Jean Ruel

Jean Ruel (1474 – 24 September 1537), aka Jean Ruelle or Ioannes Ruellius in its Latinised form, was a French physician and botanist noted for the 1536 publication in Paris of De Natura Stirpium, a Renaissance treatise on botany.

Ruel was born in Soissons. He was self-taught in Greek and Latin, and studied medicine, graduating in 1508, or, according to other sources in 1502. In 1509 he became physician to Francis I, devoted himself at the same time to a study of botany and pharmacology. He was a professor at the University of Paris, and a large part of his academic career was given to an analysis of Dioscorides' De Materia Medica, of which he published a Latin translation in 1516. Ruel's three-volume De Natura Stirpium, which was published without illustrations, was intended partly as a gloss to the ancient writers. In it he described in great detail not only the habit and habitat, but also the smell and taste of each plant, producing a list in French of a large number of plant names.