author

Francis Fuller

1670–1706

An early English medical writer, he is best remembered for linking exercise with health at a time when that idea still felt fresh. His most famous book grew out of his own struggles with illness and helped keep his name in print long after his short life ended.

1 Audiobook

Medicina Gymnastica

Medicina Gymnastica

by Francis Fuller

About the author

Francis Fuller the Younger was an English medical writer born in Bristol in 1670. He studied at St John's College, Cambridge, entering in 1687 and later taking his degrees there. He was the son of the nonconformist minister Francis Fuller.

He is chiefly known for Medicina Gymnastica (1704), a treatise arguing for the value of exercise in treating disease. According to biographical sources, the book was shaped by his own experience of poor health, including hypochondriasis and digestive troubles, after which he became convinced of the benefits of movement and fresh air.

Fuller's medical ideas were a mix of insight and the limits of his era, but his emphasis on exercise and even something like massage gave his work a lasting afterlife. He died in June 1706, yet Medicina Gymnastica continued to be reissued for decades afterward.