Govert Bidloo

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Govert Bidloo or Govard Bidloo (Amsterdam, March 12, 1649 - Leiden, March 30, 1713) was a Dutch 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 (Dutch: Ontleding des menschelyken lichaams ). The atlas was illustrated with 105 plates by Gerard de Lairesse, showing the human figure both in living attitudes and as dissected cadavers.

The book was later plagiarized by English surgeon William Cowper 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 Ruysch. He then studied medicine at the University of Franeker, receiving his degree in 1682. In 1688 he became a lecturer of anatomical dissection in The Hague, and in 1690 he was appointed head of the national hospital service, a post he also held in England from 1692. In 1694 he became a professor of anatomy and medicine at the University of Leiden, a position he held until his death in 1713, when he was succeeded by Herman Boerhaave.

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 Moscow.

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.