Theodor Kerckring

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Theodor Kerckring or Dirk Kerckring (sometimes Kerckeringh or Kerckerinck) (baptized 22 July 1638 - 2 November 1693) was a Dutch anatomist.[1]

Kerckring was born as the son of the Amsterdam merchant and VOC captain Dirck Kerckring and Margaretha Bas (daughter of Dirck Bas, a former mayor of Amsterdam).[2] In the second half of the 1650s he was a pupil at the Latin School in Amsterdam of Franciscus van den Enden (at the same time as the philosopher Benedictus de Spinoza), before studying medicine at Leiden University under Franciscus Sylvius. Already in 1667 he was visited by Cosimo III de' Medici, interested in new developments in science. Several sources reveal that Kerckring remained on good terms with Van den Enden, whose daughter Clara Maria he married in 1671. In order to marry her Kerckring became a Roman Catholic.[3] She must have been a clever woman, because she helped her father teaching Latin, and also Spinoza seems to have been interested in her. She was 27 years old, had a limp and lived at Singel.

Although further details of his early life are sketchy, it is known that he spent much of his medical career prior to 1675 in Amsterdam. Afterwards he travelled throughout continental Europe, settling in Hamburg in 1678. In 1683 he invited his old friend Niels Stensen, once one of the leading anatomists but converted to catholicism and becoming a priest. Both men shared experiences and ideas. Stensen asked the Duke of Tuscany to help Kerckring with a post.

Kerckring is remembered for his Spicilegium anatomicum, which is an anatomical atlas of clinical observations, medical curiosities, autopsy discoveries along with general anatomical information.[4] He is credited with describing Kerckring's ossicles, which is an occasional ossification centre in the occipital bone that appears around the 16th week of gestation. He also provided a comprehensive description of the folds of the mucous membrane of the small intestine. These anatomical folds go by several different names, including the valves of Kerckring, Kerckring's folds, plicae circulares and valvulae conniventes. Kerckringh used a microscope made by Spinoza.

[edit] Works

  • Theodori Kerckringii ... Opera Omnia Anatomica : Continentia Specilegivm Anatomicvm, Osteogeniam Foetvvm Nec Non Anthropogeniæ Ichnographiam ; Accuratissimis Figuris æri incisis illustrata. - Editio secunda. - Lugduni Batavorum
  • Commentarius in currum triumphalem Antimonii Basilii Valentini, a se latinitate donatum. - Amstelodami: Sumptibus Andreæ Frisii, 1671.
  • The Triumphal Chariot Of Antimony / By Basilius Valentinus. With the commentary of Theodore Kerckringius, being the Latin version publ. at Amsterdam ... 1685, transl. into English and German

[edit] External link

[edit] References

  1. ^ Baptismal record
  2. ^ Margaret Gullan-Whur, Jabic Veenbaas Spinoza: een leven volgens de rede, Lemniscaat Publishers 2000, p. 100
  3. ^ Kooymans, L. (2007) Gevaarlijke kennis, p. 325-326.
  4. ^ Kerckring and the Spicilegium anatomicum.