FERNELIUS, JOHN, physician to Henry II. king of France, was born at Picardy towards the close of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century. Being sent to Paris to study rhetoric and philosophy, he applied himself so intensely that all other pleasures became insipid, and he cared neither for play, nor walking, nor entertainments, nor even conversation. He read Cicero, Plato, and Aristotle, and also applied himself earnestly to the mathematics. This continual study brought on an attack of sickness, which obliged him to leave Paris. On his recovery he returned, designing to study physic; but before he had an opportunity of applying himself to this pursuit he was employed to teach philosophy in the college of St Barbara. After this he spent four years in the study of physic; and having taken a doctor's degree, confined himself to his closet, in order to read the best authors, and to improve himself in the mathematics, as far as the business of his profession would permit. Never, in fact, was there a man more diligent than Fernel. He used to rise at four o'clock in the morning, and study till it was time either to read lectures or to visit his patients. But as attending patients did not occupy his whole time, he read public lectures upon Hippocrates and Galen, which soon gained him a great reputation throughout France and in foreign countries. When his business increased, however, he left off reading lec-
tures, and spent all the hours he could spare in composing a work on physic, entitled Physiologia, which was soon afterwards published. But he was prevailed with to read lectures upon this new work, which he did for three years; and having published another work, De Venæ Sectione, he was under the necessity of reading lectures some years longer, in order to explain this new book to his pupils. Whilst thus employed, he was sent for to court, in order to try whether he could cure a lady whose recovery was despaired of; and being fortunate enough to succeed, this circumstance was the cause of the esteem which Henry II., then dauphin, and in love with that lady, conceived for him. This prince offered him the place of first physician; but Fernel, who preferred his studies to the bustle of a court, respectfully declined the employment. When Henry came to the throne, he renewed his entreaties; but Fernel represented that the honour offered him was due, as an hereditary right, to the late king's physician, and that, besides, he required time to make experiments concerning several matters relating to medicine. The king admitted the validity of this excuse; but as soon as the physician of Francis I. died, Fernel was called to occupy his place at the court of Henry II. And here the contrary of what he had apprehended came to pass; for he enjoyed more leisure at court than he had done at Paris; and he might have considered it as an agreeable retirement, had it not been for the journey which the new civil war obliged the king to undertake. Fernel died in 1558, leaving behind him many works besides those which have been mentioned. They have been printed several times, with his life prefixed, written by William Plantius, his disciple.