CAESALPINUS, Andreas, or ANDREA CESALPINO, Italian physiologist: b. Arezzo, Italy, 1519; d. 23 Feb. 1603. He is first men tioned in public life as a professor of botany in the University of Pisa. He was subsequently made chief physician to Clement VII, and lived during the remainder of his life at Rome. He published works on botany, mineralogy, medi cine and the highest questions of philosophy. In his first publication, entitled 'Speculum Artis Medic Hippocraticum,' his knowledge of the system of the circulation of the blood is stated in the clearest manner. The following passage is taken from the second chapter of its first book: "For in animals we see that the nutri ment is carried through the veins to the heart as to a laboratory, and its last perfection being there attained, it is driven by the spirit which is begotten in the heart through the arteries and distributed to the whole body? The system ac cepted since the time of Harvey could hardly be more definitely or accurately stated. His philosophical speculations are contained mainly in his 'Qumstiones Peripateticx.' The philoso phy of Cwsalpinus was scholastic Aristotelian ism, with a leaning toward some of the methods and doctrines of the later transcendental or ab solute systems. He reduces the world to the simplicity of two only substances, God and mat ter, and he makes all finite intelligences, all human, angelic and demoniac souls, to belong to the latter element. Two things are remark
able about his system: (1) The boldness of speculation, unparalleled in his age, with which he seeks a purely scientific view of the uni verse; and (2) its entirely materialistic char acter. But more important than either his anticipation of Harvey s discovery, or his specu lative opinions, were his botanical labors. He was styled by Linnaus the first orthodox or systematic botanist, and his work 'De Plantis,' was a handbook to Linnaus in all his classifi cations. Botany in the time of Czsalpinus was the popular witchcraft: as a science, it consisted in a mass of erudition about the imaginary but marvelous virtues of plants. Caesalpinus sought successfully to transfer it from the realm of magic to that of science. He proposed the basis of classification upon which the whole system of Linnaus rests, namely, the distinction of plants in their parts of fructification. He lived quietly to an old age at Rome, submitting all his speculations to the supremacy of the Church, and presenting in his life an example of every virtue.