) which included a chapter on angelology and [[Social:Demonology|demonology]].<ref>Nancy G. Siraisi, ''The Clock and the Mirror: Girolamo Cardano and Renaissance medicine'' Princeton University Press (1997) {{ISBN|0691011893}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=eQKqbOvg-QQC&pg=PA160 p. 160].</ref> What has been called his "crowning work",<ref>{{cite journal|author=Welch, G. R. |journal=Nature|volume=456|page=446|year=2008|doi=10.1038/456446b|title=In Retrospect: Fernel's Physiologia|issue=7221|bibcode=2008Natur.456..446W|s2cid=28626298|doi-access=free}}</ref> ''Universa Medicina'', comprises three parts: the ''Physiologia'' (developed from the ''De naturali parte''), the ''Pathologia'', and the ''Therapeutice''.

==References==
{{reflist|30em}}

==Further reading==
{{Commons}}
*{{DSB
|first=Ragnar
|last=Granit
|title=Fernel, Jean François
|volume=4 
|pages=584–6
}}

* Hiro Hirai, "Jean Fernel and His Christian Platonic Interpretation of Galen," in: Hiro Hirai, ''Medical Humanism and Natural Philosophy: Renaissance Debates on Matter, Life and the Soul'' (Boston-Leiden: Brill, 2011), 46–79.
* [[Biography:Charles Scott Sherrington|Charles Scott Sherrington]], ''The Endeavour of Jean Fernel with a List of the Editions of His Writings.'' Canberra: U.P., 1946.

==External links==
*[http://santerre.baillet.org/communes/montdidier/v2b/v2b4c02b27.php Jean Fernel] by Victor de Beauvillé (in French)


{{DEFAULTSORT:Fernel, Jean Francois}}
[[Category:Demonologists]]

{{Sourceattribution|Jean Fernel}}