John Halle

In 1553/4 he left London to volunteer with the army of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger, who was attempting to overthrow the newly-crowned Queen Mary Tudor, Catholic daughter of Henry VIII.

John's surviving letter-book shows he was unusually collegial with local physicians, who shared the care of patients with him.

John's next important literary work was his poetical miscellany, The Court of Vertue, which introduced moralizing parodies of poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder among others.

It is followed by the largest medical dictionary then in print, his Expositive Table, which included hundreds of descriptions of chemical and herbal medicines and of symptoms and diseases.

He describes the continuous expansion of medical knowledge by new research, and condemns the static classical definitions of the Galenic tradition.

Other topics are an original explanation of the role of the epiglottis in preventing choking, and the function of the placenta vessels are different stages of development.