Guinter, Joannes

(b, Andernach, Germany, ca. 1505; d. Strasbourg, France, 4 October 1574)

medicine

Nothing is known of Guinter’s family, except that it was obscure and impoverished, or of his earliest education. He is said to have left Andernach at the age of twelve in quest of learning, studying successively at Utrecht, Deventer, and Marburg, in which last place he completed his humanistic and philosophical studies. Thereafter for a brief period he taught in a preparatory school at Goslar, Saxony, where he recouped his funds and was able to proceed to Louvain for further study and also some teaching of Greek, and then to Liège. At some undetermined earlier time Guinter seems to have begun the study of medicine at Leipzig, and about 1527 he proceeded from Liège to Paris to continue that study. He received the baccalaureate in medicine on 18 April 1528 after two witnesses had sworn to the fact of his previous studies at Leipzig. On 4 June 1530 he was promoted licentiate and on 29 October 1532 received the M.D. degree. He was accepted as a regent doctor by the Paris Faculty of Medicine on 6 February 1533, and on 7 November 1534 he was named one of the two professors of medicine at a salary of twentyfive livres.

As part of his academic duties Guinter was responsible for the annual winter course in human anatomy, and it was inevitable during the pre-Vesalian period that his approach would be Galenic. The procedure followed was in the medieval pattern, with Guinter lecturing to the class while a barber or surgeon performed the actual dissection in order merely to illustrate and confirm Galen’s anatomy. However, Guinter himself appears occasionally to have dissected, although his technique left much to be desired. One of his pupils during the period 1533-1536, the later distinguished anatomist Andreas Vesalius, referred to Guinter’s anatomical instruction in strongly condemnatory terms, even declaring: “I do not consider him an anatomist, and I should willingly suffer him to inflict as many cuts upon me as I have seen him attempt on man or any other animal—except at the dinner table.” Nevertheless, it is to Guinter’s credit that he did attempt to teach his students some comparative anatomy and was willing to allow them to gain some experience by participation in the actual dissection. It was in conjunction with his anatomical course that he published a dissection manual, Institutiones anatomicae (Paris, 1536), in four books, dealing first with the more corruptible internal organs and then with those less susceptible to putrefaction. Thus the work followed the form first made popular by Mondino da Luzzi (1316), that is, the medieval method of dissection based upon a limited amount of dissection material. Guinter acknowledged the assistance of his student Vesalius in preparation of the work, probably the dissection and preparation of anatomical specimens. Although Guinter’s manual, preceded only by those of Mondino and Berengario da Carpi (1522), contained no genuine anatomical contributions, it did advocate that anatomy, hitherto considered as chiefly fit for study by surgeons, was fundamental to the education of the physician.

Guinter was one of the major Greek scholars of his day, a fact first disclosed by the publication of his Syntaxis Graeca (Paris, 1527). In particular he devoted this scholarship to translations of the classical writers on medicine, and in the Commentaries of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris he was recognized as having translated the larger part of Galen’s writings and all those of Paul of Aegina. The considerable bulk of Guinter’s translations is explained by his method, according to which, as he declared, he translated each day as much as his secretary could write out from dictation, after which Guinter edited the version for publication. Despite the speed with which he translated, his versions appear to have held up well before the criticism of later editors. Guinter’s most important translations were his version of the first nine books of Galen’s anatomical treatise, De anatomicis administrationibus (Paris, 1531), and De Hippocratis et Platonis placitis (Paris, 1534), the latter considered by Guinter to be his most significant contribution to knowledge of classical Greek medicine. He also translated the writings of Paul of Aegina, Opus de re medica (Paris, 1532); Caelius Aurelianus, Liber celerum vel acutarum passionum (Paris, 1533); and Oribasius, Commentaria in aphorismos Hippocratis (Paris, 1533). Guinter was responsible for the introduction and popularization of a number of Greek anatomical terms, such as dartos, pericranium, urachus, and colon, that were to replace the inexact and confusing medieval anatomical nomenclature and thus lead to greater precision in anatomical description.

Owing to the growing pressure of religious orthodoxy in France, Guinter, a Lutheran, left Paris in 1538 for Metz and after about two years went to Strasbourg, where he was provided with a chair of Greek studies at the Gymnasium. At the same time he developed a medical practice, but criticism of his double occupation compelled him to relinquish his academic position in 1556. Although he continued his studies of the classical Greek physicians, producing a translation of the writings of Alexander of Tralles in 1549 and a revised edition in 1556, most of his later publications reflected his interest as a practicing physician. His book of advice on how to avoid the plague, De victus et medicinae ratione cum alio turn pestilentiae tempore observanda commentarius (Strasbourg, 1542), was translated into French by Antoine Pierre in 1544 and by Guinter in 1547 as Instruction très utile par laquelle un chacun se pourra maintenir en santè, tant au temps de peste, comme autre temps. Further works on this subject were Bericht, Regiment und Ordnung wie die Pestilenz und die pestilenzialische Fieber zu erkennen und zu kuriren (Strasbourg, 1564) and De pestilentia commentarius in quatuor dialogos distinctus (Strasbourg, 1565). Guinter also produced Commentarius de balneis et aquis medicatis (Strasbourg, 1565); a general study of medicine containing some autobiographical material, De medicina veteri et nova (Basel, 1571); and a collection of writings on obstetrics published posthumously by Joannes Georg Schenck a Grafenberg, Gynaeciorum commentarius, de gravidarum, parturientium, puerperarum et infantium cura (Strasbourg, 1606). Guinter was entombed in the church of St. Gallus in Strasbourg.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

There are many references to Guinter, most of them unfortunately containing serious errors. In particular his name is usually given erroneously as Günther, Gonthier, Guinther, or even Winter, and an almost unshakable legend places his birth in 1487. These two points are given special attention in Edouard Turner, “Jean Guinter d’Andernach 1505-1574,” in Gazette hebdomadaire de mèdecine et de chirurgie, 2nd ser., 18 (1881), 425, 441, 505. Turner’s essay includes the best bibliography of Guinter’s long list of publications, which is also given in extenso in J. J. Höveler, “loannes Guinterius Andernacus,” in Jahresbericht über das Progymnasium zu Andernach für das Schuljahr 1898-99 (Andernach, 1899), pp. 3-21. Höveler, however, accepts the legendary date for Guinter’s birth. Some further information is to be found in Commentaires de la Facultée de médecine de 1’Université de Paris (1516- 1560), M.-L. Concasty, ed. (Paris, 1964). Guinter as an anatomist is treated in C. D. O’Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels 1514-1564 (Berkeley—Los Angeles. 1964); and there is a bibliography of eds. of Guinter’s Institutiones anatomicae, including those revised by Vesalius, in Harvey Cushing, Bio-bibliography of Andreas Vesalius, 2nd ed. (Hamden, Conn., 1962). Some autobiographical information is to be found in the prefaces to Guinter’s various translations and in his De medicina veteri et nova (Basel, 1571).

C. D. O’Malley