Born in 1647 in Lyon, internationally reputed scholar Jacob Spon pioneered the exploration of the monuments of Greece. Following medical studies at Strasbourg, he received his doctorate in medicine from Montpellier (1668) and subsequently practiced in Lyon to a wealthy clientele. He traveled to Italy, Greece, and Constantinople. In 1675–1676, he visited the Levant with the English connoisseur and botanist Sir George Wheler (ca. 1650–1723), who bequeathed his collection of antiquities to Oxford University. He published a study of the antiquaries and curiosities of Lyon and corresponded with a wide circle of savants.

Spon benefitted from his examination of Greek antiquities of Greece at first hand. His Spon’s Voyage d’Italie, de Dalmatie, de Grèce et du Levant (1678) long remained a useful reference work for travelers. He brought back from the Middle East many valuable treasures, coins, inscriptions, and manuscripts. In 1681 he published a ninety-five-page treatise on fevers. As it was well received, he expanded the book to 264 pages and made additions of the latest remedies. Among them was “Quinquina” from “Perou,” deemed particularly efficacious, but he interestingly reported that the “Ameriquains” did not recognize it.

His observations on fevers were published at Lyon in 1684 and posthumously in 1687. Spon mentioned that he was an expert on fevers because Lyon includes a swampy area that produces “mauvais air” responsible for fevers, likely malaria. Spon’s book illustrates, for the seventeenth century, a broad quantity of diseases, typically considered as a variety of “fevers.” Contemporary scholars lauded his Observations sur les Fievres, and the workserved as a technical manual for physicians.

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 is held responsible for indirectly causing Spon’s death. Rather than abjure his Calvinist faith, he preferred to leave for Zürich, an illegal move. His money and baggage were stolen from him, and in fragile health, he died of tuberculosis in the canton hospital at Vevey on Christmas Day 1685, at the age of 38.