title: [Luke, evangelist and physician].
abstract: Luke, author of the Third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles was also a physician. As he was born in Antioch he was probably Greek. He travelled with the Apostle Paul. He was born in Antioch he as probably Greek. He travelled with the Aspostle Paul. He was the only gospel writer to have been accurate in his medical analysis, for example to locate a paralysis with precision and use Hippocratic tradition terms. He might have been chosen as the patron saint by the medical corporation at the end of the Middle Ages. From the fifteenth century, the University doctors' first day had been the eighteenth of October, that is St Luke's Day. On their seals, several French medical colleges had an invocation to Saint Luke (with a winged bull at his feet as a symbol) and to the Virgin Mary. Medical corporations and painters' guilds had chapels dedicated to Luke at the end of the fourteenth century. In the sixteenth century, Painting Academies were to be called "Saint Luke's" Apart from being famous as a doctor, Luke is known as Virgin Mary's painter. In his gospel he was speaking about her in detail and with tenderness. In Syria and in Rome some paintings were attributed to him. In some fifteenth century engravings, Luke was depicted as a writer of the Gospel or a painter, and sometimes he was dressed as a physician. Nowadays some medical centres are named after him and some French doctors celebrate the eighteenth of October.
authors.affiliation: Chiurgien des Hôpitaux de Lyon.
authors.forename: Louis-Paul
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Fischer
authors.forename: Nathalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Suh-Tafaro
mesh_terms: D005602:France; D049690:History, Ancient; D049692:History, Early Modern 1451-1600; D049691:History, Medieval; D049711:History, Modern 1601-; D008877:Middle East; D010820:Physicians / Q000266:history*; D012068:Religion and Medicine; D018597:Saints / Q000266:history*
vernacular_title: Le médecin saint Luc l'évangéliste.