Bernhard Siegfried Albinus | |
|---|---|
 Drawn after the original Portrait of Carel Isaak de Moor, and engraved by Ambroise Tardieu | |
| Born | Bernhard Siegfried Weiss 24 February 1697 Frankfurt (Oder), Germany |
| Died | 9 September 1770 (aged 73) Leiden, Netherlands |
| Nationality | German |
| Education | Leiden University |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Anatomy |
| Institutions | Leiden University |
| Doctoral students | Gerard van Swieten |
Bernhard Siegfried Albinus (originally Weiss; 24 February 1697 – 9 September 1770) was a German-born Dutch anatomist. He served a professor of medicine at the University of Leiden like his father Bernhard Albinus (1653–1721). He also published a large-format artistic atlas of human anatomy, with engravings made by Jan Wandelaar.
Bernhard Siegfried Albinus was born at Frankfurt on the Oder where his father, Bernhard Albinus (1653–1721), was professor of the practice of medicine.[1] In 1702 the latter was transferred to the chair of medicine at Leiden University, and it was there that Bernhard Siegfried began his studies in 1709, at the age of 12, having for his teachers such men as Boerhaave and Govert Bidloo.[citation needed] Having finished his studies at Leiden, he went to Paris in 1718, where, under the instruction of Sébastien Vaillant (1669–1722), Jacob Winslow (1669–1760) and Frederik Ruysch,[2] he devoted himself especially to anatomy and botany.[citation needed] After a year's absence he was, on the recommendation of Boerhaave, recalled in 1719 to Leiden to be a lecturer on anatomy and surgery. Two years later, after Johannes Jacobus Rau (1668 - 1719) the former rector of the medical school died on 29 June 1719, Albinus received his position in 1721,[1] and succeeded his father in the professorship of these subjects, and became a teacher of anatomy,[1] his classroom being resorted to not only by students but by many practising physicians.[citation needed] In 1745 Albinus was appointed professor of the practice of medicine, being succeeded in the anatomical chair by his brother Frederick Bernhard (1715–1778), who, as well as another brother, Christian Bernhard (1700–1752), attained distinction.[1] Bernhard Siegfried, who was twice rector of his university, died at Leiden.[1]
Together with Hermann Boerhaave, he edited the works of the physicians Andreas Vesalius and William Harvey. Albinus is known for his Tabulae sceleti et musculorum corporis humani, an exquisitely illustrated volume, which was first published in Leiden in 1747, largely at his own expense. Albinus is thought to have spent 24000 florins for the work. The artist and engraver with whom Albinus did nearly all of his work was Jan Wandelaar (1690–1759). A From 1746 until his death, Wandelaar lived in Albinus's house. In an attempt to increase the scientific accuracy of anatomical illustration, Albinus and Wandelaar devised a new technique of placing nets with square webbing at specified intervals between the artist and the anatomical specimen and copying the images using the grid patterns. Albinus believed in the idea of "homo perfectus", an idealized perfect human model based on which all humans were derived as variants. In order to represent this perfect human, the illustrations were drawn from multiple specimens. Earlier anatomical drawings such as those accompanying Vesalius' work were drawn from single specimens. Albinus preferred athletic slender forms.[3] Tabulae was criticized by such scholars as Petrus Camper, especially for the whimsical backgrounds added to many of the pieces by Wandelaar, but Albinus staunchly defended Wandelaar.[4] Wandelaar made the first of the plates in 1742, well before the publication of the Tabulae, and this included the skeleton superposed in front of a rhinoceros. This was the famous rhinoceros Clara which at that time lived in Leiden and was extremely popular.[5][6]
