Jean Astruc

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Jean Astruc 1684-1766

Jean Astruc (born March 19, 1684 in Sauve / Languedoc ; † May 5, 1766 in Paris ) was a French doctor, professor of medicine, natural scientist and founder of the modern Bible criticism of the Pentateuch .

Live and act

In 1685, a year after Jean Astruc was born, his father, a Protestant pastor , converted to Catholicism under duress . With the Edict of Fontainebleau king Louis XIV. , The freedom of religion in France permanently revoked. Jean Astruc was baptized Protestant, but, like his brother Anne-Louis, who later became a law professor in Toulouse, he admitted to Catholicism all his life. Together with his brother, he received his first training from his father, which he continued in Montpellier . There he received his Magister Artium in philosophy in 1700.

Doctor in Montpellier, Toulouse and Paris

He then studied medicine in Montpellier and obtained a doctorate in medicine in 1703 at the age of 19. From 1706 to 1709 he took over the anatomy professorship from Pierre Chirac . In 1710 he successfully applied for the chair of anatomy at the University of Toulouse , which he filled in 1711. When Chirac tied himself to the royal court in Paris in 1715, he succeeded in having his place in Montpellier occupied by Astruc. He then successfully applied for a chair that became vacant in 1715 after the death of Jean Chastelain. He became adjunct professor and opened his courses as such in 1717. In addition to his lectures, he mainly worked in the field of bibliographical research . The sources available in Montpellier for his research were exhausted after eleven years and so he decided to move to Paris. In 1729 he became the personal physician of the Duke of Saxony in Dresden , but soon returned to France. In 1730 the city of Toulouse appointed him aldermen ("capitoul"). In 1730 he was appointed consultant doctor to the king and in 1731 he received the place at the Collège de France that had become vacant after the death of Étienne François Geoffroy . In 1743 he was admitted to the Paris Medical School after passing the required exams and public disputations.

De morbis venereis

Astruc's main medical work is his "Treatise on Venereal Diseases." ("De morbis venereis."), Printed in six books in 1736, nine books from 1740, 1777 in French, 1755 in English and 1764 in German translation. The 1740 edition is considered the standard edition and is mostly cited.

  • In the first book he advocates the Columbus theory with regard to the origin of syphilis .
  • In the second book he discusses the nature of the infection with syphilis and the treatment of the disease with mercury and guaiac wood .
  • The third book deals with local manifestations of sexually transmitted diseases, or with the "beginning syphilis". It is u. a. for the first time genital herpes described in detail and its transferability examined.
  • The fourth book deals with the generalized phenomena of sexually transmitted diseases.
  • In the fifth to ninth books, the authors who wrote about syphilis up to the year 1740 are presented in detail with their works.
Chinese pictograms to denote diseases. In: J. Astruc. De morbis venereis 1740

From the 1740 edition, Astruc supplemented his work with a treatise that described the origin, the naming, the peculiarity and the treatment of venereal diseases in China ( "De origine, appellatione, natura & curatione Morborum Venereorum inter Sinas" ). It initially included eleven questions that he had sent in 1437 through the mediation of the Jesuit Louis Parennin (1669–1741) to the missionary Pierre Foureau (1700–1749) who was in Beijing . The missionary passed these questions on to a Chinese doctor and sent his answers back to Astruc in 1739. Astruc had also received samples from China of the drugs that were used there to treat sexually transmitted diseases. Astruc tried to identify these drugs with the help of the brothers Bernard and Antoine de Jussieu . He concluded his work with remarks on the Chinese theory of venereal diseases, the type of treatment used by the Chinese for venereal diseases, and a comparison of the contemporary French way of treating syphilis with that of the Chinese, with the aim of finding out which of the is most effective.

Building on the preliminary work by Marcello Malpighi on the structure of the skin, Astruc classified the skin diseases according to their anatomical location and differentiated in his "Treatise on Tumors and Ulcers" (1759) epidermis, mucous membrane, cutis, sweat glands, sebum glands, hair follicles and nerve papillae. According to him, boils are a disease of the sebum glands. He shifts the seat of the carbuncle to the sweat glands.

Chronicler, natural scientist and religious scholar

Astruc had collected extensive material on the history of the Montpellier Medical Faculty and supplemented it with his own observations. However, he was unable to complete and publish this collection. His student Anne-Charles Lorry supplemented Astruc's work and published it in 1767. For the study of the history of the Medical Faculty of the University of Montpellier, the work of Astruc and Lorry is an important source to this day.

Also known as a naturalist, geographer, and geologist, Jean Astruc wrote a natural history of Languedoc (1737) that also includes archaeological information.

In 1753 he published the Conjectures sur les mémoires originaux, dont il paroit que Moyse s'est servi pour composer le livre de la Genèse in Brussels ("Conjectures about the original sources that Moses used to write the Book of Genesis ") . In it he addressed the difference between an Elohistic and a Yahwistic source in the Pentateuch and thus became the founder of the more recent Pentateuch criticism .

Works

  • Dissertation on l'origine des maladies épidémiques et principalement sur l'origine de la peste, où l'on explique les causes de la propagation et de la cessation de cette maladie. Jean Mertei, Montpellier 1721 (digitized version )
In 1720 the plague raged in Marseille. Doctors were still arguing about whether the disease was contagious. Astruc argued that the disease was brought in by a ship coming from the Orient and that it was therefore inevitable that coercive measures were used. He could not assert himself against Pierre Chirac , who doubted the contagiousness of the disease and advised the government to refrain from quick and strict isolation measures.
  • De morbis venereis libi sex.G. Cavelier Lutetiae Parisiorum 1736 (digitized version )
  • Memories for the natural history of the Province of Languedoc. G. Cavelier, Paris 1737 (digitized version)
  • Lettre de M. Astruc… sur un écrit intitulé, Second Mémoire pour les Chirurgiens. Paris 1737 (digitized version)
    • Jean-Louis Petit. Réponse D'Un Chirurgien De S. Cosme à la premiere Lettre de M. Astruc, au sujet du Mémoire des Chirurgiens, sur les Maladies Veneriennes. Paris 1737 (digitized version)
  • Seconde lettre de M. Astruc… sur un écrit intitulé, Second Mémoire pour les Chirurgiens. Paris 1737 (digitized version ) Troisième lettre de M. Astruc… à M. Delaire, Docteur en Médecine de la Faculté de Montpellier. Sur un écrit intitulé, Réponse d'un Surgery de Saint Côme. Paris 1737 (digitized version)
  • Tractatus pathologicus. Cramer & Philibert, Geneva 1743 (digitized version) * 4th edition, PG Cavelier, Paris 1767 (digitized version)
  • Academical lectures on fevers: in which these disorders are fully treated of, and a method of cure subjoined to each: read in the Royal College at Paris. J. Nourse, London 1747 (digitized version)
  • Conjectures sur les mémoires originaux dont il paroit que Moyse s'est servi pour composer le livre de la Genèse: avec des remarques, qui appuient ou qui. Fricx, Brussels 1753 (digitized version ) (digitized version )
  • Doutes sur l'inoculation de la petite Vérole, proposés à la Faculté de Médecine de Paris. Paris 1756
  • Dissertation on l'immatérialité et l'immortalité de l'âme. Cavelier, Paris 1755 (digitized version)
  • Traité des tumeurs et des ulcères ... Avec deux lettres, I. Sur la composition de quelques remèdes ... dont on cache la preparation. II. Sur la nature ... des nouveaux remèdes ... pour la guérison des maladies vénériennes. Méquignon, Paris 1759. 2nd edition 1785 (digital copy )
    • Georg Ludwig Rumpelt (translator). Johann Astruc's treatise on tumors and ulcers. 2nd edition JGI Breitkopf, Dresden and Leipzig, Volume I 1790 (digitized version ) ; Volume II 1791 (digitized version)
  • Traité des maladies des femmes, où l'on a tâché de joindre une théorie solide de la pratique pa plus sûre & la mieux éprouvée. Avec un catalog des Médecins, qui ont écrit sur ces maladies. PG Cavelier, Paris Volume I 1761 (digitized) Volume II 1761 (digitized) Volume III 1761 (digitized) Volume IV 1761 (digitized) Volume V 1765 (digitized) Volume VI 1765 (digitized)
  • L'art d'accoucher réduit à ses principes, où l'on expose les pratiques les plus sûres & les plus usitées dans les différentes especes d'accouchements. PG Cavelier, Paris 1766 (digitized version)
  • Anne-Charles Lorry (Ed.). Mémoires Pour Servir à L'Histoire De La Faculté De Medecine De Montpellier. G. Cavelier, Paris 1767 (digitized version)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Capitoul". This was an honorary position that was awarded in Toulouse from 1147 to 1789 to perform the municipal administration.
  2. ↑ DC Hutfield: History of genital herpes. In: British Journal of Venereable Diseases (1966) 42 (4), pp. 263-268, PMID 5333786 , PMC 1047831 (free full text) De morbis venereis . First edition 1736. Lib. III, Caput VIII, § 1 (p. 254) (digitized version) Edition 1740 (digitized version)
  3. ↑ Jean Astruc. De morbis venereis. 2nd edition Volume 1, G. Cavelier 1740, pp. 537–567: De origine, appellatione, natura & curatione Morborum Venereorum inter Sinas (digitized version )
  4. ↑ M. Louis (transl.): Jean Astruc. Traité des maladies vénériennes . 4th edition, Volume 2, G. Cavelier, Paris 1777, pp. 334–384: Sur l'Origine, la Dénomination, la Nature, & la Curation des Maladies Vénériennes à la Chine (digitized version )
  5. ↑ Pierre Huard and M. Wong. Montpellier et la Médecine chinoise . In: Monspeliensis Hippocrates. December 1958, No 2, pp. 13-20.
  6. ↑ Ivan Bloch . History of skin diseases in recent times . In: Neuburger & Pagel. Manual of the history of medicine. Volume III, G. Fischer, Jena 1905, p. 393–463: Here: p. 409–410 (digitized version )

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Astruc, Jean
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French doctor, professor of medicine and biblical critic
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1684
PLACE OF BIRTH Sauve
DATE OF DEATH May 5, 1766
Place of death Paris