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George Cheyne

George Cheyne, 1671-1743, Scottish physician.

Cheyne opened a practice in London in 1702; there he published a number of medical treatises. In 1715 he argued that life cannot be created from inorganic matter; all living things, he reasoned, "must of necessity have existed from all eternity." His notions in this respect are similar to the homonculus theory developed by Charles Bonnet.