Willem Piso (Leiden, 1611 - Amsterdam, November 28, 1678) was a Dutch physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 and naturalist

Naturalist

Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...

 who participated as an expedition doctor in Dutch Brazil

Dutch Brazil

Dutch Brazil, also known as New Holland, was the northern portion of Brazil, ruled by the Dutch during the Dutch colonization of the Americas between 1630 and 1654...

 from 1637 - 1644, sponsored by Earl Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen and the Dutch West India Company

Dutch West India Company

Dutch West India Company was a chartered company of Dutch merchants. Among its founding fathers was Willem Usselincx...

. Piso became one of the founders of Tropical medicine

Tropical medicine

Tropical medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with health problems that occur uniquely, are more widespread, or prove more difficult to control in tropical and subtropical regions....

.

Piso finished his studies in Caen

Caen

Caen is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the Calvados department and the capital of the Basse-Normandie region. It is located inland from the English Channel....

 in 1633 and settled in Amsterdam as a doctor, before leaving for Brazil as a private physician and in the company of the painters Albert Eckhout

Albert Eckhout

Albert Eckhout was a Dutch portrait and still life painter.Eckhout was among the first European artists to paint scenes from the New World. In 1636, he traveled to Dutch Brazil, invited by count John Maurice, Prince of Nassau-Siegen. There, he painted portraits of natives, slaves and mulattos...

 and Frans Post

Frans Post

Frans Janszoon Post was a Dutch painter. He was the first European artist to paint landscapes of America. In 1636 he traveled to Dutch Brazil at the invitation of Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen.- Biography :...

. There Piso propagated the consumption of fresh fish, vegetables and fruits, after he discovered the soldiers and seamen suffered from physical problems resulting from dietary deficiencies.

Together with Georg Marcgrave

Georg Marcgrave

Georg Marcgrave was a German naturalist and astronomer.- Life :Born in Liebstadt in the Electorate of Saxony, Marcgrave studied botany, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine in Germany and Switzerland until 1636 when he journeyed to Leiden in the Netherlands.In 1637, he was appointed astronomer of...

 and originally published by Joannes de Laet

Joannes de Laet

Joannes or Johannes de Laet was a Dutch geographer and director of the Dutch West India Company. Philip Burden called his History of the New World, "...arguably the finest description of the Americas published in the seventeenth century" and "...one of the foundation maps of Canada"...

, he wrote the Historia Naturalis Brasiliae

Historia Naturalis Brasiliae

Historia Naturalis Brasiliae is the first scientific book about Brazil, written by Dutch naturalist Willem Piso and published in 1648. Piso makes use of observations made by the German naturalists Georg Marcgrave, and H. Gralitzio, in addition to John de Laet...

(1648), an important early western insight into Brazilian flora and fauna. According to reports in the book, he collected plants and animals in Brazil, besides studying tropical diseases and indigenous therapies. Ipecacuanha-root and leaves of the Jaborandi

Pilocarpus

Pilocarpus is a genus of about 13 species of plants belonging to the family Rutaceae, native to the neotropics of South America. Various species are important pharmacologically...

.

Not only a minor planet, 11240 Piso

11240 Piso

- External links :*...

, is named after him, but also some Nyctaginaceae

Nyctaginaceae

Nyctaginaceae, the Four O'Clock Family, is a family of around 33 genera and 290 species of flowering plants, widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions, with a few representatives in temperate regions...

, the Pisonia

Pisonia

Pisonia is a genus of flowering plants in the four o'clock flower family, Nyctaginaceae. It was named for Dutch physician and naturalist Willem Piso . Certain species in this genus are known as Catchbirdtrees because their sticky seeds reportedly trap small birds...

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