Pierre Tolet or Petrus Toletus (circa 1502 - circa 1580) was a French physician who, together with Jean Canappe contributed to the transmission of medical and surgical knowledge in French.

Biography

Originally from the diocese of

Béziers Béziers (; ) is a city in southern France. It is a Subprefectures in France, subprefecture of the Hérault Departments of France, department in the Occitania (administrative region), Occitanie Regions of France, region. Every August Béziers ho ...

, he studied medicine at the Faculty of Montpellier under Jean Schyron. He graduated in 1529 along with

Nostradamus Michel de Nostredame (December 1503 – July 1566), usually Latinisation of names, Latinised as Nostradamus, was a French Astrology, astrologer, apothecary, physician, and reputed Oracle, seer, who is best known for his book ''Les Prophéti ...

, Jacobus Sylvius and Guillaume Rondelet. He practised in Vienne, Bourg and then in

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

where he became a physician at the

Hôtel-Dieu In French-speaking countries, a hôtel-Dieu () was originally a hospital for the poor and needy, run by the Catholic Church. Nowadays these buildings or institutions have either kept their function as a hospital, the one in Paris being the oldest an ...

. As Dean of the Faculty of Lyon, he introduced a French-language teaching programme with daily visits by students to the hospital and created a single training course for physicians, barbers surgeons and

apothecaries ''Apothecary'' () is an archaic English term for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses '' materia medica'' (medicine) to physicians, surgeons and patients. The modern terms ''pharmacist'' and, in British English, ''chemist'' have ...

. A friend of Rabelais, he was also a leading figure in Lyon's cultural life and a member of a cenacle of scholars (

Barthélemy Aneau Barthélemy Aneau (c.1510–1561) was a French poet and humanist. He is known for his novel ''Alector, ou le coq'', and his work on emblems. He was born in Bourges but later moved to Lyon where he became regent, then principal of the Collège de ...

Maurice Scève Maurice Scève ( – ) was a French poet active in Lyon during the Renaissance period. He was the centre of the Lyonnese côterie that elaborated the theory of spiritual love, derived partly from Plato and partly from Petrarch. This spiritual lov ...

,...) who were working to promote new reflections on poetic language. He is quoted in the third book of Pantagruel, chapter 34: He died of plague around 1580.

Works

He was one of the translators like Jean Canappe and Guillaume Chrestien who introduced France to the physicians of antiquity. He translated in French the sixth book on surgery of the ''

Medical Compendium in Seven Books Paul of Aegina or Paulus Aegineta (; Aegina, ) was a 7th-century Byzantine Greek physician best known for writing the medical encyclopedia ''Medical Compendium in Seven Books.'' He is considered the “Father of Early Medical Writing”. For many ...

'' by

Paul of Aegina Paul of Aegina or Paulus Aegineta (; Aegina, ) was a 7th-century Byzantine Greek physician best known for writing the encyclopedia, medical encyclopedia ''Medical Compendium in Seven Books.'' He is considered the “Father of Early Medical Writing ...

and various opuscules by

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus (; September 129 – AD), often Anglicization, anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Ancient Rome, Roman and Greeks, Greek physician, surgeon, and Philosophy, philosopher. Considered to be one o ...

. Latin remained the language of knowledge, but translations of the great ancient authors (Galen, Hippocrates) then appeared to accompany the development of medical knowledge and the publication of works. Against some doctors who thought that the translation of ancient Latin works into French would distort medicine, these humanist doctors argued that translation into the vernacular would, on the contrary, allow new progress in health and public health: barber-surgeons could add to their manual skills, an ancient surgical knowledge confronted with their actual practice. New problems appeared in war surgery, without equivalent in the past: wounds caused by firearms and mutilations caused by artillery, the barber-surgeon being required to treat all the affections appearing on the surface of the body, the doctor treating those on the inside. There was already social mobility between surgeons and barber-surgeons. A surgeon's apprenticeship began with the practice of shaving. The young surgeon could thus have a source of income before mastering the surgery of his time. In the context of Renaissance humanism, this practical experience took place outside of academic scholasticism. The action is clearly sanctioned by the results, visible to all. For Michel de Montaigne, compared to medicine,

Bibliography

*
''Des tumeurs oultre le coustumier de nature''
(1543) * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tolet, Pierre 16th-century French physicians People from Béziers Year of birth uncertain