Jean-Jacques Chifflet

Jean-Jacques Chifflet (Chiflet) (Besançon, 1588–1660) was a French physician, antiquary and archaeologist.

Life

He visited Paris and Montpellier, and travelled in Italy and Germany. He acted as court physician to Philip IV of Spain. He played a significant part in the controversy of the 1650s over Peruvian bark in treating malaria, publishing a sceptical pamphlet Pulvis Febrifugus Orbis Americani in 1653^[1] after treating Archduke Leopold.^[2]

At the behest of one of his patients, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, who was then Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, he studied the objects which had been recovered from the tomb of Childeric I. In 1655, Chifflet published an illustrated report on his findings entitled Anastasis Childerici I. Francorvm Regis, sive Thesavrvs Sepvlchralis Tornaci Neruiorum ... (The Resurrection of Childeric the First, King of the Franks, or the Funerary Treasure of Tournai). Today, this report is considered to be the world's first scientific archaeological publication.^[3]

He began the publication of the texts of treaties.^[4]

Works

• Yesuntio, histoire de Besançon, Lyon, 1618 ;
• Porlus lecius Julius Caesaris (placed at Mardick), 1627 ;
• Blason des chevaliers de la Toison d'Or, 1632 ;
• Recueil des Traittez de Paix, Treves et Neutralité entre les couronnes d'Espagne et de France (1643)
• Anastasis Childerici I. Francorvm Regis, sive Thesavrvs Sepvlchralis Tornaci Neruiorum ... , 1655, from Google Books. Scanned from a volume in the collection of Biblioteca Complutense Ildefonsina.
• Political writings upholding the rights of Spain and Austria against France

Family

Sons:

• Jules Chifflet, jurist and historian, wrote Breviarium ordinis velleris aurei, Antwerp 1652
• Jean Chifflet, priest and historian, wrote on Pope Joan

He was a nephew of Claude Chifflet.

Notes

1. ^ Cinchona. U. S. Cinchona, Cinch. [Peruvian Bark, Yellow Peruvian Bark]. Cinchona Rubra, Red Cinchona. | Henriette's Herbal Homepage
2. ^ Andreas-Holger Maehle, Drugs on Trial: Experimental Pharmacology and Therapeutic Innovation in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 226-9.
3. ^ Peter S. Welles, Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered, p. 51.
4. ^ David C. Douglas (1939), English Scholars,p.290.

Source

• Dictionnaire Bouillet