Laurent Joubert was an important figure in the medical world of the French Renaissance. Born in 1529, he became a doctor at age 29 and shortly thereafter was appointed personal physician to Catherine de Medici and later became physician to three French monarchs. Joubert was an educator as well as a physician, and he wrote several works of medical literature, including his most controversial work, Erreurs populaires. While the work focuses on popular misconceptions concerning medicine and physicians in France in the 1500s, it also represents a wealth of information on the social,...

This book is an English translation of the second volume of Laurent Joubert s 1578 French work Erreurs Populaires. In it, Joubert proposed to dispel folk remedies and folklore still relied on by doctors and care-givers in France. It also challenged medical theories and advice from classical Greek and Latin writers that French doctors followed uncritically.