Govard Bidloo

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Govard Bidloo (1690)

Govard Bidloo , also Govert Bidloo , Godefridus Bidloo and Gottfried Bidloo (born March 12, 1649 in Amsterdam , † March 30, 1713 in Leiden ) was a Dutch surgeon , anatomist , university professor and personal physician. In his younger years he also emerged as a poet in the Dutch Golden Age - he wrote the libretto for the first opera in Dutch. In 1685 he published an anatomical atlas. From 1694 he taught anatomy and surgery in Leiden. From 1695 he was also the personal physician of William III. of Orange-Nassau .

Life

The son of a pharmacist learned surgery in Amsterdam from 1670 and attended lectures by the anatomist Frederik Ruysch . He then studied medicine in Germany, France and in Friesland at the University of Franeker , where he received his doctorate in medicine and surgery in 1682.

Picture board from the anatomy-Atlas ( copperplate with etching )

In 1685, Bidloo published an anatomical atlas, begun in 1676, entitled Anatomia Humani Corporis (Anatomy of the Human Body), the first large-format anatomy atlas to be published after the work of Vesal . Bidloo described, among other things, the papillary ridges on the fingers and thus pioneered the way to the fingerprint technology, which is still important today . But above all, the 105 plates were revolutionary, reproducing anatomical structures in an unprecedented degree true to detail and realistically, excellently drawn by Gerard de Lairesse and engraved by Abraham Blooteling . In 1690 the Dutch edition Ontleding des Menschelyken lichaams followed . Although the illustrations were famous, the work was not a financial success. The publisher was forced to sell the printing plates to make up for his losses.

  • Title page of the Anatomy Atlas (edition 1690)

  • Illustration of the human skeleton

  • Illustration of the human skeleton

On the side, Bidloo was also a prolific and well-known poet, playwright, and librettist . Among other things, he wrote the libretto for the first opera in Dutch - Ceres, Venus en Bacchus , set to music by Johan Schenck in 1686 .

In 1688 he became a lecturer in anatomy in The Hague and gave up his work as a playwright. In 1690 he was appointed head of the national hospital system. He also held this position in England from 1692.

In 1692 Arnout Leers in The Hague published a folio volume illustrated with numerous double-leaf copper plates entitled Relation Du Voyage De Sa Majesté Britannique En Hollande, Et de la Reception qui luy a été faite ... , whose author is considered to be Bidloo. He describes a journey that William III. von Orange-Nassau , governor of the Netherlands and King of England, undertook in the Netherlands between January 31 and April 1691, as well as the story of the Battle of the Boyne .

In 1694 Bidloo became professor of anatomy and medicine at the University of Leiden . He kept the chair until his death. In 1696 he was accepted as a member ( Fellow ) in the Royal Society . Since 1699 he was a corresponding member of the Académie des sciences . One of his students was his nephew Nicolaas Bidloo, who went to Russia in 1703 and worked as Peter the Great 's personal physician .

From 1695 he was also Wilhelm III's personal physician. In 1702 the king died in his arms after a serious riding accident.

In 1698 the English anatomist William Cowper published his Anatomy of the Humane Bodies , a work that earned him great fame but was largely a plagiarism of Bidloo's Atlas. Cowper had neglected any reference to the co-authorship of Bidloo or the illustrator de Lairesse and denied this even after the plagiarism was discovered. This led to a long-running scandal and a bitter argument between Bidloo and Cowper, who accused each other with various pamphlets.

Bidloo died, became blind and impoverished.

Web links

Anatomy Atlas

literature

  • Fenwick Beekman: Bidloo and Cowper, anatomists. In: Annals Med. Hist. 7, 1935, pp. 113-129.
  • Peter W. van der Pas: Govard Bidloo . In: Charles Coulston Gillispie (Ed.): Dictionary of Scientific Biography . tape 15 , Supplement I: Roger Adams - Ludwik Zejszner and Topical Essays . Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1978, p. 28-30 .
  • Reinhard Hildebrand: The anatomical representation in the interaction between anatomist and artist. In: Würzburger medical historical reports 2, 1984, pp. 131–146; here: pp. 132–135.
  • Holger G. Dietrich: Urological anatomy in the picture. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2004, p. 47 f.
  • Axel W. Bauer : Bidloo, Govert. 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. 175 f.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Entry on Bidloo, Govard (1649 - 1713) in the archives of the Royal Society , London
  2. ^ Directory of members since 1666: Letter B. Académie des sciences, accessed on September 20, 2019 (French).
personal data
SURNAME Bidloo, Govard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bidloo, Govert; Bidloo, Godefridus; Bidloo, Gottfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch surgeon, anatomist, university professor and personal physician
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1649
PLACE OF BIRTH Amsterdam
DATE OF DEATH March 30, 1713
Place of death Suffer