author
active 1720-1721 Monsieur Verny
Remembered through a vivid firsthand account of the 1720 Marseille plague, this little-known French medical writer helped record how one of Europe’s worst epidemics was observed and treated. His surviving work offers a close, urgent glimpse of medicine under pressure.
1 Audiobook
A Succinct Account of the Plague at Marseilles Its Symptoms and the Methods and Medicines Used for Curing It
by François Chicoyneau, Monsieur Soulier, active 1720-1721 Monsieur Verny
About the author
Very little biographical information seems to survive about Monsieur Verny beyond the brief catalog note that he was active in 1720–1721. He is chiefly known as one of the authors associated with early accounts of the plague at Marseille, alongside François Chicoyneau and Monsieur Soulier.
Verny is linked to works on the outbreak that describe its symptoms, prognosis, and treatment, including the text published in English as A Succinct Account of the Plague at Marseilles. Those writings matter less for personal detail than for what they preserve: a contemporary medical response to a public health disaster in southern France.
Because the historical record available online is so thin, it is safest to think of Verny as a shadowy but important contributor to plague literature rather than a fully documented figure. No confirmed portrait could be verified from the sources reviewed.