Jean Fernel

Jean Fernel, whose Latin name was Ioannes Fernelius, was a French physician of the sixteenth century who introduced the term physiology for the study of the body's function. Born at Montdidier, he studied in Paris, turned from mathematics and astronomy to medicine, and rose to be physician at the French court, where Catherine de' Medici sought his advice. He taught medicine at the Collège de Coenouailles for more than twenty years. His main work, the Universa Medicina, gathered a Physiologia, a Pathologia and a Therapeutice. He was also the first to describe the spinal canal, and the lunar crater Fernelius is named after him.