[Buffon (1707-1788)].
The aim of this paper is to remember the great French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Count Buffon, as well as to point out his overall significance and work concerning medicine. Buffon's book The History of Nature, General and Particular, comprising 44 volumes, was the first systematized review of the contemporary knowledge of the history of nature, geology and anthropology, and the beginning of cosmology, palaeontology, ecology and numerous other sciences. The second volume is the most important for medicine discussing man. In its first part, Buffon presented the general knowledge concerning reproduction, nutrition, growth and development, then the formation and development of the foetus, while, in the second part, he discussed the nature of man including childhood, puberty, maturity (with an account of man), old age and death. Buffon made a valuable contribution to natural sciences and mathematics getting eternal glory as a naturalist, biologist, cosmologist and writer.
Ignjatović
Mile
M
D005602:France; D049671:History, 18th Century; D019021:Natural History / Q000266:history*