Genus Mercurialis
Pictures from Observations
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Probably for Hieronymus Mercurialis (real name Girolamo Mercuriale (Mercuriali)) (1530–1606), Italian physician and philologist. He studied at the universities of Bologna and Padua, obtaining a medical PhD in 1555, then went to Rome where he studied the classical and medical literature of the Greeks and Romans and how these factors could prevent or cure disease. This resulted in his best known work, De Arte Gymnastica (1569), in which he emphasised the importance of diet, exercise and hygiene for healthy living. He became professor of practical medicine at Padua (1569–1586) and during his tenure was called to Vienna in 1573, by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II who – pleased with Mercurialis’s treatment – made him Count Palatine. From 1587–1592 he was a professor at the University of Bologna before being ‘bought’ with an exorbitant salary in 1593 by the University of Pisa, where he stayed until retiring, aged 75. His publications included, inter alia, De Morbis Cutaneis (On Skin Disease) (1572), De Morbis Mulieribus (On the Diseases of Women) (1582), De Morbis Puerorum (On the diseases of children) (1583) and De Oculorum et Aurium Affectibus (On Ears, Eyes and Emotions) (1583).