Joseph Barsalou (physician)
Encyclopedia
Biography
Joseph Barsalou was born in AgenAgen
Agen is a commune in the Lot-et-Garonne department in Aquitaine in south-western France. It lies on the river Garonne southeast of Bordeaux. It is the capital of the department.-Economy:The town has a higher level of unemployment than the national average...
in the south west of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. He came from a family of apothecaries that was originally from Narbonne
Narbonne
Narbonne is a commune in southern France in the Languedoc-Roussillon region. It lies from Paris in the Aude department, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Once a prosperous port, it is now located about from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea...
. Joseph Barsalou received no formal medical training. His father handed down his knowledge of herbs and minerals. It is through his friendship with the Scaliger family that Joseph Barsalou gained access to the library of Julius Caesar Scaliger
Julius Caesar Scaliger
Julius Caesar Scaliger was an Italian scholar and physician who spent a major part of his career in France. He employed the techniques and discoveries of Renaissance humanism to defend Aristotelianism against the new learning...
and his son Joseph Justus Scaliger
Joseph Justus Scaliger
Joseph Justus Scaliger was a French religious leader and scholar, known for expanding the notion of classical history from Greek and Ancient Roman history to include Persian, Babylonian, Jewish and Ancient Egyptian history.-Early life:He was born at Agen, the tenth child and third son of Italian...
. Julius Caesar Scaliger was a physician, philosopher and commentator of Aristotle. His son Josephus Justus Scaliger was a scholar, linguist and historian. Joseph Barsalou built on his traditional knowledge of herbs with an introduction to medicine and philosophy reading Galen
Galen
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamon , was a prominent Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher...
, Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
and Pythagoras
Pythagoras
Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him...
.
Agen in the early 17th century was at the crossroads of the religious debate revolving around the new Protestant faith. The region favoured the Reformation. Nerac
Nérac
Nérac is a commune in the Lot-et-Garonne department in south-western France.-External links:*...
its neighbour and rival was the political and intellectual capital of French Protestants. The Edict of Nerac in 1579 had given the French Protestant 14 more protected towns and confirmed the Edict of Poitiers that recognised the religious rights of Protestants in France. Josephus Justus had been seduced by the Reformation and become one of its great scholars. Yet Joseph Barsalou's life took a different direction from his predecessor. Joseph Barsalou gravitated towards Avignon
Avignon
Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...
and Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
the centers of Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
.
As a physician Joseph Barsalou treated people in and around the town of Agen. With the many political and religious battles being fought nearby the region was rife with disease: tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
, scurvy
Scurvy
Scurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, which is required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. The chemical name for vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is derived from the Latin name of scurvy, scorbutus, which also provides the adjective scorbutic...
and other fevers. Many physicians actually died from being in contact with the patients they treated. Joseph Barsalou survived. Locally his reputation was built as much on treating others as surviving the contact with so many instances of disease. It testified to his skills as a physician.
Through his travels in the south of France he became acquainted with Philippe Jacques de Maussac, President of the Court of Montpellier
Montpellier
-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....
. They remained close friends during their lives exchanging a number of letters. It is believed that it is Philippe Jacques de Maussac who introduced Joseph Barsalou to Antonio Barberini
Antonio Barberini
Antonio Barberini was an Italian Catholic cardinal, Archbishop of Reims, military leader, patron of the arts and a prominent member of the House of Barberini. As one of the cardinal-nephews of Pope Urban VIII and a supporter of France, he played a significant role at a number of the papal...
and the Italian leg of his journey.
In 1640 Joseph Barsalou was asked to treat Antonio Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII and the Legate of Avignon who suffered from a fever on a visit to Avignon in the south of France. As Antonio Barberini's health was restored, he insisted on keeping Barsalou as his personal physician and took him to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
.
During his time with Antonio Barberini, Barsalou was introduced to Charles Bouvard who had been physician of King Louis XIII of France and Superintendent of the Jardin du Roi in Paris the new medicinal garden of the king, now known as the Jardin des Plantes
Jardin des Plantes
The Jardin des Plantes is the main botanical garden in France. It is one of seven departments of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. It is situated in the 5ème arrondissement, Paris, on the left bank of the river Seine and covers 28 hectares .- Garden plan :The grounds of the Jardin des...
. Barsalou and Bouvard shared a common interest in medicine and herbal remedies. They exchanged ideas on recipes and treatments for a wide variety of conditions: tuberculosis, typhus, cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
and the plague.
Yet Joseph Barsalou's position in Rome was dependent on the power of the Barberini family. In 1644 he was called to assist Urban VIII on his death bed. With the enthronement of the new Pope Innocent X, and the subsequent disgrace of Barberinis for corruption and nepotism Barsalou lost favour and had to leave the papal city.
Between 1644 and 1649 Barsalou practiced in Florence, attending to the Grand Duke Ferdinando II de' Medici. At the time Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
was a hub of modern experimental knowledge. Ferdinando II was a patron of science and a student of Galileo himself, and founded the Academy of Experimentation in 1642 and attracts the brightest minds of the time. Scientists working there at the time include Evangelista Torricelli
Evangelista Torricelli
Evangelista Torricelli was an Italian physicist and mathematician, best known for his invention of the barometer.-Biography:Evangelista Torricelli was born in Faenza, part of the Papal States...
, Vincenzo Viviani
Vincenzo Viviani
Vincenzo Viviani was an Italian mathematician and scientist. He was a pupil of Torricelli and a disciple of Galileo.-Biography:...
and Giovanni Alfonso Borelli
Giovanni Alfonso Borelli
Giovanni Alfonso Borelli was a Renaissance Italian physiologist, physicist, and mathematician. He contributed to the modern principle of scientific investigation by continuing Galileo's custom of testing hypotheses against observation...
.
In 1650 he returned to Montpellier in France, where he took care of his lifelong friend Philippe Jacques de Maussac, who died that same year. Barsalou then went to Agen permanently and practiced in the region. He died in 1660.
His work
Barsalou's practice he combined the traditional knowledge and methods of his forefathers that has been enhanced through trial and error over generations and is influenced by Alchemical practice. He knew of the classical Greek medical texts, applying Galen's principles such as bloodlettingBloodletting
Bloodletting is the withdrawal of often little quantities of blood from a patient to cure or prevent illness and disease. Bloodletting was based on an ancient system of medicine in which blood and other bodily fluid were considered to be "humors" the proper balance of which maintained health...
. Later, he was stimulated to rethink his approach through his contact with the Florentine scientists and their modern experimental practice.
During his years in Florence, Barsalou's ideas developed rapidly. He wrote to his friend Charles Bouvard
Charles Bouvard
Charles Bouvard was a French chemist and physician. Bouvard served as the physician of France's King Louis XIII and as the superintendent of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Bouvard was known for using his knowledge of plants to create a number of medicines from common ordinary flowers...
about the experiments he carried out to create new elixirs. He tried to understand the healing properties of plants, minerals and metals. He perhaps found his inspiration in a broad range of ideas that circulate at the time, from the alchemical texts of Jabir to Fibonacci
Fibonacci
Leonardo Pisano Bigollo also known as Leonardo of Pisa, Leonardo Pisano, Leonardo Bonacci, Leonardo Fibonacci, or, most commonly, simply Fibonacci, was an Italian mathematician, considered by some "the most talented western mathematician of the Middle Ages."Fibonacci is best known to the modern...
's work on numbers and Pythagorean principles amongst many others. In his letters he explained how he tried to understand the power of plants through numbers.
Despite this, Joseph Barsalou was not an alchemist: there is no reference in his letters to a quest for the philosopher's stone
Philosopher's stone
The philosopher's stone is a legendary alchemical substance said to be capable of turning base metals into gold or silver. It was also sometimes believed to be an elixir of life, useful for rejuvenation and possibly for achieving immortality. For many centuries, it was the most sought-after goal...
or the transmutation of metal into gold.
Apart from the letters to Charles Bouvard and de Maussac no compendium of his work survived him. A professional instinct for secrecy, maybe the fear of persecution from the Church or just the fact that many similar writings were perceived as alchemy
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
and therefore often associated with charlatans, might have determined his decision not to write down the recipes of his elixirs, let alone publish his work.
Sources
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