JOHANN WIER

JOHANN WIER (1516-1566), physician, born in North Brabant; was distinguished as the first to attack the belief in witchcraft, and the barbarous treatment to which suspects were subjected; the attack was treated as profane, and provoked the hostility of the clergy, and it would have cost him his life if he had not been protected by Wilhelm IV., Duke of Jülich and Clèves, whose physician he was.