[Physician Emile Littré, French translator and publisher of Hippocrates].

Abstract

To-day, the French author and scholar Emile Littré (1801-1881) is best known as the founder of a widely used dictionary of the French language. He was one of the most diligent French authors in the nineteenth century and had a huge knowledge of modern and ancient languages, medicine, science, history, and philosophy. Apart from the dictionary, his most impressive work was the edition and translation of the complete collection of the Hippocratic writings (1839-61). The translation was meant to serve as a textbook for French doctors, but the rapid development in medicine made it obsolete in that respect before it was completed. Instead it is now a philological and historical monument. Littré also published a large number of books and articles on positivism, history, politics, philology, and medicine. He was politically active as supporter of the French republic during the periods of monarchy and was elected lifelong senator of the French National Assembly after the 1870-71 war. He was elected member of the French Academy in spite of intense opposition from the Roman Catholic Church. He was an atheist, but was baptised on his deathbed by his wife. His edition of the Hippocratic writings still remains the only complete collection in Greek and a modern language.