![Thomas_Penny_1600](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Thomas_Penny_1600.jpg)
Thomas Penny (1532 – January 1589) was an
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
and early
entomologist. His solo works have not survived and he is primarily known through quotations from other sixteenth-century biologists. It is believed that he broke with
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
on classification of
caterpillars
Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths).
As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Symp ...
. He was also a Puritan and as such kept a low profile during the reign of Queen
Mary I of England. He is perhaps best known for being partly responsible for the ''Insectorum, sive, Minimorum animalium theatrum'' or ''Theatre of Insects''. This work was written jointly by
Conrad Gessner
Conrad Gessner (; la, Conradus Gesnerus 26 March 1516 – 13 December 1565) was a Swiss physician, naturalist, bibliographer, and philologist. Born into a poor family in Zürich, Switzerland, his father and teachers quickly realised his tale ...
(posthumously),
Edward Edward Wotton,
Thomas Muffet
Thomas Muffet (also Moufet, Mouffet, or Moffet) (1553 – 5 June 1604) was an English naturalist and physician. He is best known his study of insects and arthropods in regard to medicine (particularly spiders), his support of the Paracelsian sy ...
, and Thomas Penny.
Penny suffered from
asthma
Asthma is a long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wheezing, co ...
and dosed himself with
woodlice
A woodlouse (plural woodlice) is an isopod crustacean from the polyphyleticThe current consensus is that Oniscidea is actually triphyletic suborder Oniscidea within the order Isopoda. They get their name from often being found in old wood ...
crushed in wine.
References
Further reading
*D. E. Allen
‘Penny, Thomas (c.1530–1589)’ ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004
English entomologists
16th-century English medical doctors
16th-century Puritans
1532 births
1589 deaths
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