Jakob Ruf

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Jakob Ruf (* around 1505 in Constance ; † February 20, 1558 in Zurich ), also Jakob Ruef , Jakob Rueff , Jakob Ruoff a . Ä., was a Swiss surgeon , obstetrician and writer of southern German origin.

Life

Jakob Ruf grew up in poor conditions in Constance. At a young age he entered the Chur monastery . The Reformation induced him to leave the monastery in 1526. He trained as a master shearer in Konstanz and Lindau and became a specialist in operating on inguinal and testicular hernias and bladder stones .

After the death of his predecessor in the battle of Kappel , Ruf applied to the Zurich council, which hired him in 1532 as a city surgeon and accepted him as a city citizen . From 1535 he worked as a "Stubenhitzer" (he paid an annual heating fee) in the drinking room of the respected Constaffel Society in the Haus zum Rüden . In 1539 he joined the "Black Garden", the subsection for bathers and shearers within the Schmidenzunft .

Zum Damhirschli , Neumarkt 24 ("green" house, left)

In 1547, Heinrich Bullinger suspected Ruf of helping the Reformed with the denominational tensions ( Schmalkaldic War ) in southern Germany. Zurich could not stand by its Reformed fellow believers because after the defeat at Kappel it did not want to risk another confrontation with Catholic Central Switzerland. After the defeat by Habsburg, Konstanz became Catholic again. Ruf wrote his Konstanzerlied .

In 1552 Ruf as a craft surgeon was appointed interim city doctor by the Zurich council because no doctor trained at a university was available. His duties included treating internal illnesses and supervising midwives in Zurich. His famous midwifery textbook “Trostbüchlein” was created during this time. In 1554 he was replaced by Conrad Gessner . Jakob Ruf lived in the houses Dammhirschli and Stelzlein (today Neumarkt No. 24 and 28) and owned a meadow in Fluntern .

plant

In addition to his medical activities, Ruf was active as a writer and culturally. He wrote important medical manuals, for example the textbook on obstetrics , in which he first referred to the placenta previa as an obstacle to childbirth , or the ophthalmology tract. He interpreted extraordinary phenomena, wrote leaflets and songs as well as a series of plays with Reformation concerns and political functions, which he himself staged in Zurich.

City surgeon and medical writer

Ruf's writings reflect the spirit of optimism in medicine at the time of the Reformation. He imparted new anatomical knowledge and specialized surgical craft for interested urban laypeople. The numerous recipes integrated into Ruf's work are of great importance for the history of pharmacy in the early modern period.

Embryonic development, consolation booklet, woodcut, 1554
  • In 1544/1545 he created a handwritten list of doctors and astrologers with 450 famous names since antiquity. It is dedicated to the two city doctors Christoph Klauser and Conrad Gessner . In close connection with this is a three-part series of leaflets with decorative portraits of astrologers and doctors (woodcut: Heinrich Vogtherr; text: Jakob Ruf).
  • The manuscript on Ophthalmology Practica in Arte Ophtalmica Copiosa was created in 1545. It gives insights into the knowledge of ophthalmology in the 16th century, the surgical and pharmacotherapeutic possibilities.
  • In 1554 the Trostbüchlein , a midwifery textbook , was printed in German for midwives and in Latin for doctors and scholars. The complete edition also contains the archival material on the use of the textbook in the city of Zurich, the texts on international reception and the entire iconography (woodcuts from the 1554 edition by Christoph Froschauer : Jos Murer; woodcuts from the 1580 edition by Sigmund Feyerabend: Jost Ammann).
  • In 1556 the tumor book appeared . Even in the 17th century it found interest among the members of the Amsterdam Surgeons' Guild, for whom it was printed in Dutch translation.
  • All medical works contain numerous illustrations ( pen drawings , woodcuts ) for anatomical visualization.

Theater maker and director

The theatrical performances, which take place every few years, were a major social event in which almost all of the then 5,000 people in Zurich took part. Guests were invited from the neighboring federal cities. The play was played by laypeople in the open air on the Münsterhof next to the Fraumünster and lasted one to two days. These popular performances served as mass media for the collective consensus building of the city population and the socialization of the boys.

  • In 1538 Ruf's play Etter Heini was written , which was not premiered until 1978 because of his polemics against Catholicism and rice running .
  • His first play Weingarten was performed on Whit Monday 1539 .
  • A play by the chaste Paulina from before 1545 has not survived.
  • The 1545 Protestant Passion Play about the Passion of Christ may never have been performed.
  • Ruf's Theater Wilhelm Tell was performed and published with great success in 1545.
  • The song by Mrs. Schwätzerin was written after 1545.
  • His most elaborate theater, Adam and Eve , was performed and printed in 1550. Ruf received an award for this play and his last directorial work in and for the city of Zurich.

Forecasters and critic of addiction to characters

In the 16th century the prevailing view was that extraordinary natural phenomena and events provided information about the relationship between man and God. Miscarriages among humans and animals, certain heavenly constellations and devil phenomena were of equal importance in this regard. Due to his medical and astrological knowledge and his practical experience, Ruf was predestined to interpret such phenomena and to give the population appropriate instructions. He was a comparatively sober interpreter of signs. One of Ruf's most important messages is the warning to be careful with all sign interpretations (in his last text in general).

  • Since 1543 Ruf wrote numerous calendars and prognostic writings (presumably this task of the town doctor was delegated to Ruf by Christoph Klauser). Overall, the Zurich calendars written by Ruf (they come from the possession of Wolfgang Haller ) are among the most important holdings of so-called writing calendars from this period.
  • He explained and interpreted the Schaffhausen freak in a leaflet . From the difficult circumstances of the birth of Siamese twins , Ruf raised the postulate that obstetricians should have better training. Years later he contributed to the professionalization of midwives through his obstetrics textbook.
  • In 1544 the leaflets appeared about a moon phenomenon in Wil and a Glarus sun phenomenon . Text and image documents have been preserved from the latter that provide information about the political conflict potential of leaflets; they are edited in the complete edition.
  • Ruf was interested in the malformations out of the scientific interests of the time and presented the first systematic "monster collection" (in text and images, as part of the obstetrics book published in 1554). It was later used by Ambroise Paré and others without any reference to reputation.
  • The Fisch-Sprüche , published in 1555, contained dietary information about different types of fish. Ruf's sayings were reused in the printing of Gregor Mangolts Fischbuch; it is unclear what role Conrad Gesner played in conveying the manuscript.

To write the name

Jakob Ruf's name was usually spelled “Ruoff” during his lifetime, in accordance with the Swiss pronunciation and the federal language of the time. Since then, several spelling variants such as “Jacob Rueff”, “Jacob Ruof” etc. have become established in research. This made identification much more difficult and caused, for example, confusion with Walther Hermann Ryff from Strasbourg. That is why the Zurich research group, which, under the direction of Hildegard Elisabeth Keller, edited the entire work for the first time, introduced the modernized spelling “Jakob Ruf”. Brian Murdoch had already advocated this standardization.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jacob Rueff: A nice and funny consolation book about the kisses and births of people [...]. Zurich (Christoph Froschauer) 1554; Reprint, with an introduction by Huldrych M. Koelbing , Zurich 1981.
  2. ↑ Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Rueff (Ruoff, Ruff, Ryff), Jakob. 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. 1274.
  3. ^ Jacob Ruëff: Practica in arte ophthalmica copiosa. Zurich, around 1550 (bound to: Caspar Stromayr : Practica copiosa von dem Rechts Grundt deß Bruch Schnidts. Lindau 1559–1567) Ed. By Werner Friedrich Kümmel, Gundolf Keil and Peter Proff, Munich 1978 and Darmstadt 1994.
  4. ↑ Iacobus Rueffus: De conceptu et generatione hominis. De matrice et eius partibus […]. Frankfurt am Main 1587; Reprint Stuttgart no year
  5. ↑ Complete edition
  6. ↑ www.hildegardkeller.ch: Jakob Ruf - who he was and who wasn't , section "Jacob Rüf, Ruëff, Rüeff, Ryef, Ruoff, Ruof?"
  7. ↑ Jakob Ruf. Life, Work and Studies. Editor's website, accessed March 5, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Shout, Jacob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss surgeon and writer
DATE OF BIRTH around 1505
PLACE OF BIRTH Constancy
DATE OF DEATH February 20, 1558
Place of death Zurich