Jacques Dubois

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For the professor of literature, see Jacques Dubois (literary theorist).

Jacques Dubois
Hermonymus of Sparta
Janus Lascaris
François Vatable
Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples
Franciscus Sylvius Ambianus
Notable studentsMichael Servetus
Andreas Vesalius[1]
Louis Duret

Jacques Dubois (

Latinised as Jacobus Sylvius; 1478 – 14 January 1555) was a French anatomist. Dubois was the first to describe venous valves, although their function was later discovered by William Harvey. He was the brother of Franciscus Sylvius Ambianus (François Dubois; c. 1483 – 1536), professor of humanities at the Collège de Tournai, Paris.[2]

First years

The origins of this anatomist are vague. He was probably born in 1478 in

French humanism, where he was famous for his excellent knowledge of these disciplines.[4]

Early grammar of French

Dubois was the author of the first grammar of the French language to be published in France.[3] The title of this work was In linguam gallicam isagωge, una cum eiusdem Grammatica latino-gallica, ex hebræis, græcis et latinis authoribus [Introduction to the French language, with a Latin-French grammar of the same, based on Hebrew, Greek and Latin authors], published in Paris in early 1531, less than a year after the very first French grammar, by John Palsgrave, was published in London.

From philosophy to medicine

Dubois was known for his hard work, and eloquence. He studied languages and mathematics at the

M.D. from Montpellier in 1530.[6]

Once he obtained his degree he returned to Paris, but he was again blocked by the Faculty, which decreed that the anatomist should have obtained an M.B. from the University of Paris before returning to his lessons. On 28 June 1531 Sylvius incorporated an M.B. at Paris[6] and was able to resume its course in anatomy. In 1550, when Vidus Vidius departed for Italy, he was appointed to succeed him as Professor of Surgery in charge of the new Collège Royal in Paris. This appointment was granted by Henry II of Valois.

Sylvius was an admirer of Galen, and interpreted the anatomical and physiological writings of that author in preference to giving demonstrations from the subject. He died on 14 January 1555 in Paris.

Sylvius as a teacher

Sylvius was not only an eloquent professor, but also a demonstration teacher. He was the first professor to teach anatomy of a human corpse, in France.

His biggest intellectual flaw was his blind reverence for the ancient authors. He treated the writings of Galen as if they were wholly sacred, he would believe that if a corpse showed structures different from those described by Galen, the error was not in the texts, but in the corpse, or the structure of the human body that had changed over the centuries. In one of his works, "Ordo et Ratio Ordinis Legendis Hippocratis et Galeni Libris", Sylvius says that the anatomy of Galen was infallible, that his treatise De Usu Partium was divine and that further progress in anatomy would have been impossible.[7]

Cimetière des Innocents
and other cemeteries. Without these, they must have committed numerous errors in acquiring the first principles.

Though

Vesalius
. Louis Vassé denounced the attacks of Vesalius and Estienne, and affirmed they had learnt all they knew by Sylvius' lessons. Vasse explains the nature of Sylvius' influence over his unruly audience this way:

"This depended not so much on his splendid use of the Latin tongue as upon the exceptional clarity of his thought. He was, moreover, never tired of teaching and so taught that none of his students ever tired of learning. He had an astonishing power of enabling them to grasp and see quite clearly that which a moment before had seemed impenetrable and terribly involved."[8]

This period was a time of fierce debate between Galenists and the new body of thought on anatomy. The conservative Riolan attacked William Harvey with equal fervour.

Contributions to anatomy

Sylvius made a valuable service by giving a name to the muscles, which until then had simply been referred to by numbers. These numbers were arbitrarily assigned by different authors. He was the first anatomist to publish descriptions of satisfactory

vertebrae, but described incorrectly the sternum. Although the cerebral aqueduct (Aqueduct of Sylvius) and Sylvian (lateral) sulcus of the brain have been said to be his contributions to anatomy, the aqueduct was described by Galen nearly 1300 years before, albeit the name aqueduct in this context was first mentioned by another Sylvius (Franciscus Sylvius, 1614–1672), who apparently also described the sulcus which bears his name.[9]

References

  1. ^ Charles Donald O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514-1564, University of California Press, 1964, p. 47.
  2. ^ a b c d e Revue des bibliothèques, Volume 15, 1905, p. 268.
  3. ^ a b Livet, Ch.-L. (1859). La grammaire française et les grammairiens du XVIe siècle. Paris: Didier. p. 3. See also In linguam Gallicam Isagωge.
  4. ^ a b Kellett, C. E. (1961), "Sylvius and the Reform of Anatomy", Med Hist. 5(2): 101–116.
  5. ^ James Moores Ball (1910): Andreas Vesalius, the Reformer of Anatomy, p. 59
  6. ^ a b c A. Wear, R. K. French, I. M. Lonie (eds.), The Medical Renaissance of the Sixteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, 1985, p. 146.
  7. ^ Porter, Roy (1978). The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present. Harper Collins. p. 171.
  8. ^ Vasse, Louis. In Anatomen corporis humani Tabulae quatuor. Paris, 1540. Preface.
  9. ISBN 978-0195133660. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )

External links
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