Felix Plater

Felix Platter or Plater ( born October 28, 1536 Basel, † July 28, 1614 ibid ) was a physician and an autobiographical writer.

Biography and reception

Felix Platter's parents were Thomas Platter the Elder, printer and teacher in Basel, and Anna Dietschi. Felix Platter had three sisters who were older than he. Felix Platter grew up in the Protestant faith Zwingli'scher embossing. Felix Platter had six half-siblings from the second marriage of his father. Felix Platter in 1557 married Margaret Jeckelmann; The marriage remained childless.

Platter studied medicine from 1552 to 1557 in Montpellier at Guillaume Rondelet and then worked as a doctor in Basel. In 1571 he was appointed city physician and professor at the University of Basel, whose rector and dean, he was several times. He was famous as an art, musical instruments, drugs and rock collector. Montaigne did not miss on his trip to Italy in 1580 to visit his herbarium.

Platter was a pioneer of pathological anatomy and one of the founders of forensic medicine. Under the influence of the optics in 1583, he found out that the lens of the eye to focus the image is on the back of the eye and took his theory with distinct pathological cases. In his three-volume textbook praxeos medicae opus (1602-1608) Platter gave an overview of clinical medicine. In Pestbericht about Basler plague epidemic of 1610 and 1611 he appears as a pioneering epidemiologist. The Observationes 1614 provide a collection of case histories.

In addition, he exhibited in Basel before a classification of mental disorders, which was based on accurate clinical- psychopathological observations. In it he described forced and mania symptoms, hypochondria, melancholy, delirium, drunkenness, jealousy and symptoms of " dementia ". In this case, individual symptoms were shown, which were then combined to syndromes.

In his culturally significant diary, which was until 1840 published, he tells about his youth, his life as a student in France and the first time in Basel to 1561st This autobiographical writing is the basis for three psychobiographical studies on Felix Platter, in particular the problematic father -son relationship have placed at the center.

In Basel, a hospital was named after Felix Platter: Felix Platter Spital. It is located near the French border Burgfelden.

Works

• Felix Platter: Observationes: Disease observations in three books. Book 1: functional disorders of sense and motion. Translator's Günther von Goldschmidt. Edit ed u. v. Heinrich Buess. Bern, Stuttgart: Huber 1963.
• Felix Platter: Diary ( biography ) 1536-1567. Edited by Valentin Lötscher. Basel; Stuttgart: Schwabe 1976.