Jean Fernel

Jean Fernel (1497 to 1558) was a French physician, born in Montdidier, who introduced the term physiology for the study of the body's function. After early schooling at Clermont he entered the College of Sainte-Barbe in Paris, where he first studied mathematics and astronomy before turning wholly to medicine, and he became physician to the court, advising Catherine de Medici. In his Cosmotheoria of 1528 he measured a degree of the meridian by counting the turns of his carriage wheels between Paris and Amiens and found the circumference of the Earth to within one percent. As professor of medicine he is credited with the word physiology, and he is said to be the first to describe the spinal canal. His medical works include De naturali parte medicinae of 1542. The lunar crater Fernelius bears his name.