Felix Platter

Felix Platter (also Plater /ˈplɑːtər/; German: [ˈplatɐ]; Latinized: Platerus; 28 October 1536 – 28 July 1614) was a Swiss physician, well known for his classification of psychiatric diseases, and was also the first to describe an intracranial tumour (a meningioma).

Rondelet taught his students the technique of pressing, drying and mounting botanical specimens on paper, a process practised by his former mentor, Luca Ghini.

The current view that Platter believed the disease to be caused by dislocation and shortening of the flexor tendons is based upon misinterpretation of the original Latin text.

With the help of his anatomical studies, Platter had proven that subcutaneous ligamentous extensions of the palmar aponeurosis and not the flexor tendons were responsible for Dupuytren's disease.

Platter realised more than one hundred and fifty years before Henry Cline, Astley Cooper, and Dupuytren that the palmar aponeurosis was the anatomical substrate of the disease.