Samuel Auguste André David Tissot (1728 to 1797) was a Swiss physician from the Vaud region, one of the most widely read medical writers of the eighteenth century. He was born on 20 March 1728 at Grancy, near Lausanne, and trained for the Protestant ministry before turning to medicine. He studied at Montpellier and took his doctorate there in 1749. He then settled in Lausanne, where he practiced for most of his life and became the city's leading physician. Tissot made his name early by promoting smallpox inoculation. He carried out inoculations in Lausanne in the 1750s and defended the method in print. His most successful book was Avis au peuple sur sa santé (1761). It was a plain-language guide to health and common illness for ordinary readers, and it went through many editions and was translated into most European languages. His treatise on onanism (1760) argued that masturbation caused physical and mental ruin. It was influential and later much criticized. His work on the health of men of letters, De la santé des gens de lettres, appeared in 1768. The English translation, An Essay on Diseases Incidental to Literary and Sedentary Persons, links study and sedentary habits to digestive trouble, nervous disorders, gout and melancholy. It recommends exercise, moderation and regular habits. He also wrote on nervous disorders and on epilepsy. His reputation was European. He corresponded with Albrecht von Haller, Johann Georg Zimmermann and many other leading figures of the age. He was elected to numerous learned societies, and princes and aristocrats consulted him or tried to recruit him. In 1780 he accepted the chair of clinical medicine at the University of Pavia, at the invitation of Emperor Joseph II. He found the post demanding and returned to Lausanne after about two years. He remained in practice there until his death on 15 June 1797.
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