Levinus Lemnius Explained

Levinus Lemnius [1] (20 May 1505 in Zierikzee  - 1 July 1568 in Zierikzee) was a Dutch physician and author.[2]

Life

Lemnius studied medicine at the University of Leuven under Rembert Dodoens and Konrad Gesner;[3] and under Vesalius at Padua.[4] He also travelled to Switzerland and England.[5] After his wife's death, he became a priest.[3]

Works

His Occulta naturae miracula, a book of secrets, is his best-known work. It ran through many editions and was widely translated from Latin. It drew on classical sources, particularly Aristotle. Lemnius was influenced, too, by the "airs, waters, places" doctrine from the Hippocratic Corpus.[11] The work attempted to reconcile natural philosophy as found in classical sources with Christian doctrine, particularly on generation and reproduction, while emphasising extraordinary aspects.[12] His humoral theory was complex, with phlegm being divided into four, and the other humours also being subdivided.[13]

He is credited with first mentioning in this work of staining of bone, with madder root.[14] In the same work he gives credence to the theory of maternal impression;[15] his theory of teratology connects the Aristotelian theory of generation with birth defects.[16] He contributed to demonology, with Johann Weyer, by suggesting that mental illness and disturbance could be physically caused, rather than being a result of outside influence.[17] He also credited Solomon with the invention of the magnetic compass.[18]

This work in some form had a lifetime of nearly four centuries. It was later combined with a German manual on midwifery by Jakob Rüff, to create Aristotle's Masterpiece, a 17th-century work in English of advice on sex and reproduction, still sold in later editions in the 1930s.[19]

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Also Lenneus or Lennius, originally Lievin Lemnes or Lemmens or Lemse (and also Dutch Livinus of Lieven); in Italian known as Levinio Lennio or Lemmio; in England in the 16th century as Levine Lemnie.
  2. Web site: CERL Thesaurus. data.cerl.org.
  3. Web site: Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek. Deel 8 · dbnl. DBNL.
  4. Book: L'époque de la Renaissance: 1400-1600. Tibor. Klaniczay. Eva. Kushner. Paul. Chavy. January 1, 2000. John Benjamins Publishing. 9027234469. Google Books.
  5. Web site: Zierikzee Monumentenstad. Vroeger. Personen. Oud-Zierikzeeënaars. Lieven Lemse . 2011-07-16 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110809214304/http://www.zierikzee-monumentenstad.nl/kk_4500000/lemse-lieven . 2011-08-09 . dead .
  6. Web site: De miracvlis occvltis natvrae libri IIII : item, De vita cvm animi et corporis incolvmitate recte institvenda liber vnvs : illi quidem iam postremum emendati, & aliquot capitibus aucti : hic verò nunquam antehac editus. Levinus. Lemnius. December 25, 1583. Coloniae Agrippinae : Apud Theodorum Baumium .... Internet Archive.
  7. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/014301009 World Cat
  8. Web site: http://dfg-viewer.de/show/?set[mets=https%3A//digital.ub.uni-duesseldorf.de%2Foai%2F%3Fverb%3DGetRecord%26metadataPrefix%3Dmets%26identifier%3D1882238 DFG-Viewer: Levini Lemnii occulta naturae miracula Occulta naturae miracula, ac varia rerum documenta <dt.> Wunderbarliche Geheimnisse der Natur in des Menschen Leibe und Seel, auch in vielen andern natürlichen Dingen als Steinen, Ertzt, Gewechs und Thieren ...]. dfg-viewer.de.
  9. Book: Lemnius, Levinus. De habitu et constitutione corporis, quam Greci kradin, triviales complexionem vocant, libri duo. Omnibus quibus secunda valetudo curae est, apprime necessarii, ex quibus cuique proclive erit corporis sui conditionem, animique motus, ac totius conservandae sanitatis rationem adamussim cognoscere .... December 25, 1561. Apud Guilielmum Simonem. 029237871.
  10. Web site: http://dfg-viewer.de/show/?set[mets=https%3A//digital.ub.uni-duesseldorf.de%2Foai%2F%3Fverb%3DGetRecord%26metadataPrefix%3Dmets%26identifier%3D1882237 DFG-Viewer: De miraculis occultis naturae Occulta naturae miracula, ac varia rerum documenta]. dfg-viewer.de.
  11. 547918 . 16021927 . 48 . 3 . "Foolishness" in early modern medicine and the concept of intellectual disability . Med Hist . 289–310 . Goodey . CF . 10.1017/s002572730000764x. 2004 .
  12. Web site: Books & Babies: Communicating Reproduction.
  13. From The Touchstone of Complexions; J. B. Bamborough, The Little World of Man (1952), p. 59.
  14. Brian Keith Hall, Bones and Cartilage: developmental and evolutionary skeletal biology (2005), p. 433.
  15. Web site: Linguaggio Globale - Indice Generale - Hotel Parigi. www.parishotelsweb.com.
  16. http://www.digitalsilesia.eu/Content/23006/inscription_on_the_body.pdf, pp.33–4.
  17. Adam Crabtree, The Transition to Secular Psychotherapy: Hypnosis and the Alternate-Consciousness Paradigm, p. 555, Ch. 19 in History of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology 2008, Section Three, Part 4, 555-586,
  18. Paul Fleury Mottelay, A Bibliographical History of Electricity and Magnetism (1922), p. 5; online.
  19. Web site: Books & Babies: Communicating Reproduction . 2011-07-16 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170312153136/http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/exhibitions/Babies/Aristotle.html . 2017-03-12 . dead .

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