ALBINUS, BERNARD

(b. Dessau, Anhalt, Germany, 7 January 1653; d. Leiden, Netherlands, 7 September 1721)

medicine.

The family name originally was Weiss; the poet historian Petrus Weiss (1534-1598), a granduncle of Bernard’s latinized the name to Albinus. Bernard’s father, Christophorus Albinus, was mayor of Dessau. Bernard was first educated by a private tutor and later attended the public school, where Heinrich Alers was appointed teacher at the Bremen Athenaeum, Bernard followed him there. On 26 April 1675 he matriculated as a student of medicine at the University of Leiden, where he received the M. D. degree on 12 May 1676; the subject of his dissertation was catalepsy. Thereafter he traveled for four years in the Netherlands and France to learn the latest developments in anatomy, surgery, and medicine. Soon after his return to Dessau, he was appointed professor of medicine at the University of Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, where he started teaching on 13 January 1681. He was awarded a ph. D. degree on 16 April 1681.

Bernard’s career as a professor was interrupted twice, first when he was appointed court physician to the elector of Brandenburg, Friedrich Wilhelm a post he held until the elector’s death on 29 April 1688, and for the second time when he was appointed court physician to Elector Friedrich (later Frederick I of Prussia) in 1697. In 1702 he was invited to teach theoretical and practical medicine at the University of Leiden, where he began work on 19 October 1702. The teaching of Bernard Albiuns and of Hermann Boerhaave, who had been appointed one year earlier, laid the foundation for the fame of Leiden as a world center for the study of medicine. In 1696 Bernard married the daughter of a Frankfurt professor, Susanna Catherina Ring. They had seven daughters and four sons, three of whom became known as anatomists.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Bernard Albinus’ writings include Dissertatio epistolica de elephantia Javae nova quam disputations publicae loco, resp. Joh, Chr. Mentzel (Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, 1683)-H. Sallander, in Bibliotheca Walleriana (Stockholm, 1955), nos, 323-335, lists 12 more Frankfurt dissertations, dated between 1684 and 1696; Oratio de ortu et progressu medicinae; cum in Academia Lugduno-Batava medicinae theoretico-practicae professionem, die xix Octobris MDCCII, auspicaretur (Leiden, 1702); Oratio de incrementis et statu artis medicae seculi decimi septimi, dictaat diem vidus Februar. MDCCXI, cum magistratu academico se abdicaret (Leiden, 1711); and Oratio in obitum Johannis Jocobi Rau (Leiden, 1719).

II. Secondary Literature. For a discussion of the Albinus family, see A. Hirsch, “Bernhard Albinus,” All gemeine deutsche Biographie, I (1875), 221-222; and J. E. Kroon, “Enkele aanteekeningen uit de geschiedenis van een beroemd anatomen geslacht,” in Bijdragen tot de geschiedenis der geneeskunde, 3 (1923), 328-330.

Works on Bernard Albinus are the following, listed chronologically: H.Boerhaave, Oratio academica de vita et obitu viri clarissimi Bernhardi Albini et decreto Magnifici Retoris et Semitax Academici habita xxii Sept.anniMDCCXXI(Leiden, 1721); F.Chaussier and N.P.Adelon. “Bernard Albinus,” in Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne,I(1843),346; A.J.van der Aa, “Bernardus Albinus,” in Biografisch woordenboek der Nederlandsch,I(n.d).156-157; and E.D.Baumann, “Bernard Albinus,” in Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek,IV(1918), 21-22.

Peter W. van der Pas