Lamettrie

Lamettrie, Julien Offray de (1709-54), a French materialist writer, was born at St. Malo. His father intended him for the Church, but he himself preferred medicine. As surgeon of the Gardes Francaises he was present at Dettingen and Fontenoy. In 1746 he produced his L'Histoire Naturelle de l'Ame, which he pretended was a translation from an English work. The way in which it was received compelled him to take refuge at Leyden, which he had to leave two years later in consequence of his L'Homme Machine and several satires on the medical faculty. He passed his last years at Berlin under the protection of Frederick the Great.