Jean Fernel (1497-1558) earned a medical degree at the College of Sainte-Barbe in Paris in 1530. In 1534, he was appointed Professor of Medicine in Paris. His most famous work, Universa Medicina (1554), included chapters on physiology (a term Fernel introduced), pathology, and therapeutics. He described appendicitis with autopsy verification. Fernel also wrote about astronomy and mathematics. He served as obstetrician to Catherine de’Medici (1519-1589), Queen of France (1547-1559), who was the wife of King Henry II.
Ambroise Paré (c. 1510 – 1590) was a French barber-surgeon, who graduated from the University of Paris, once barbers were incorporated into the medical education system. He was a surgeon for the army, who tended to the sick and poor in the time of peace. He pioneered many surgical techniques, invented surgical instruments and advocated for the use of litigations instead of cauterization in amputations. He was a surgeon to several French kings and he authored ten books on anatomy, surgery and wound treatment.
- Medal
Bronze. France 1798, Signed. Posthumous. This medal commemorates the reunion of physicians and surgeons, and the organization of the three medical schools of Paris, Montpellier, and Strassburg by Fernel and Paré.
- Size
60mm
- Artist
Nicolas Marie Gatteaux (1751-1832), French medallist, pupil of Delorme and Gros, elected medallist to the King and the father to the famous sculptor and medallist Jacques Éduard Gatteaux. He created a great number of medals and a pointing machine useful to sculptors. (Forrer 2, 209)
- Obverse
Two accolated busts facing to right, both clothed, Fernel wearing cap; around, JEAN FERNEL • AMBROISE PARE • ; in exergue, in four parallel lines, LA MEDCINE RENDUE A SON / UNITÉ PRIMITIVE. / DÉCRET DU 14 FRIMAIRERE. / AN III DE LA R.F. ; to left of the busts, GATTEAUX.
- Reverse
ÉCOLE DE MÉDECINE DE PARIS. ; in four parallel lines, PRIX/ DEL’ECOLE / PRATIQVE / AN VI. Exergue, Staff of Aesculapius, prone to right.
- Ref
Freeman 728; Storer 1019
