Théodore de Mayerne

Sir Théodore Turquet de Mayerne (1573 to 1655) was a Genevan-born physician who treated kings of France and England and advanced the theories of Paracelsus. Born into a Huguenot family, he studied at Geneva and Heidelberg, took his medical degree at Montpellier in 1596 and his doctorate in 1597 with a dissertation defending chemical remedies under Joseph du Chesne. He lectured on anatomy and pharmacy in Paris and became a physician to Henri IV, then moved to England in 1610 and from 1611 was first physician to James I and his queen. Elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1616 and knighted in 1624, he helped the Society of Apothecaries obtain a royal charter separate from the Grocers, helped found the Company of Distillers, and championed the first official pharmacopoeia, which included chemical remedies. He died at Chelsea.