Theodore de Mayerne
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Sir Theodore de Mayerne (1573-1655?) was a Swiss-born physician who treated kings of France and England and advanced the theories of Paracelsus.
Theodore Turquet de Mayerne was born in September 28, 1573 in a Huguenot family in Geneve, Switzerland. His father was a protestant French historian and his godfather was Theodore Beza. Mayerne's first wife was Marguerite de Boetslaer and they had three children.
Mayerne studied first in Geneve and later moved to the University of Heidelberg. Later he moved to Montpellier to study medicine, graduated 1596 and received doctorate in 1597.
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[edit] Life in France
Mayerne moved to Paris, lecturer on anatomy and pharmacy and founded a medical practice. By that time he had begun to support the views of Paracelsus and used many chemical remedies. He kept detailed notes about his patients.
In 1600 French royal physician Lazarus Riverius sponsored him to became one of the personal physicians, physician in ordinary, of the king Henri IV. His other pursuits were thwarted because he was not a catholic and because most French physicians still followed the principles of Galen. In 1603 he tried to support his views to Medical Faculty of Paris, stating that his views were not opposed to Galenic and Hippocratic principles.
Despite of their opposition, he retained the favour of the King, who appointed him to travel with the Duke of Rohan in his diplomatic missions to Germany and Italy. When the King intended to make Mayerne his first physician, the queen opposed to decision because Mayerne refused to convert to Catholicism. Mayerne continued in his lower post until 1606 when he sold it to another physician.
Same year he briefly visited England by invitation and met James I. He became a physician of Anne of Denmark and was incorporated at Oxford on April 8, 1606. Following years he probably spent back in France.
[edit] Life in England
When Henri IV was murdered in 1610, Mayerne moved to England, again by invitation. In 1611 he became first physician of James I and his queen and also treated most members of the royal court as well, including Sir Robert Cecil and Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. Sometimes the king would send him to diplomatic missions to France.
In 1616 Mayerne was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He helped the Society of Apothecaries to obtain a royal charter separate from the Grocers and helped to found the Company of Distillers. King knighted him in 1624. Next year he briefly visited Switzerland, where he had become Baron Aubonne. Mayerne retained his post as a first physician after accession of Charles I in 1625.
During the English Civil War Mayerne kept a low profile in his practice in London and retained the favour of the parliament. In 1628 his wife died and in 1630 he married Elizabeth Joachimi. They had five children but only one daughter survived. After the execution of Charles I in 1649, he became nominal physician to Charles II but soon retired to Chelsea.
Mayerne died at Chelsea on March 22, 1654 or 1655. He was buried in St Martin-in-the-Fields with most of his family and his godson Sir Theodore des Vaux sponsored a monument for him. Des Vaux later published Mayerne's medical notes in the book Praxis Medica in 1690.
[edit] Legacy
Mayerne's estate included copious amount of medical manuscripts, including detailed notes about his patients, most of it in Latin and French. His papers are kept in the Royal College of Physicians.
Mayerne's other interests included cooking and alchemy. He made chemical and physical experiments, created pigments and cosmetics, introduced calomel to medical use and created black-wash (lotio nigra).
[edit] Books
- Brian Nance - Turquet de Mayerne as Baroque Physician: The Art of Medical Portraiture (Amsterdam, 2001)
- Hugh Trevor-Roper - The Various Life of Sir Theodore de Mayerne
- Dipl.-Rest. Gudrun Bischoff: Das De Mayerne-Manuskript; Die Rezepte der Werkstoffe, Maltechniken und Gemälderestaurierung (german, published by Siegl, Munich, in 2004)
