André du Laurens

André du Laurens (1558 to 1609) was a French physician, born in Tarascon, who became rector of the medical school at Montpellier and served as physician to King Henry IV. His 1594 book of four discourses on the preservation of sight, melancholic diseases, catarrhs and old age was written first in French rather than Latin, which makes it an early attempt at scientific communication, and it was translated into English by Richard Surphlet in 1599. He also defended the authority of Galen in a 1595 reply to a rival account of the heart and vessels of the foetus, and wrote a work on crises. His best-known book, the Historia anatomica humani corporis, first printed in Paris in 1600, went through many editions and was translated into French in 1610. His brother Honore du Laurens was archbishop of Embrun.