Renatus Des Cartes de homine

Dutch physician and botanist Florentino Schuyl, the son of a pastor, lost his mother and two brothers to the plague in 1636. He began formal studies at the University of Utrecht, from which he received a degree in philosophy in 1639. He received his doctorate in medicine from the University of Leiden. His dissertation was on the spleen. He is best known for his translation into Latin of Rene Descartes' work on physiology, Treatise of Man. Unfortunately, the copy he translated was not particularly accurate or complete. Schuyl, however, wrote an excellent introduction to Descartes' ideas. Schuyl died in 1669 from plague. De Homine is the first in a series of works by French mathematician, philosopher, and physiologist Rene Descartes that set the agenda for later students of the distinction between mind and body. Descartes held back on the publication of this work after hearing of the condemnation of Galileo by the Inquisition. As a result, this work was published well after the author's death.