Felix Platter

Felix Platter was the son of Protestant humanist, schoolmaster, and printer, Thomas Platter, and the half-brother of Thomas Platter the Younger. In 1552, at the age of sixteen, Platter travelled by pony from Basel to the University of Montpellier to start a course of study under Guillaume Rondelet.{{Harvnb|Ladurie|1997|pp=155,170}} He lodged in the house of Laurent Catalan, a pharmacist and a Marrano or Christian Jew. Platter's studies took place against a background of religious persecution; the French Wars of Religion would start within a decade.

Returning to Basel in 1557, Platter was awarded the medical doctorate by the University of Basel and established himself as a successful doctor. He became city physician and a professor of practical medicine. As part of his teaching, he carried out hundreds of dissections of the human body.{{Cite journal|title=Felix Platter (1536-1614), Basle physician|journal=Journal of the American Medical Association|year=1968|volume=203|number=5|pp=357-358|doi=10.1001/jama.1968.03140050041013}}

In 1602 and 1604, his book Praxeos (translated into English in the 1660s as Golden Practice of Physick{{Cite book|author-last=Platter|author-first=Felix|title=Golden Practice of Physick|year=1664|publisher=Peter Cole|location=London|translator1=Abdiah Cole|translator1-link=Abdiah Cole|translator2=Nicholas Culpeper|translator2-link=Nicholas Culpeper|url=https://archive.org/details/b30341279/page/n1/mode/2up}}) gave a rational classification of diseases, based on their symptoms and postmortem findings. He was notable for attributing mental illness to natural causes, although he still allowed the possibility of mental illness caused by an evil spirit. The book was quoted dozens of times by Robert Burton in The Anatomy of Melancholy.{{Cite book|author-first=Robert|author-last=Burton|author-link=Robert Burton|title=The Anatomy of Melancholy|year=1638|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10800/10800-h/10800-h.htm}}

During the plague of 1563-1564 in Basel, Platter stayed to attend the ill while other physicians fled. Four thousand people, a quarter of the city's population, died of the plague.{{Harvnb|Ladurie|1997|page=338}} Platter treated plague victims again during the epidemics of 1576, 1582, 1593, and 1609. He compiled detailed statistics on these epidemics.

He was the first to describe an intracranial tumor (a meningioma),{{Cite book|vauthors =Okonkwo DO, Laws ER|editor=Joung H. Lee|year=2009|page=3|doi=10.1007/978-1-84628-784-8_1|title =Meningiomas: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Outcome|chapter=Meningiomas: Historical Perspective|isbn =978-1-84882-910-7}} hypertrophy of the thalamus,{{Cite journal|author-last=Ruhräh|author-first=John|title=Felix Platter 1536-1614|journal=American Journal of Diseases of Children|year=1928|volume=36|pages=1037-1039|doi=10.1001/archpedi.1928.01920290165012}} the broad tapeworm,{{Cite journal|author-last=Cox|author-first=F. E. G.|title=History of human parasitology|journal=Clinical Microbiology Reviews|year=2002|volume=15|pages=595-612|doi=10.1128/CMR.15.4.595-612.2002|pmc=126866}} and Dupuytren's contracture of the hand.{{Cite journal|vauthors=Verheyden CN|title=The history of Dupuytren's contracture|year=1983|journal=Clinics in Plastic Surgery|volume=10|pages=619-625|url=https://europepmc.org/article/MED/6360477}}

Finally, Platter did important work on ophthalmology. He identified the retina rather than the lens as the visual receptor of the eye.{{Cite book|author-first=Julius|author-last=Hirschberg|author-link=Julius Hirschberg|title=Geschichte der Augenheilkunde|volume=2|year=1985|page=295|publisher=Springer|location=Berlin|url=https://archive.org/details/geschichtederaug02hirs/page/n6/mode/1up?q=Plater}} He observed congenital cataracts and was the first to recognize that people who worked near a fire (such as alchemists) were vulnerable to cataracts, now called glassblower's cataracts.{{cite journal|author-last=Koelbing|author-first=M. H.|title=Felix Platter (1536-1614) als Ophthalmologe |journal=Ophthalmologica|year=1957|volume=133|pages=364-368|doi=10.1159/000303128}}

He had a strong inclination toward music; he played the lute and translated songs into the Basel dialect.{{Cite web |last=Signer |first=Kathrin |date=27 October 2023 |title=Er sammelte Arzneien, Instrumente und Chansons: Der Basler Stadtarzt Felix Platter war ein musischer Medicus|url=https://www.bzbasel.ch/kultur/basel/konzert-glickhaftig-er-sammelte-arzneien-instrumente-und-chansons-der-basler-stadtarzt-felix-platter-war-ein-musischer-medicus-ld.2532913 |access-date=24 November 2024 |website=bz Basel }} His friends in the scholarly world included Conrad Gessner and Theodor Zwinger.{{Cite journal|author-first=Florike|author-last=Egmond|title=A collection within a collection: rediscovered animal drawings from the collections of Conrad Gessner and Felix Platter|journal=Journal of the History of Collections|volume=25|number=2|year=2013|pages=149-170|doi=10.1093/jhc/fhs002}}

Platter amassed a famous collection of curiosities at his house, including art, musical instruments, precious stones, and biological specimens.{{Cite book|author-first=Anna|author-last=Pavord|author-link=Anna Pavord|title=The Naming of Names: the Search for Order in the World of Plants|publisher=Bloomsbury|location=New York|year=2005|isbn=1-59691-071-2|url=https://archive.org/details/namingofnamessea0000pavo/page/n5/mode/2up}} Part of his herbarium is preserved at the University of Bern, including 813 specimens from Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, and Egypt. Michel de Montaigne, on a visit to Basel in 1580, admired Platter's collection: "it was his practice, instead of painting like other botanists the plants according to their natural colors, to glue the same upon paper with so great care and dexterity that the smallest leaves and fibres should be visible, exactly as in nature.... At this house, and in the public school as well, we saw entire skeletons of men."{{Cite book|author-first=Michel|author-last=de Montaigne|author-link=Michel de Montaigne|title=The Journal of Montaigne's Travels in Italy by Way of Switzerland and Germany in 1580 and 1581|translator=W. G. Waters|publisher=John Murray|location=London|year=1903|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/70838/70838-h/70838-h.htm}}

Platter's diary gives a vivid account of his childhood, his life as a medical student at Montpellier, and his travels in France.{{Harvnb|Ladurie|1997|p=vii}}; {{Harvnb|Platter|1961}}; {{Harvnb|Platter|1976}}.

{{reflist}}

• Platter, Felix (1583). [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_rLz3gQ-cW38C/ De corporis humani structura et usu]. 3 volumes. Basel: Ambrosius Froben.
• Platter, Felix (1602–1608). Praxeos seu de cognoscendis, praedicendis, praecavendis, curandisque homini incommodantibus tractatus. Basel: Konrad Waldkirch. Vol. 1: [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_LoESaDwteVUC/page/n3/mode/2up/ De functionum laesionibus]; vol. 2: [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_lm9oh3D_eyYC/mode/2up/ De doloribus]; vol. 3: [https://archive.org/details/b30528367_0002/page/n1/mode/2up/ De vitiis].
• Platter, Felix (1614). [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_W6uCw51DJZ4C/ Observationum in hominis affectibus plerisque corpori et animo functionum laesione, dolore aliave molestia et vitio incommodantibus libri tres]. Basel: Ludwig König.
• {{cite book |author-last=Platter|author-first=Felix|editor=Valentin Lötscher|date=1976|title=Tagebuch: (Lebensbeschreibung); 1536-1567|url=https://books.google.com/books/about/Tagebuch.html?id=1xrjAAAAMAAJ|location=Basel, Stuttgart|publisher=Schwabe |isbn=3-7965-0615-1}}
• {{cite book|author-last=Platter|author-first=Felix|editor=Valentin Lötscher|date=1987|title=Beschreibung der Stadt Basel 1610 und Pestbericht 1610/11|location=Basel, Stuttgart|publisher=Schwabe |isbn=3-7965-0860-X}}

{{commons category|Felix Platter}}

• {{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/beggarprofessors00lero|title=The Beggar and the Professor: a Sixteenth-Century Family Saga|author-first=Emmanuel Le Roy|author-last=Ladurie|author-link=Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie|translator=Arthur Goldhammer|translator-link=Arthur Goldhammer|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=1997|location=Chicago|orig-year=1995|isbn=0-226-47323-6}}
• {{cite book |author-last=Platter|author-first=Felix|translator=Seán Jennett|translator-link=Seán Jennett|date=1961|title=Beloved Son Felix: the Journal of Felix Platter, a Medical Student in Montpellier in the Sixteenth Century|url=https://archive.org/stream/belovedsonfelix007215mbp/belovedsonfelix007215mbp_djvu.txt|publisher=Frederick Muller|location=London}}

• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Felix Platter}}
• [https://platter.burgerbib.ch/ Digitalized herbarium] of Felix Platter, in the Burgerbibliothek of Bern

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Category:1536 births

Category:1614 deaths

Category:16th-century Swiss physicians

Category:17th-century Swiss physicians

Category:Swiss medical writers

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