Jean-François Heymans

{{Short description|Belgian pharmacologist and physiologist}}

File:Jan Frans Heymans 1859-1932 - Ghent - Belgium.jpg

Jean-François Heymans, also Jan Frans Heymans (25 December 1859, Gooik – 10 April 1932, Middelkerke) was a Belgian pharmacologist and physiologist. He was the father of physiologist Corneille Jean François Heymans.

He received his education at the University of Leuven, where he earned doctorates in natural sciences (1884) and medicine (1887). From 1884 to 1887 he worked as a préparateur in the laboratory of physiology under Ernest Masoin. Afterwards, he travelled to Berlin, where he spent three years as an assistant to Emil Heinrich Du Bois-Reymond.[http://www.armb.be/index.php?id=3122 Académie royale de Médecine de Belgique] biographical information In 1891 he was named professor of pharmacodynamics and general therapeutics at the University of Ghent. Here, he founded a laboratory for experimental pharmacology and therapeutics.[http://www.zeno.org/Pagel-1901/A/Heymans,+Jean+Fran%C3%A7ois Zeno.org] Pagel: Biographical Dictionary outstanding physicians of the nineteenth century. Berlin, Vienna 1901, Sp. 736th. He was rector of the university in 1923-1924.{{cite web |url=https://www.ugent.be/nl/univgent/voorzieningen/collecties/archief/geschiedenis/overzichten/rectoren.htm |title=Overzicht rectoren |author= |date= |website=Ghent University |publisher= |access-date=6 November 2019 |quote=}}

His research included studies of myelinated and non-myelinated nerve fiber, the nervous system of the amphioxus, nerve endings of leeches, the influence of temperature on muscle contraction and on the detoxification of cyanide derivatives, to name a few.

With German neurophysiologist Johannes Gad, he published a textbook on physiology titled Kurzes Lehrbuch der Physiologie des Menschen. Also, he translated into French, Ewald and Munk's manual of dietetics as Alimentation de l'homme normal et de l'homme malade, traité de diététique a l'usage des médecins.[http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009074450 Catalog HathiTrust] Alimentation de l'homme normal et de l'homme malade In 1895, with French physiologist Eugène Gley, he founded the journal Archives Internationales de Pharmacodynamie et de Thérapie.[https://books.google.com/books?id=le1MJfA63KUC&dq=%22Archives+internationales+de+Pharmacodynamie+et+de+Th%C3%A9rapie%22+Gley+Heymans&pg=PA163 Encyclopedia of Biology] by Don Rittner, Timothy Lee McCabe