Thomas Muffet

Thomas Muffet (* 1553 in Shoreditch, London, † June 5, 1604 in Wilton, Wiltshire), also Moffett or Mouffet, was an English physician and naturalist, who was best known for his studies on insects.

Muffet wrote the work " Insectorum immersive Minimorum Animalium Theatrum " he used in the unpublished works of Gesner, Wotton and Penny. It was not published until thirty years after his death. This collective work on insects in the Latin language was later published in English under the title " The Theatre of Insects or Lesser Living Creatures". He also wrote treatises on medicine, as well as a poem about silkworms.

Book I of the "Theatre of Insects" includes winged insects, beetles and bees, Book II had distinguished the wingless insects such as caterpillars, worms, spiders and other Muffet This follows the classification of Aristotle, the insect wing after lots and winged. .

Life and other works

Between 1569 and 1573 visited Muffet Trinity College, Gonville Hall, Cambridge. After studying medicine at Thomas Lorkin and John Caius, he obtained a doctorate in Basel. 1580 examined Muffet the anatomy of the silkworm in Italy. In 1584 he finished the work " De iure et praestantia chemicorum medicamentorum ", 1588 he published " Nosomantica Hippocratea ". Muffet was considered a follower of Paracelsus, whose medical teaching was controversial in scientific circles.