Herman Niklas Grim

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Herman Niclas Grim.

Herman Niklas Grim (also Hermann Nicolaus Grimm , Hermannus Nicolaus Grimmius , * 1641 in Visby ; † 1711 Stockholm ) was a Swedish traveler to the East Indies, doctor and naturalist who wrote important writings on plants and medicinal products in Asia and southern Africa.

Life

Herman Niklas Grim was born in Visby (also Wisby) on the west coast of the Swedish island of Gotland as the son of field warden Nils Grim. He first studied in Copenhagen with the well-known alchemist and physician Olaus Borrichius ( Ole Borch , 1626–1690), one of the founders of experimental science in Denmark. The connection between chemistry and medicine was to shape his future path in life. Then went to the Netherlands, where he completed his studies in Leiden in 1662 with the medical exam. In the same year he also stayed briefly in Bordeaux. He then took part in an expedition to Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean. According to some remarks in his Compendium Medico-Chymicum , he was the first surgeon on a ship in the service of the Dutch East India Company in 1664 and arrived in Batavia , the main base of the Dutch in Asia, during the following year .

Between 1667 and 1682 Grim worked for an unexplained period of time in the laboratory of the Batavian pharmacies operated for the company by the medic Andreas Cleyer as a 'doctor chimicus'. Here he met Johann Otto von Hellwig , a doctor of medicine from Kölleda , who was no less ambitious and scrutinized the world of East Asia. At least in the years 1674/75 Grim was stationed in the Colombo hospital on Ceylon (now Sri Lanka ), which at the time was under the control of the East India Company.

Grim summarized the results of his research into the Materia Medica in Ceylon in the “Laboratorium Chymicum, Gehouden op het voortreffelycke Eylandt Ceylon”, which was printed in Batavia in 1677 at the company's expense. This was the first significant scientific work on Ceylon. The suggestion for this certainly came from Cleyer, who was responsible for supplying the company with medicines and who had some difficulty in providing sufficient quantities at reasonable prices. The Amsterdam Pharmacopoeia ( Pharmacopoeia Amstelredamensis ) has been a binding standard for several decades . That is why most of the funds came from the Netherlands at high cost. Bottle breakage was not uncommon, and the humidity and heat of southern latitudes affected the quality of the substances. Grim now presented medicines from Ceylon that could be used as a substitute for European deliveries. Cleyer wasn't ungrateful. At the beginning of 1678 he delegated the visitations of the Batavian medical profession to Grim and thus gave him an increase in salary. In 1679 Grim's “Compendium medico-chimicum, seu accurata medendi methodus” appeared. On November 19 of the same year, Cleyer concluded his own declaration on the use of East Indian drugs, addressed to the Governor General and the 'Council of India', including an extensive list, which “in various quarters of India vallen en wat voor compositien uyt deselven ten services van d'eed. East Ind. Compagnie alhier can have been made ”. Grim took up this question again later and in 1684 added a “Pharmacopoeia Indica” with local resources to the second edition of the “Compendium medico-chymicum” printed in Augsburg.

Illustration to Grimm's work "Pisum Indicum" (Miscellanea Curiosa, Dec. 2, Ann. 3)

In May 1681 Grim was sent as a mountain ridge to Sillida (today Painan) on the west coast of Sumatra. The Dutch doctor Willem ten Rhijne was also present as a visitator . The company tried to promote gold mining on the island, but the grueling climate took a heavy toll. "In the Jammer-Thale mine you can find sickness everywhere", rhymed the 'mountain writer' Elias Hesse and added to his diary a list of the miners from Saxony who moved with him to Sumatra in 1680 and died there. Even Johann Wilhelm Vogel , a German fellow, ill soon so much that found on Sumatra 'Medici and Chirurgi "desperate. The Commisarius Pit showed compassion and sent "at the end of the day Mr. D. Hermannum Nicolaum Grimm, a famous Medicum who came with him from Batavia in his company and attended the Commission as a councilor". Grim, who recommended a transfer to Batavia, stayed in Sumatra until February 1681. Some of his observations were published in 1686 under the title "Minera auri et argenti sumatrensis". He was no longer interested in renewing the expiring contract with the company. On October 5, 1681, he received permission to travel home with his wife and family. The following year he arrived in Amsterdam.

For a short time Grim worked as a doctor in the Netherlands, after which he is said to have been in Nuremberg. In 1683 he became a provincial doctor in Södermanland , Sweden , then a physician in the county of East Friesland, then a garrison doctor in Tönningen (Holstein-Gottorp). Eventually he moved to Gotland , and five years later to Stockholm, where he was accepted into the Collegium medicum (Collegium medicorum), an organization of doctors that had been raising medical standards since 1662. In 1710 he was appointed plague doctor and succumbed to this disease the following year.

In the ephemeris of the Leopoldina and in Thomas Bartholin's “Acta Medica & Philosophica Hafniensia” there are a considerable number of Grim's observations on plants, including the camphor and cinnamon tree, on the gold and silver deposits on Sumatra and on the Ceylon rhinoceros.

Honors

In 1758, in Grimm's honor, Carl von Linné named the duiker, the crown duiker, first described by him in 1686, Sylvicapra grimmia .

Works

  • Laboratorium chymicum: gehouden op het voortreffelycke Eylandt Ceylon, soo in't animal, vegetable, as mineral Ryck. Wordende detriebheben niet alleen de preparations of the selve trouwelyck op-geteyckent, maer oock desselver gebruyck, en hoedanigh sy moeten been adhibeert. Serving dead een bewys, hoe dat men de swaere Eysschen te vooren gedaen, reducing grootelycks, en van betere can serve. Door Hermannus Nicolai Grim, Medicinae Doctor, in the service of the Edele Nederlandtsche Oost-Indische Compagnie. Batavia. Printed by Abraham van den Eede, Boeck printer of the E. Compagnie, […] Anno 1677. (digitized version of the Bavarian State Library)
  • Insulæ Ceyloniæ Thesaurus Medicus, Vel Laboratorium Ceylonicum / A Bartholomeo Pielat, Medicinæ Doctore, Latinitate donatum. Amstelodami: Apud Henricum & Theodorum Boom, 1679.
  • Pharmacopoeia Indica, in qua continentur medicamenta in Compendio medico allegata, quæ ex simplicibus in India crecentibus composita & ad Indorum morbos directa sunt. Augustæ Vindelicorum [= Augsburg], 1684.
  • Hermanni Nic. Grimm, Medicinae Doctoris, Compendium Medico-Chymicum, Seu Accurata medendi Methodus, quae excellentissimis Medicamentis, tam Europae, quam Indiae Orientali proficuis, repleta, rariores Observationes, & curiosam optimorum Medicamentorum, in libelli huius formulis exhibitorum, // Grimmationem Hermannet Nicolaus. Augustae Vindelicorum: Göbelius / Schönigius, 1684 (digitized version of the University Library of Marburg)

Publications in the Miscellanea curiosa sive ephemeridum medico-physicarum Germanicarum Academiae Caesareo-Leopoldinae Naturae Curiosorum :

  • De Planta mirabili distillatoria. Decuria II, Annus I, Observatio 142
  • De arbore Benzoini. Decuria II, Annus I, Observatio 152
  • De Arbore Camphorae. Decuria II, Annus I, Observatio 153
  • Anatomy of coralloides. Decuria II, Annus I, Observatio 173
  • De Cocco de Maldive & Mozambique, cortice Santali citrini, Rusa Raji nigra & alba, cortice Soeda, cortice contra pleuretidem. Anatomy of coralloides. Decuria II, Annus I, Observatio 175
  • De Convolvulo sylvatico flore albo. Anatomy of coralloides. Decuria II, Annus III, Observatio 206
  • De Aristolochia clematite. Decuria II, Annus III, Observatio 207
  • De Zedoar Zeylanico. Decuria II, Annus III, Observatio 208
  • De Cinnamomo veterum. Decuria II, Annus III, Observatio 209
  • De planta stercorina. Decuria II, Annus III, Observatio 210
  • De Arachidna. Decuria II, Annus III, Observatio 211
  • De Piso Indico majori coccineao. Decuria II, Annus III, Observatio 212
  • De Rore Indico. Decuria II, Annus IV, Observatio 56
  • De Capra Sylvestri Africana. Decuria II, Annus IV, Observatio 57
  • De Mercurii praestantia medica. Decuria II, Annus IV, Observatio 58
  • De Minera auri & argenti Sumatrensi. Decuria II, Annus V, Observatio 37

Publications in Acta Medica & Philosophica Hafniensia :

  • LXXXIX. De Spir cornu Rhinocerotis. Ex epist. Hermanni Nicolai Grim. Nagapatnam Indian Orient. September 22, 1674 ad D. Olaum Borrichium. Annus 1674, 1675, 1676, vol. III. & IV:
  • XC. De arbore Cinomomi. Ex Ejusdem Literis Columbae scriptis 8th September 1675 ad. Eundem. Annus 1674, 1675, 1676, vol. III. & IV:
  • Ex Ejusdem literis Columbae in Insula Ceylon scriptis 8.Dec.1675. ad ejundem. Annus 1674, 1675, 1676, vol. III. & IV:

Publications

  • Biografiskt lexicon öfver namnkunnige svenske men. Femte Bandet, Upsala: Leffler och Sebell, 1839.
  • Herman Hofberg: Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon. Stockholm: A. Bonniers, 1906.
  • Jap Tjiang Beng: About Indonesian folk medicine using the Pharmacopoeia Indica of Hermann Nikolaus Grim (m) 1684. Frankfurt am Main: Govi-Verlag, 1965.
  • Christian Gottlieb Jöcher: General scholarly lexicon. Leipzig: Gleditsch, Vol. II, 1751, Col. 1186.
  • Eva Kraft: Andreas Cleyer. Diary of the office in Nagasaki on the island of Deshima October 20, 1682 - November 5, 1683. Bonn, 1985.
  • Wolfgang Michel: Hermann Nicolaus Grim. In: W. Michel / B. Terwiel (ed.): Engelbert Kaempfer Werke, Today's Japan. Munich: Iudicium, 2001, Vol. 1/2, pp. 119-120.
  • Dirk Schoute: De geneeskunde in the service of the Oost-Indische Compagnie in Nederlandsch-Indië. Amsterdam: de Bussy, 1929.
  • Johann Wilhelm Vogels [...] toes = yearlings East = Indian trip = description [...]. Altenburg: Johann Ludwig Richter, 1704.

Remarks

  1. ↑ The authors of the articles in the reference works differ with regard to the dates of his studies and the trip (s) to East India, but one should follow Grim's own information in the Compendium Medico-Chymicum .
  2. ↑ Compendium Medico-Chymicum , pp. 315, 113f.
  3. ↑ See the letters from Ceylon in Thomas Bartholin's "Acta Medica & Philosophica Hafniensia" from the years 1674–1677.
  4. ↑ Schoute, p. 157; Kraft (1985), pp. 39, 42
  5. ↑ The writing is guarded in the Nationaal Archief, The Hague (VOC No. 1341, fol. 760).
  6. ↑ Kraft (1985), p. 57, note 102
  7. ↑ Vogel (1704), p. 176. Grim cultivated friendly relations with Ten Rhyne, as his dedication in the Compendium Medico-Chymicum shows.
  8. ↑ Quoted from Naber (1930-32), Volume X, Elias Hesse, Gold-Bergwerke in Sumatra 1680–1683, pp. 187 and 189ff.
  9. ↑ JW Vogel (1704), p. 180.
  10. ↑ Kraft (1985), p. 57, note 102
  11. ↑ First mentioned by Jöcher.
personal data
SURNAME Grim, Herman Niklas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grimm, Hermann Nicolaus; Grimmius, Hermannus Nicolaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Doctor, naturalist, traveler to India, author of important works on plants and medicinal products in Asia
DATE OF BIRTH 1641
PLACE OF BIRTH Visby
DATE OF DEATH 1711
Place of death Stockholm