Jean-Baptiste Silva

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Jean-Baptiste Silva

Jean-Baptiste Silva (born January 13, 1682 in Bordeaux , † August 19, 1742 in Paris ) was a French doctor.

Live and act

Jean-Baptiste Silva came from a Spanish Jewish pharmacist family who had settled in Bordeaux in the 15th century while on the run . His father was a doctor in Bordeaux. Silva studied medicine in Montpellier and received his doctorate there in 1701 (or February 1702). He then went to Paris , where he received the protection of his teacher Pierre Chirac and his colleague Jean Claude Adrien Helvétius , the Queen's personal physician . In 1712 he was awarded a second doctorate degree in Paris. When he was asked for advice about the king's illness in 1721 , he advised bloodletting on the foot, which brought healing. In 1724 he was appointed consultant doctor to the king. This made him a fashion doctor. Voltaire was one of his patients .

Silva derived his method of bloodletting from the theses of the Italian doctor Lorenzo Bellini . Based on theoretical considerations, he had come to the conclusion that vigorous bloodletting, carried out far away from the place of illness, must have the greatest healing effect. François Quesnay , a doctor in the province, contradicted Silva's (or Bellini's) theses after refuting them through hydraulic tests that he carried out in the laboratory.

Works (selection)

  • Traité de l'usage des differentes sortes de saignées, principalement de celle du pied. Anisson, Paris 1727, Volume I (digitized version) , Volume II (digitized version)
  • Together with Pierre Chirac. Dissertations Et Consultations Medicinales, De Messieurs Chirac, Conseiller d'Etat, & Premier Médecin du Roi, & Silva, Médecin Consultant du Roi, & Premier Médecin de SAS Monseigneur le Duc. Durand, Paris 1744, Volume I (digitized version) , Volume II (digitized version)

literature

  • Memories poured into the history of the life of M. Silva. In: Dissertations et consultations médicinales, de Messieurs Chirac… & Silva… Volume I, Durand, Paris 1744, S. LXXIX-CVII (digitized version )
  • Antoine-Jacques-Louis Jourdan . Jean-Baptiste Silva. In: Dictionnaire des sciences médicales. Biography médicale. Volume 7, Charles Louis Fleury Panckoucke , Paris 1825, p. 220 (digitized version)
  • Biographical lexicon of the outstanding doctors of all times and peoples. Urban & Schwarzenberg, Vienna and Leipzig 1887, Volume V, p. 402 (digitized version)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ François Quesnay. Observations sur les effets de la saignée, tant dans les maladies du ressort de la médecine que de la chirurgie, fondées sur les lois de l'hydrostatique: avec des remarques critiques, sur le traité de l'usage des différentes sortes de saignées, de Monsieur Silva. Osmont, Paris 1730 (digitized version )

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Silva, Jean-Baptiste
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French doctor
DATE OF BIRTH January 13, 1682
PLACE OF BIRTH Bordeaux
DATE OF DEATH August 19, 1742
Place of death Paris