Govert Bidloo or Govard Bidloo (
AmsterdamAmsterdam is the capital and largest city of the Netherlands, located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country...
, March 12 1649 -
LeidenLeiden is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland in the Netherlands and has 118,000 inhabitants. It forms a single urban area with Oegstgeest, Leiderdorp, Voorschoten, Valkenburg, Rijnsburg and Katwijk, with 254,000 inhabitants. It is located on the Old Rhine, close to the cities...
, March 30 1713) was a
Dutch Golden AgeThe Golden Age was a period in Dutch history, roughly spanning the 17th century, in which Dutch trade, science, and art were among the most acclaimed in the world.- Causes of the Golden Age :...
physician, anatomist, poet and playwright. He was the personal physician of William III of Orange-Nassau, Dutch stadholder and king of England.
In 1685 he published an anatomical atlas,
Anatomia Humani Corporis . The atlas was illustrated with 105 plates by
Gerard de LairesseGerard or Gérard de Lairesse was a Dutch Golden Age painter and art theorist. He found Apollo and Aurora more worthy subjects than the ordinary milkmaids and lace makers of Vermeer...
, showing the human figure both in living attitudes and as dissected cadavers.
The book was later plagiarized by English surgeon
William CowperWilliam Cowper, FRS was an English surgeon and anatomist, famous for his early description of what is now known as the Cowper's gland....
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.
The son of an Amsterdam pharmacist, Bidloo first studied surgery and in 1670 became a student of the anatomist
Frederik RuyschFrederik Ruysch was a Dutch botanist and anatomist, remembered for his developments in anatomical preservation and the creation of dioramas or scenes incorporating human parts.-Life:...
. He then studied medicine at the
University of FranekerThe University of Franeker was a university in Franeker, West Frisia, presently part of the Netherlands. It was the second oldest university of the Netherlands, founded shortly after Leiden University....
, receiving his degree in 1682. In 1688 he became a lecturer of anatomical dissection in
The HagueThe Hague is the third largest city in the Netherlands after Amsterdam and Rotterdam, with a population of 485,818 and an area of approximately 100 km²...
, and in 1690 he was appointed head of the national hospital service, a post he also held in
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
from 1692. In 1694 he became a professor of anatomy and medicine at the
University of LeidenLeiden University , located in the city of Leiden, is the oldest university in the Netherlands. The university was founded in 1575 by Prince William of Orange, leader of the Dutch Revolt in the Eighty Years' War. The royal Dutch House of Orange-Nassau and Leiden University still have a close...
, a position he held until his death in 1713, when he was succeeded by
Herman BoerhaaveHerman Boerhaave was a Dutch botanist, humanist and physician of European fame. He is regarded as the founder of clinical teaching and of the modern academic hospital. His main achievement was to demonstrate the relation of symptoms to lesions.-Life:He was born at Voorhout near Leiden...
.
William III, Dutch stadholder and king of England, asked Bidloo to become his personal physician in 1695. The king died in his arms on March 8, 1702.
One of Bidloo's students was his nephew Nicolaas Bidloo, who would go on to become the personal physician of Russian czar Peter the Great, and also founded a medical school in
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
.
Bidloo was also a prolific and popular poet, opera librettist, and playwright. He wrote the libretto for the first-ever Dutch opera,
Ceres, Venus en Bacchus (1686) by Johan Schenck. His collected works were published in three volumes after his death.
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