Antonio Musa Brassavola

Antonio Musa Brassavola (* January 16, 1500, † 1555) from Ferrara was an Italian physician and botanist.

Life

About Brassavolas birth there are different statements. One source called the 1490, others speak of 16 January 1500. A birth in the year 1490, however, seems unlikely. His parents, the Count Francesco and Margherita Brassavola Maggi probably had destined him from birth to the doctor. Over the course of his childhood and youth there are no reliable statements. Mentioned in historical writings, he is only as a young adult. Brassavola studied under Niccolo Leoniceno and Manardi and already made ​​a name for himself at a young age, both in his hometown of Ferrara, and in Padua and Bologna.

At 25, he was appointed personal physician to Ercole II d' Este, the future Duke of Ferrara. In consequence of which he took a trip to France, where he struck the King Francis I, who awarded him the Order of St. Michael and allowed him to lead the French lilies in his coat of arms. As a result, several high -ranking personalities familiar to his medical arts, including next to the kings Francis I and Henry VIII Pope Paul III. , Leo X, Clement VIII and Julius III.

With his patron, Prince Ercole II and his father, the Duke Alphonso, whose complete confidence he possessed, he undertook in the sequence are several other trips. As a professor at the University of Ferrara, he taught natural philosophy and graduated at the same time a study of botany. One of his students was Gabriele Falloppio. For study purposes, he amassed a for the time unusually extensive collection of dried plants and cultivated in his garden, a large number of rare herbs.

Antonio Musa Brassavola died in 1555 at the age of 55 years, however, the chroniclers are also on this year and so the exact age Brassavolas not agree, as some call it 1554 as his date of death.

Work and achievements

Brassavola was a great scholar of his time, who joined as far back as high recognition. He was an expert on the writings of Hippocrates and Galen, whose works he commented knowledgeable. His medical practice was based mainly on pharmaceutical knowledge and he experimented successfully with various medicinal plants, their use in medicine, he explored and strengthened. But he was also a successful surgeon who performed the first recorded and used tracheotomy in European medicine. In his honor, the orchid genus Brassavola named the Scottish botanist Robert Brown in 1813, according to him.

Writings

• Examination omnium simplicium medicamentorum, quorum usus est in officinis. Jean & François Frellon, Lyon, 1537
• Examination omnium syruporum; 1540 ( Online)
• In octo libros aphorismorum Hippocratis & Galen Commentaria & Annotationes, 1541 ( Online)
• In libros de ratione victus in morbis Acutis Hippocratis & Galen Commentaria & Annotationes, 1546
• Examination omnium electuariorum. Venice, ex Officina Erasmiana vincentii Valgrisii, 1548 ( Online)
• Index refertissimus in omnes libros Galen, 1556

( Incomplete list )