Jacques Dubois

Jacques Dubois (1478 – 14 January 1555), also known as Jacobus Sylvius in Latin, was a French anatomist in Paris. Dubois was the first to describe venous valves, although their function was later discovered by William Harvey.

The origins of this anatomist are vague. He was probably born in 1478 in Loeuilly, a small town near Amiens, the seventh in a family of fifteen. His father had been a weaver. At a young age he studied Greek with Hermonymus of Sparta and Janus Lascaris, Hebrew with Vatable and mathematics with Le Fevre, and gradually became a leading figure in that Humanistic movement in Paris, where he was famous for his excellent knowledge of these disciplines.

Dubois was the author of the first grammar of the French language to be published in France. The title of this work was In linguam gallicam isagōge, una cum eiusdem Grammatica latino-gallica, ex hebræis, græcis et latinis authoribus [Introduction to the French language, with a Latin-French grammar of the same, based on Hebrew, Greek and Latin authors], published in Paris in early 1531, less than a year after the very first French grammar, by John Palsgrave, was published in London.

Dubois was known for his hard work, and eloquence. In Paris, he studied languages and mathematics; but feeling that the rewards were inadequate, Dubois abandoned scholarship for medicine. He acquired his anatomical knowledge thanks to Jean Fagault, a famous physician of Paris and also dean of the Faculty of Medicine. While studying under Fagault, Dubois began his career as a professor with a course explaining the work of Hippocrates and Galen. These lessons concerned anatomy and were taught at the College de Tréguier. The success of his lectures turned out to be so remarkable that the faculty of the University of Paris protested that he had not yet obtained a college degree. For this reason Sylvius went to Montpellier, where in November 1529, he received his medical degree at the age of 51 years.

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