title: The 'Preliminary Discourse' to Methodical Nosology, by François Boissier de Sauvages (1772).
abstract: The eighteenth century witnessed an intense drive to classify diseases as natural kinds. Together with Linné, Macbride, Cullen, Sagar and Vogel, François Boissier de Sauvages, Professor of Medicine at Montpellier, was an important player in this process. In his monumental Nosologie Méthodique, Sauvages based his nosological system on the more botanico view proposed by Thomas Sydenham, namely, that human diseases (including mental ailments) should be classified in the same way as were plants. Classic Text No. 104 is an abridged translation of the Preliminary Discourse to the Nosologie Méthodique.
authors.affiliation: University of Western Australia.
authors.forename: S E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Starkstein
authors.affiliation: University of Western Australia geb11@cam.ac.uk.
authors.forename: G E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Berrios
mesh_terms: D004194:Disease / Q000145:classification / Q000266:history*; D005602:France; D049671:History, 18th Century; D006801:Humans
keywords: 18th century; Animism; Boissier de Sauvages; Montpellier; classification; diseases; history; medicine; nosology; vitalism