author
John Caius
1510–1573
A brilliant Tudor physician and scholar, this remarkable figure helped shape both English medicine and Cambridge life. He is especially remembered for refounding Gonville and Caius College and for leaving one of the earliest firsthand accounts of the English sweating sickness.
5 Audiobooks
De Rariorum Animalium atque Stirpium Historia
by John Caius
De Canibus Britannicis: Of Englishe Dogges
by John Caius
De Pronunciatione Graecae & Latinae Linguae
by John Caius
The Epidemics of the Middle Ages
by J. F. C. (Justus Friedrich Carl) Hecker, John Caius
About the author
Born in Norwich in 1510, John Caius studied at Cambridge before continuing his medical training in Italy, including at Padua, one of Europe’s great medical centers. He built a strong reputation as a physician and became connected with the English royal court, serving Edward VI and Mary I.
Caius was more than a successful doctor. He wrote on medicine, natural history, and university history, and his account of the sweating sickness is still noted as an early description of an epidemic in England. His work shows the curiosity of a Renaissance scholar, combining close observation with wide learning.
He is also remembered as the second founder of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. By restoring and endowing his old college, he left a lasting mark on the university, and his name remains part of the college’s identity to this day.