Symphorien Champier and the reception of the occultist tradition in Renaissance France

and sarcomas. Within a decade of the publication of Virchow's Cellularpathologie (1858), Wilhelm Waldeyer had developed a descriptive account of the genesis and mode ofspread ofcarcinoma which is essentially that in use today. As an added bonus, though, Rather provides useful insights on earlier medical theorists such as Galen, Thomas Willis, and John Hunter, and an exceptionally helpful discussion of the work of Bichat, Andral, and other members of the French school. The strength of Rather's book lies in his mastery of a vast medical literature written in several ancient and modem languages; and in his capacity to use his own experience as a pathologist, not in the service of a Whiggish historiography, but as an aid to a sympathetic reconstruction of earlier patterns of medical thought and perception.