Johann Conrad Peyer

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Johann Conrad Peyer , also Johann Konrad Peyer , latinized Johannes Conradus Peyer (born December 26, 1653 in Schaffhausen ; † February 29, 1712 ibid), was a Swiss doctor , teacher, anatomist and physiologist.

life and work

Johann Conrad Peyer was born as the fifth of twelve children of the respected Schaffhausen bourgeois family "Peyer mit den Wecken". His father, Hans Konrad Peyer, was director of the Collegium Humanatis, the humanistic grammar school in Schaffhausen, which was donated by the Peyer family. After the early death of his mother, Barbara Ziegler, from the “Ziegler zur Laterne” family in 1663, Peyer accompanied his father to the Maiental , where he was the federal governor in 1664 and 1665 . Then Peyer attended the Collegium Humanatis in Schaffhausen, where he probably acquired his excellent linguistic education. Particularly noteworthy are his knowledge of the Latin expression.

A friend of the family, Johann Jakob Wepfer , who had been a city doctor in Schaffhausen since 1647, was probably Johann Conrad Peyer's role model in his decision to study medicine. From 1673 to 1675 Peyer studied at the Medical Faculty in Basel , where Professor Johann Heinrich Glaser taught at the time . Here Peyer made friends with Johann Jakob Harder and Johannes von Muralt. Because Glaser died of a contagious fever in 1675, Peyer returned to Schaffhausen on the advice of his father. Here he studied and researched for the next two years at the independent medical school in Schaffhausen together with his then friend Johann Conrad Brunner under the guidance of Johann Jakob Wepfer. Preferred object of research of three scientists were the glands of the intestine .

In 1677 Peyer published his first work, the Exercitatio anatomico-medica de glandulis intestinorum earumque usu et affectionibus , in which he described the noduli lymphatici aggregatii of the human small intestine , which he mistakenly believed to be glands. This error persisted until the middle of the 19th century, when Brücke recognized the lymphatic character of the supposed glands. Although Marco Aurelio Severino had already described these structures in 1645 , they are still known today in medicine as “ Peyer's plates ”.

During this two-year creative period at the Schaffhausen Medical School, Peyer recognized the importance of anatomical thinking for pathology. In order to expand his knowledge, Peyer traveled to the strongholds of medical research from 1677 to 1680. From Geneva , where he studied with the Swiss doctor Théophile Bonet (1620-1689) in 1677 , he went to Paris in the same year , where he worked closely with the royal anatomist Joseph Du Verney (1648-1709) for two years and received him developed a friendly relationship. Peyer's stay in Paris coincided with Du Verney's permission for general dissection in the city's hospitals. Compared to Du Verney's predominantly anatomical interests, Peyer was particularly interested in the pathological-anatomical changes in the dissected corpses. Peyer wrote his second publication here, the Methodus Historiarum anatomico-medicarum (1678), a guide to dissection technique.

A letter from Peyer to Muralt dated May 1678 shows that he was already studying ruminants and ruminating in Paris at that time , which he later published in the form of the Merycologia: “ In my leisure time I think and work now again with the ruminatio, a material that is useful and not ungrateful, even if it applies to trivial. "

After completing his educational trip, which took him from Paris via Montpellier , Lyon , Geneva, Bern , Basel, Altdorf , Nuremberg and Augsburg , he spent another year in Schaffhausen before completing his doctorate in Basel in October 1681 . Shortly before that he was accepted into the Academia Caesareo-Leopoldina, the Imperial Leopoldine Academy of Natural Scientists, under the nickname "Pythagoras". In the same year Peyer's work Parerga anatomica et medica septem was published , a compilation of his previous and some other writings. In 1683 a bitter dispute broke out between Peyer and his former friend Johann Conrad Brunner, among other things about the similarity or difference of the structures they described, which was led by both sides, but especially by Peyer's side, with such venom that the contestants even had to be admonished scientifically to exercise moderation.

In addition to his work as a general practitioner in Schaffhausen, Peyer carried out many scientific studies. In 1685 the Merycologia appeared , his most extensive work, which for a long time formed the standard work on the comparative anatomy and physiology of the ruminant stomach and ruminant. In 1690 Peyer became professor for eloquence at the Schaffhausen high school, where he taught logic, rhetoric and medicine. In the same year his writing ceased completely. By accepting this position, Peyer probably hoped to succeed Wepfer as town doctor, but was passed over after his death in 1695. This bitter disappointment led him to resign from his offices at the Collegium Humanatis. But he could be persuaded to continue his activity.

Peyer's wife, Ursula Ziegler, died in January 1706. From this marriage eleven children were born. In March 1706 Peyer suffered a stroke, which began six years of suffering. Paralyzed on one side and handicapped by speech disorders, five more attacks followed, until he finally died on February 29, 1712. After Brunner's appointment to the University of Heidelberg in 1685 and Wepfer's death in 1695, Peyer, the last of the former research trio, left Schaffhausen in 1712, which for half a century helped this town on the Rhine Falls to achieve European fame in the "realm of medicine and natural research."

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Peyer, Johann Konrad. 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. 1132 f.
personal data
SURNAME Peyer, Johann Conrad
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Peyer, Johann Konrad
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss doctor
DATE OF BIRTH December 26, 1653
PLACE OF BIRTH Schaffhausen
DATE OF DEATH February 29, 1712
Place of death Schaffhausen