Théophile Bonet

Théophile Bonet was a Swiss physician and anatomist of the seventeenth century, considered one of the founders of anatomical pathology. Born in 1620 into a family of Italian Protestant refugees settled in Geneva, he took his medical degree at Bologna in 1643, practised in Geneva and later served as court physician to the Prince of Neuchâtel. Increasing deafness and heart disease in middle age led him to give up practice and devote himself to research. His great work, the Sepulchretum of 1679, gathers the details of some three thousand autopsies by himself and other authors, including William Harvey, together with case histories and commentary, and is regarded as the first complete work on pathological anatomy. It prepared the ground for Giovanni Battista Morgagni a century later. He also wrote a widely translated practical guide for physicians. He died in 1689.