Louis Duret (1527 – 22 January 1586) was a French physician to

Charles IX of France Charles IX (Charles Maximilien; 27 June 1550 – 30 May 1574) was King of France from 1560 until his death in 1574. He ascended the French throne upon the death of his brother Francis II in 1560, and as such was the penultimate monarch of the ...

and his brother Henry III of France as their chief physician.

Early life

Duret was born in Bâgé-la-Ville in the French province of

Bresse Bresse () is a former French province. It is located in the regions of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté of eastern France. The geographical term ''Bresse'' has two meanings: ''Bresse bourguignonne'' (or ''louhannaise''), whi ...

(which then belonged to the

Duke of Savoy The titles of count, then of duke of Savoy are titles of nobility attached to the historical territory of Savoy. Since its creation, in the 11th century, the county was held by the House of Savoy. The County of Savoy was elevated to a duchy at ...

) in the year 1527. He came from a minor

French nobility The French nobility (french: la noblesse française) was a privileged social class in France from the Middle Ages until its abolition on June 23, 1790 during the French Revolution. From 1808 to 1815 during the First Empire the Emperor Napol ...

family. Leaving his father's home as a teenager. he made little money and subsisted at the

poverty level The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for t ...

. Around age nineteen, Duret decided to go to Paris to seek a good career. At first he was trained in academic disciplines by a private tutor, French magistrate Achilles Harlay, who took him under his wing because he demonstrated talent in many academic fields, especially the languages of

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, and

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

, which were integral to medicine. Duret had a

photographic memory Eidetic memory ( ; more commonly called photographic memory or total recall) is the ability to recall an image from memory with high precision—at least for a brief period of time—after seeing it only onceThe terms ''eidetic memory'' and ''pho ...

and knew all the works of

Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history o ...

by heart.

Adult

Duret studied medicine under the training of Jacques Houllier and

Jacques Dubois Jacques Dubois ( Latinised as Jacobus Sylvius; 1478 – 14 January 1555) was a French anatomist. Dubois was the first to describe venous valves, although their function was later discovered by William Harvey. He was the brother of Franciscus Sy ...

. He studied the medicine field with much vigor with his skills of the languages he knew, which proved helpful in his new career of medicine. He soon occupied a position at the

Collège de France The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment ('' grand établissement'') in France. It is located in Paris n ...

. His excellent reputation spread rapidly. He became a professor and ultimately taught at this college, a position he held for eighteen years (1568–1586). Philosophically, he was firmly attached to

and the Hippocratic oath, with roots in ancient medical practice. So esteemed was he that Henry III granted him a pension of "four hundred crowns of gold."

Family genealogy

Duret's father was Jean Duret. He had a son, Charles Duret, that was superintendent of finance. He also had another son, Jean Duret (1563–1629), who was physician to Queen Marie de Medici. When Duret's daughter Catherine Arnoult de Lisle married in 1586, King Henry III attended the wedding and gave her a lucrative financial endowment, honoring Duret's services as a medical doctor.

Surname

Sometimes in Old French the source says the spelling of his surname is "Duket".

Death

Duret died in Paris on 22 January 1586.

Works

*''Adversaria, enarrationes et scholia in Jac. Hollerii opera practica, et scholia in ejusdem librum de morbis internis'', Paris, 1571.

Legacy

His most famous work is the unpublished commentary on

in 1588. *''Hippocratis magni Coacæ prœnotiones ; opus admirabile in tres libros distributum, interprete et enarratore L. Dureto Segusiano''. His son Jean Duret finished the work and published it in 1631 as: *''In magni Hippocratis librum de humoribus purgandis et in libros tres diæta acutorum, L. Dureti Segisiani commentarii interpretatione et enarratione insignes'', Paris, J. Jost, 1631 (comments dictated in 1565 – 1566).

References

Bibliography

* at

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. * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Duret, Louis 1527 births 1586 deaths 16th-century French physicians French medical writers French male non-fiction writers