Govert Bidloo or Govard Bidloo (12 March 1649 – 30 March 1713) was a

Dutch Golden Age The Dutch Golden Age ( nl, Gouden Eeuw ) was a period in the history of the Netherlands, roughly spanning the era from 1588 (the birth of the Dutch Republic) to 1672 (the Rampjaar, "Disaster Year"), in which Dutch trade, science, and Dutch art, ...

physician, anatomist, poet and playwright. He was the personal physician of

William III of Orange-Nassau William III (William Henry; ; 4 November 16508 March 1702), also widely known as William of Orange, was the sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Stadtholder of County of Holland, Holland, County of Zeeland, Zeeland, Lordship of Utrecht, Utrec ...

, Dutch

stadholder In the Low Countries, ''stadtholder'' ( nl, stadhouder ) was an office of steward, designated a medieval official and then a national leader. The ''stadtholder'' was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and H ...

and King of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

and

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. Bidloo was also a prolific and popular poet, opera

librettist A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major litu ...

, and playwright. He wrote the libretto for the first-ever Dutch opera, ''

Bacchus, Ceres en Venus ''Bacchus, Ceres en Venus'' is a 1686 Dutch-language pastoral opera by Johan Schenck. It is one of the earliest surviving Dutch-language operas, 8 years after with Carolus Hacquart's '' De triomfeerende Min'' (1678). The libretto was by Govert ...

'' (1686) by Johan Schenck. His collected works were published in three volumes after his death. One of Bidloo's students was his nephew

Nicolaas Bidloo Nicolaas Bidloo (c. 1673/74 – 23 March 1735) was a Dutch physician who served as the personal physician of Tsar Peter I of Russia (Peter the Great). Bidloo was the director of the first hospital in Russia as well as the first medical scho ...

, who would go on to become the personal physician of Russian czar

Peter the Great Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...

, and also founded a medical school in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

Life and career

Born into a Mennonite family of

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

, the son and namesake of a hatter, he was the younger brother of the literary apothecary, Lambert Bidloo (1638-1724), a thorough classicist who saw to it that he had a requisite mastery of Latin as well as Dutch. Govert then began his apprenticeship in surgery and in 1670 became a student of the anatomist

Frederik Ruysch Frederik Ruysch (; March 28, 1638 – February 22, 1731) was a Dutch botany, botanist and anatomy, anatomist. He is known for developing techniques for preserving anatomical specimens, which he used to create dioramas or scenes incorporating hum ...

. He then studied medicine at the

University of Franeker The University of Franeker (1585–1811) was a university in Franeker, Friesland, the Netherlands. It was the second oldest university of the Netherlands, founded shortly after Leiden University. History Also known as ''Academia Franekerensis'' o ...

, receiving his degree in 1682. In 1688 he became a lecturer of anatomical dissection in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

, and in 1690 he was appointed head of the national hospital service, a post he also held in

from 1692. In 1694 he became a professor of anatomy and medicine at the

University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Le ...

, a position he held until his death in 1713, when he was succeeded by

Herman Boerhaave Herman Boerhaave (, 31 December 1668 – 23 September 1738Underwood, E. Ashworth. "Boerhaave After Three Hundred Years." ''The British Medical Journal'' 4, no. 5634 (1968): 820–25. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20395297.) was a Dutch botanist, ...

''Anatomia Hvmani Corporis'', 1685

SA 7541-De overlieden van het Amsterdamse Chirurgijnsgilde

In 1685 he published an anatomical atlas, ''Anatomia Hvmani Corporis'' ( nl, Ontleding des menschelyken lichaams) (1690.) ''Anatomia Hvmani Corporis'' described papillary ridges on skin (

fingerprint A fingerprint is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. The recovery of partial fingerprints from a crime scene is an important method of forensic science. Moisture and grease on a finger result in fingerprints on surfac ...

s). This was one of the pioneering scientific observations which laid the foundation of forensic identification using fingerprints. The atlas was illustrated with 105 plates by

Gerard de Lairesse Gerard or Gérard (de) Lairesse (11 September 1641 – June 1711) was a Dutch Golden Age painter and art theorist. His broad range of skills included music, poetry, and theatre. De Lairesse was influenced by the Perugian Cesare Ripa and Fr ...

, showing the human figure both in living attitudes and as dissected cadavers. The book was later plagiarized by English surgeon

William Cowper William Cowper ( ; 26 November 1731 – 25 April 1800) was an English poet and Anglican hymnwriter. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th-century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scen ...

for his ''Anatomy of the Humane Bodies'' (1698), which gave no credit to either Bidloo or de Lairesse. This led to a number of vitriolic exchanges between Bidloo and Cowper, including several pamphlets published in each anatomist's defense. Bidloo contributed to discovery of the life cycle of the

liver fluke Liver fluke is a collective name of a polyphyletic group of parasitic trematodes under the phylum Platyhelminthes. They are principally parasites of the liver of various mammals, including humans. Capable of moving along the blood circulation, t ...

Fasciola hepatica ''Fasciola hepatica'', also known as the common liver fluke or sheep liver fluke, is a parasitic trematode (fluke or flatworm, a type of helminth) of the class Trematoda, phylum Platyhelminthes. It infects the livers of various mammals, inc ...

''. He observed

worm Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and no eyes (though not always). Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine polychaete wor ...

s of an identical anatomy in

bile duct A bile duct is any of a number of long tube-like structures that carry bile, and is present in most vertebrates. Bile is required for the digestion of food and is secreted by the liver into passages that carry bile toward the hepatic duct. It ...

s of

sheep Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus ''Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated s ...

, calves,

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...

and humans. He also observed the presence of eggs inside the body of an unknown worm, later recognized as ''F. hepatica''.

William III William III or William the Third may refer to: Kings * William III of Sicily (c. 1186–c. 1198) * William III of England and Ireland or William III of Orange or William II of Scotland (1650–1702) * William III of the Netherlands and Luxembourg ...

, Dutch

and

king of England The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the constitutional form of government by which a hereditary sovereign reigns as the head of state of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies (the Bailiw ...

, asked Bidloo to become his personal physician in 1695. The king died in his arms on 8 March 1702. He was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

of London in 1696. He died, aged 64, in

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...

Gallery

References

Sources

University of Glasgow
(Dutch) * ttps://web.archive.org/web/20070930120701/http://www.griffioen.biz/argeweb/downloads/jaarverslag%202004.doc Stichting Medisch en Farmaceutisch Museum De Griffioen(Dutch)

External links

US National Institutes of Health: Historical Anatomies on the Web
Govert Bidloo's ''Anatomia Humani Corporis (Ontleding des menschelyken lichaams)''
''Godefridi Bidloo, Medicinae Doctoris & Chirurgi, Anatomia Hvmani Corporis: Centum & quinque Tabvlis Per artificiosiss. G. De Lairesse ad vivum delineatis, Demonstrata, Veterum Recentiorumque Inventis explicata plurimisque, hactenus non detectis, Illvstrata''
105 illustrations. Amsterdam 1685
Selected images from ''Anatomia humani corporis''
From The College of Physicians of Philadelphia Digital Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Bidloo, Govert 1649 births 1713 deaths 17th-century Dutch anatomists 17th-century Dutch physicians 17th-century Dutch dramatists and playwrights 17th-century Dutch poets Dutch male poets Opera librettists Physicians from Amsterdam Writers from Amsterdam University of Franeker alumni Leiden University faculty Fellows of the Royal Society Dutch male dramatists and playwrights 17th-century male writers