ASTRUC, John, a celebrated physician, was born in the year 1684, at the town of Sauves, in the province of Languedoc. His father, who was a Protestant clergyman, bestowed particular pains upon the earlier part of his education; after which he went to the university of Montpelier, where he took the degree of master of arts in the year 1700. He then began the study of medicine, and in two years obtained the degree of bachelor, having upon that occasion written a dissertation on the cause of fermentation, which he defended in a very spirited manner. On the 25th of January 1703 he was created doctor of physic; after which, before arriving at extensive practice, he applied to the study of medical authors, both ancient and modern, with uncommon assiduity. The good effects of this study soon appeared; for in the year 1710 he published a treatise concerning muscular motion, from which he acquired very high reputation. In the year 1717 he was appointed to teach medicine at Montpelier; which he did with such perspicuity and eloquence, that it was universally said he had been born to be a professor. His fame soon rose to such á height, that the king assigned him an annual salary; and he was, at the same time, appointed to superintend the mineral waters in the province of Languedoc. But as Montpelier did not afford sufficient scope for his aspiring genius, he went to Paris with a great stock of manuscripts, which he intended to publish, after subjecting them to the examination of the learned. Soon after, however, he left it, having in the year 1729 accepted the office of first physician to the king of Poland. In this capacity he remained only for a short time, and again returned to Paris. Upon the death of the celebrated Geoffroy, in the year 1731, he was appointed regius professor of medicine at Paris. The duties of this office he discharged in such a manner as to answer even the most sanguine expectations. He taught the practice of physic with so great applause, as to draw from other universities to that of Paris a great concourse of medical students, foreigners as well as natives of France. At the same time he was not more celebrated as a professor than a practitioner. And even at an advanced age he persevered with unwearied assiduity in that intense study which first raised his reputation. Hence it is that he has been enabled to transmit to posterity so many valuable monuments of his medical erudition. He died on the 15th of May 1766, in the 82d year of his age. The following are the titles of his principal works :—1. Origine de la Peste, 1721, 8vo. 2. De la Contagion de la Peste, 1724, 8vo. 3. De Motu Musculari, 1710, 12mo. 4. Mémoires pour servir à l’Histoire Naturelle de Languedoc, 1737, 4to. 5. De Morbis Venereis, libri sex, 1736, 4to; afterwards enlarged to 2 vols. 4to, and translated into French by Jault, 4 vols. 12mo. 6. Traité des Maladies des Femmes, 1761-1765, 6 vols. 12mo. 7. L’Art d’Accou-cher réduit à ses principes, 1766,12mo. 8. Theses de Phantasia, &c. 9. De Motûs Fermentativi Causa, 1702, 12mo. 10. Mémoire sur la Digestion, 1714, 8vo. 11. Tractatus Pathologicus, 1766, 8vo. Besides these, in 1759 he published Traité des Tumeurs, 2 vols. 12mo, and one or two treatises not connected with medicine, one with the singular title of Conjectures sur les Mémoires originaux qui ont servi à Moise pour écrire la Genèse, Paris, 1753, 12mo; and a Dissertation on the Immateriality and Immortality of the Soul, Paris, 1755.