Theodor Zwinger

Theodor Zwinger the Elder (1533 to 1588) was a Swiss physician and Renaissance humanist scholar who made significant contributions to the emerging genres of reference and travel literature. He was the first distinguished representative of a prominent Basel academic family, the son of a furrier who became a citizen of Basel in 1526 and the nephew of the printer Johannes Oporinus. He studied at the universities of Basel, Lyon and Paris, where he met the philosopher Petrus Ramus, and took his doctorate in medicine at Padua. He joined the medical faculty of the University of Basel in 1559 and held in turn the chairs of Greek in 1565, ethics in 1571 and theoretical medicine in 1580. Though first hostile to Paracelsus, later in his career he took an interest in Paracelsian medical theory and associated with Paracelsians such as Thomas Moffet and Petrus Severinus. He edited the early encyclopedia Theatrum Humanae Vitae, issued in 1565, 1571, 1586 and 1604, a work described as perhaps the most comprehensive collection of knowledge compiled by one individual in the early modern period.