ALBINUS, FREDERIK BERNARD

(b. Leiden, Netherlands, 20 June 1715; d. Leiden, 23 may 1778)

anatomy, medicine.

Frederick Bernard. Bernard Albinus’ fourth and youngest son, was born six years before his father’s death. Nothing appears to be known about his early years; he matriculated as a student of literature at Leiden on 15 June 1731. He studied mathematics; philosophy (physics) under W.J. ’s Gravesande; botany under A. van Royen; and medicine under Boerhaave, H. D. Gaubius, and his older brother. He was promoted to doctor of philosophy and of medicine on the same day. 22 December 1740. Thereafter he settled in Amsterdam as a physician.

On 9 August 1745 Frederik was appointed lecturer in anatomy and surgery at the University of Leiden, thereby lighting the burden of his older brother Bernard Siegfried. On 6 December 1747 he became ordinary professor. After his brother’s death he turned over the teaching of anatomy and surgery to E. Sandifort, and taught human physiology himself. The oration with which he opened the physiology course (30 April 1771), De ambulatione, eqque utili, et necessaria, et jucunda, was ridiculed in an anonymous Latin poem and was defended in a pamphlet by P. van Schelle. Frederik’s best-known work is De nautra hominis libellus (1775), a book on human physiology based on the posthumous papers of his brother and on his own research.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Frederik’s writings are De meteoris ignitis (Leiden, 1740); Dissertatio medica inauguralis de deglutitione (Leiden, 1740) ; De amoenitatibus anatomicis (Leiden, 1745) ; De causis dissensionum inter anatomices (Leiden, 1748) : De praestantia chirurgiae (Leiden, 1755) ; De amictus noxis (Leiden, 1767) ; De ambulatione, eaque utili, et necessaria, et jucunda (Leiden, 1771) : Supellex anatomica Bern . Siegfr . Albini (Leiden, 1775) : and De naiura hominis libellus (Leiden, 1775), translated into Dutch as Beschrijring van ’s menschen natuur (Middelburg, 1780) .

II. Secondary Literature. See the following, listed chronologically: P. van Schelle, Tegen den maker van het laffe en eerlooze schimpdicht op F. B. Albinus (Leiden, 1771); Coquebert de Thaizy, “Frédéric Bernard Albinus,” in Nouvelle biographie universelle ancinne et modern,I (1843), 347; A. J van Aa, “Frederik Bernard Albinus,” in Biografisch woorden boek der NederlandenI (n.d.), 160-162; and E. D. Baumann, “Frederik Bernard Albinus,” in Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek,IV (1918), 24-25.

Perter W. van der Pas