1614-1672

German Physician, Chemist, and Anatomist

Franciscus Sylvius was the founder of a school of medicine which proposed that all physical events of the body, including disease, are based on chemical reactions. This school of science later became known as "iatrochemistry," coming from the Greek work "iatro," which means to heal. He helped shift the perspective of medicine from mystical speculation and superstition to a rational field based on the universal laws of physics and chemistry.

The Sylvius family was of southern Flemish extraction. His grandfather, a wealthy merchant, emigrated from Cambria in France to Frankfurt-am-Main. Born in Hanau, Prussia, which is now Hanover, Germany, Franciscus Sylvius received his education at Sedan, a Calvinist academy. Because of his ancestry and residence in several countries, Sylvius is also known as Franz Deleboe or Francois Du Bois, of which Franciscus Sylvius is the Latinized version.

He went to...