Peter Camper

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Peter Camper around 1780

Peter Camper or Pieter Camper , Latinized Petrus Camper (born May 11, 1722 in Leiden , † April 7, 1789 in Haag ), was a Dutch physician , including anatomist, and botanist.

Live and act

Camper was the son of Florentius Camper (1675-1748), a wealthy minister in Leiden, who made a profitable profit from the Dutch East India Company (VOC) between 1702 and 1713 , and his wife Sara Geertruida Ketting (1689-1748 ).

Before Camper studied medicine in Leiden from 1734, he first studied languages ​​and mathematics in his hometown. He received his PhD in both philosophy and medicine on the same day in 1746. Throughout his life he was in exchange on philosophical questions with Frans Hemsterhuis , a representative of Sir Isaac Newton's experimental philosophy , and shared questions with Willem Jacob 's Gravesande and Peter van Musschenbroek . After a short time as a general practitioner in Leiden, he went on a study trip to London in 1748 , where he came into contact with almost all the important scientists of his time. In 1749 he went to Paris and also met Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon .

During his time in Paris Camper was appointed professor of philosophy in Franeker in 1749 and a few weeks later in 1750 professor of anatomy and surgery.

In 1755 he became Professor of Surgery in Amsterdam and in 1763 Professor of Surgery and Botany in Groningen .

In 1773 he resigned his office, privatized in Franeker and went on trips. From 1771 he was a member of the Académie des Sciences . In 1779 he was elected a foreign member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . After becoming a member of the State Council in 1787 , he moved to The Hague, where he died in 1789. In 1783 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh , in 1788 a foreign member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and in 1789 a member of the American Philosophical Society . Since 1778 he was an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg .

He wrote: Demonstrationes anatomico-pathologicae (The Hague 1760–62, 2 parts, each with 4 large copper plates); De claudicatione (Groningen 1763); Dissertatio de callo ossium (Groningen 1765). A collection of his writings (3 volumes and an atlas) appeared in Paris in 1803 . Among other things, his writings formed the basis for a new branch of anatomy - craniometry .

Peter Camper tried to trace the proportions of the human face shape back to certain principles. The concept of Camper's angle of view for the description of prognathies and a reference plane named after him on the human skull ( Camper's plane ), which runs on the bony skull from the spina nasalis anterior inferior to the meatus acousticus externus , testify to his physiognomic studies .

Illustration of the Camper's plane based on an engraving from Peter Camper's work On the Natural Difference of Facial Features in People of Different Areas and Different Ages from 1792. The Camper's plane is highlighted in orange.

At an early age he also tried drawing and painting with oil paints , etched many small sheets of paper and wrote about the connection between anatomy and the drawing arts. He earned a major merit through his large-format anatomical and osteological drawings, many of which still exist.

Camper was also very committed to theoretical and practical architecture ; Exceptional for his time, he tried his hand at sculpture at the age of 50 .

Works (selection)

  • Demonstrationum anatomico-pathologicarum liber primus, continens brachii humani fabricam et morbos. Amsterdam 1760-1762.
  • Notes on the inoculation of the leaves. Leipzig 1772.
  • De Hominis Varietate.
    • German version by Samuel Thomas von Soemmering : About the natural difference in facial features in people of different areas and ages. About the beauty of antique statues and cut stones, in addition to a representation, a new way of drawing all kinds of human heads with certainty. Vossische Buchhandlung, Berlin 1792.
  • Natural history of the orangutang and some other species of monkeys, the African rhinoceros and the reindeer. with coppers , translated into German, and with the author's latest observations, edited by JFM Herbell. Dänzer, Düsseldorf 1791. Digitized edition of the University and State Library of Düsseldorf

Literature (selection)

  • LWR Kobes: Source study on Peter Camper and the skull plane named after him. In: German Dental Journal. Volume 38, 1983, pp. 268-270.
  • AG Camper: News on the life story of Mr. Peter Camper. In: Society of Friends of Natural Science in Berlin. Volume 10, Wilhelm Vieweg, Berlin 1792, pp. 117-153. (on-line)
  • Werner E. Gerabek : Camper, Petrus. 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. 228 f.

Web links

Commons : Petrus Camper  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Genealogical data
  2. ↑ AJ Van der Aa: Biographical Woordenboek der Nederlanden. deel 3, JJ van Brederode, Haarlem 1858: 66
  3. ↑ Werner E. Gerabek: Camper, Petrus. 2005, p. 228 f.
  4. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 55.
  5. ^ Members of the previous academies. Pieter Camper. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences , accessed on March 4, 2015 .
  6. ↑ Member History: Pieter Camper. American Philosophical Society, accessed May 28, 2018 .
  7. ^ Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1724. Petrus Camper. Russian Academy of Sciences, accessed September 3, 2015 .
  8. ↑ Kornelia Grundmann: The Race Skull Collection of the Marburg Museum Anatomicum as an example for the craniology of the 19th century and its development up to the time of National Socialism. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 13, 1995, pp. 351-370; here: p. 351 f.
personal data
SURNAME Camper, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Camper, Petrus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch medic
DATE OF BIRTH May 11, 1722
PLACE OF BIRTH Suffer
DATE OF DEATH April 7, 1789
Place of death The hague