Abraham father

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Copper engraving from the portrait collections of the Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel
Memorial plaque on the house at Schloßstraße 14–15, in Lutherstadt Wittenberg

Abraham father (born December 9, 1684 in Wittenberg , † November 18, 1751 ibid) was a German physician , university professor of anatomy and botany and a philosopher .

Life

Monument to Abraham the father (below) in the Wittenberg Castle Church

Abraham Vater was born in Wittenberg on December 9, 1684 as the son of Christian Vater, a Wittenberg university professor of medicine . His mother Regina Dorothea came from the family of the theologian Abraham Calov , with which his family ties to Wittenberg University were closely linked. After initially receiving training from private teachers and at the grammar school in Merseburg, he began studying medicine at the Wittenberg University in 1702, where he received his master's degree in philosophy in 1706 . In 1709 he was accepted as one of the candidates for medicine, moved to Leipzig University , returned to Wittenberg and received the medical doctorate there in 1710 .

Long-term study trips then took him to various German universities, to England , Amsterdam and Leiden , where he carried out detailed anatomical studies and, above all, made himself familiar with injection technology. In June 1711 he returned to Wittenberg, qualified as a lecturer at Wittenberg University in 1712 and gave private lectures. In 1717 he was appointed associate professor and in 1719 as full professor of anatomy and botany at the same university. His election as a member of the Leopoldina took place in 1712.

In 1733 he devoted himself specifically to anatomy and on May 1, 1736 founded the anatomical museum of the Wittenberg University in the Augusteum . In 1737 he received the professorship in pathology, but left the pathology courses to his colleague Stenzel . In 1746 he became the first professor of therapy and remained until his death on November 18, 1751 as a senior in the medical faculty at Wittenberg University.

In 1722 he was elected a member ( Fellow ) of the Royal Society . In 1728 he was accepted as a foreign member of the Royal Prussian Society of Sciences .

Act

Anatomical room in Wittenberg from “Catalogus universalis” by the copper engraver JG Schumann based on a drawing by the Wittenberg painter Michael Adolph Siebenhaar

Abraham father's name is still present in medical terminology today. Father was considered an excellent scientist, under whose supervision and guidance 52 doctorates were completed in Wittenberg. His numerous works concern botany, chemistry, pharmacology, pathology, therapy, surgery, gynecology and state medicine. Above all, his description of the mouth of the bile duct into the small intestine, published in 1720, which hardly corresponds to the findings of today's medical professionals, has gone down in the history of medicine. This anatomical structure has been called " Papilla Vateri " in memory of the Wittenberg anatomists .

This papilla is a complex closure mechanism that plays an important role in anatomy, pathology and physiology and on which the three organs, pancreas, gall bladder and duodenum, depend. In a dissertation with Lehmann, "De consensu partrium corporis humani" (Wittenberg, 1741), father also describes the father-Pacini probe bodies known under his name, then forgotten and only rediscovered by Pacini in the third decade of the 19th century, as small oval swellings "papillae nerveae". These structures are responsible for the sensation of vibration , especially on the palms and soles of the feet .

Dissertations worth mentioning can also be found in the papers on the mechanism of closing the foramen ovale (1714), on a salivary duct in the tongue (1720, 1723) and on a circular muscle on the base of the uterus (1723). A largely complete list of his father's writings can be found in Biographie medicale Volume 7, pages 400–403. At an early age, his father created descriptive lists of exotic plants, other natural products and anatomical preparations.

In addition to anatomy, he also read botany. It is thanks to him that the preparation collection of the well-known Dutch anatomist Frederik Ruysch , with whom he once studied, came to the Wittenberg University. So his lectures were enriched by this, the university as well as by his private collection. These three academic collections were eventually housed in a special room in the Augusteum . After the University of Wittenberg merged with the University of Halle in 1817, part of the collection came to the Anatomical Institute in Halle.

In addition to the establishment of an anatomical museum, father made a contribution to improving anatomical teaching in Wittenberg by holding anatomical demonstrations for women. Abraham Vater made numerous sections for his scientific work. However, the delivery of corpses caused difficulties. Since 1722 the academy has been allowed to collect the corpses of those who were executed and those who died in the hospital for anatomy purposes if the relatives did not pay the burial costs. The professors had to carry the collection of the corpses and the costs for the later burial themselves. As early as 1748 Abraham Vater demanded the establishment of a clinical institute for teaching.

family

Father married on January 13, 1716 in Wittenberg Sophia Magdalene (nee Zimmermann), the widow of the official pension administrator Samuel Francke. This marriage remained childless. His second marriage was on February 24, 1740 in Dresden with Christina Maria, the daughter of the Saxon court counselor Paul Jacob Marperger. This marriage also remained childless.

Honor taxon

Carl von Linné named the genus Vateria of the wing fruit family (Dipterocarpaceae) in his honor .

Works

  • Dissertatio anatomica qua novum bilis diverticulum circa orificium ductus choledochi ut et valvulosam colli vesicae felleae constructionem ad disceptandum proponit. Wittenberg 1720.
  • Catalogus plantarum inprimis exoticarum horti academici Wittenbergensis . (1721-1724).
  • Catalogus Variorum Exoticorum Rarissimorum Maximam Partem Incognitorum ... quae in museo suo, brevi luci exponendo possidet Abraham father . (Wittenberg, 1726).

literature

  • Heinrich Kühne (text), Heinz Motel (illustrations): Famous personalities and their connection to Wittenberg . Verlag Göttinger Tageblatt, Göttingen 1990, ISBN 3-924781-17-6 .
  • Rotary Club Wittenberg: Famous Wittenberg guests . 2nd edition Wittenberg 1998.
  • Martin Treu , Ralf Torsten Speler, Alfred Schellenberger: Leucorea . Pictures of the history of the university . Leucorea Foundation, Wittenberg 1998, ISBN 3-9804492-6-2 .
  • Corinna Nitz: Wittenberg doctor honored . In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung of June 29, 2001.
  • Doctors from all over the world honor the famous doctor . In: Wittenberger Wochenspiegel , vol. 26 (2001).
  • Nikolaus Müller: The finds in the tower knobs of the town church in Wittenberg . Evangelical bookstore Ernst Holtermann, Magdeburg 1912
  • Rüdiger Schultka , Josef N. Neumann: Anatomy and anatomical collections in the 18th century. On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the birthday of Philipp Friedrich Theodor Meckel (1755–1803) . LIT-Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-8258-9755-0 ( online sample ).
  • Jürgen Helm, Karin Stukenbrock (Hrsg.): Anatomie. Sections of a Medical Science in the 18th Century . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-515-08107-0 ( online reading sample ).
  • Johann Gottlob Wilhelm Dunkel : Historically critical messages from deceased scholars and their writings . Cörnerische Buchhandlung, Koethen, Vol. 1, p. 519; Vol. 3, p. 946
  • Johann Georg Meusel : Lexicon of the German writers who died from 1750 to 1800 . Gerhard Fleischer d. J., Leipzig, 1815, vol. 14 ( online )
  • Walter Wackwitz: Abraham father (1684–1751) . In: Karl von Bardeleben (abbreviation): Anatomischer Anzeiger . G. Fischer, Jena 1985
  • Julius Pagel :  Father, Abraham . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 39, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1895, p. 502 f.
  • Friedrich Börner: News of the noblest living conditions and writings, famous doctors and naturalists living now in and around Germany . Wolfenbüttel 1749 ( online with Google Book Search ).
  • Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Father, Abraham. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1437.

Web links

Commons : Abraham Vater  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Entry on Father, Abraham (1684 - 1751) in the Archives of the Royal Society , London
  2. ^ Carl von Linné: Critica Botanica . Leiden 1737, p. 94
  3. ↑ Carl von Linné: Genera Plantarum . Leiden 1742, p. 235
  4. ^ Special print from the journal of the Association for Church History of the Province of Saxony , vol. 8 (1911)
personal data
SURNAME Father, Abraham
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German medic and philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH December 9, 1684
PLACE OF BIRTH Wittenberg
DATE OF DEATH November 18, 1751
Place of death Wittenberg