author

Francis Fuller

1670–1706

An early English medical writer, he is best remembered for arguing that exercise could be a powerful part of healing. His best-known work grew out of his own struggles with illness and helped make the case for movement as medicine.

1 Audiobook

Medicina Gymnastica or, A treatise concerning the power of exercise, with respect to the animal oeconomy; and the great necessity of it in the cure of several distempers

Medicina Gymnastica or, A treatise concerning the power of exercise, with respect to the animal oeconomy; and the great necessity of it in the cure of several distempers

by Francis Fuller

About the author

Born in Bristol in 1670, he was the son of the nonconformist divine Francis Fuller and entered St John's College, Cambridge, in 1687. He earned his B.A. in 1691 and later proceeded M.A. in 1704.

He became known as a medical writer rather than a major practicing physician. Accounts of his life note that after an aggressive treatment for an attack of itch, he suffered from severe hypochondriasis, and that his search for relief shaped his ideas about health.

That experience fed into Medicina Gymnastica, the work for which he is chiefly remembered. In it, he stressed the value of exercise in preserving health and helping treat disease, making him an interesting early voice in the history of preventive medicine. He died in 1706.