Bartholin, Caspar

1. Dates

Born: Malmo, Denmark, 12 feb. 1585

Died: Soro, Denmark, 13 July 1629

Dateinfo: Dates Certain

Lifespan: 44

2. Father

Occupation: Court Priest In Malmo

No information on financial status.

3. Nationality

Birth: Malmo, Denmark

Career: Denmark

Death: Soro, Denmark

4. Education

Schooling: Copenhagen; Wittenberg, M.A.; Basel, M.D.; Leiden, Padua.

Educated at Grammar School, 1588-96.

Matriculated at the University of Copenhagen in 1603, but transfered to Wittenberg in 1604.

M.A., 1605.

He then went on an academic grand tour. He was at Leiden, Basel, Padua, Rome, and then back at Basel.

M.D., 1610 at Basel.

D.D., 1626 awarded by the University of Copenhagen.

5. Religion

Affiliation: Lutheran

6. Scientific Disciplines

Primary: Anatomy, Medicine, Natural Philosophy

Works on anatomy: Anatomicae institutiones corporis humani and others. He also wrote extensively on medicine in general.

Works on natural philososphy: Systema physicum, Exercitatio de natura, De principiis rerum naturalium, and others.

7. Means of Support

Primary: Academia, Medicine

Secondary: Patronage

Professor eloquentia at the University of Copenhagen, 1611-13.

Professor of medicine at the University of Copenhagen, 1613-24.

Professor of theology at the University of Copenhagen, 1624-9.

Dean of the University, 1629 (for the second time).

He maintained a medical practice in Copenhagen that included the very upper echelons of society.

8. Patronage

Types: Government Official, Court Official

1611, Chancellor Christen Friis offered Bartholin the chair in Latin at the university.

1619, Bartholin received an order from the king to publish schoolbooks in the different philosophical subjects. As payment he received a canonry in the Roskilde diocese (which I categorize as income from patronage).

After 1610 Bartholin had Holger Rosenkranz (a powerful and influential orthodox theologian who was a member of the royal council, and whom I classify as a governmental official) as patron. It was because of this relationship that Bartholin took up theological studies again.

9. Technological Involvement

Type: Medical Practice

Bartholin worked as a physician in Copenhagen, treating the king, members of the nobility, and others.

In 1619, along with others of the medical faculty, he published "A Short Instruction" on how one should care for himself during the plague.

10. Scientific Societies

Memberships: None

He had connections with Felix Platter, Caspar Bauhin, Jacob Zwinger, Johannes Faber, and corresponded with many other scientists.

Sources

1. V. Ingerslev, Danmarks laeger og laegevaesen, (Copenhagen, 1873- 74), pp.270-4. Dansk Biografisk Leksikon, (Copenhagen, 1979), 1, 470-2.
2. Holger F. Roerdam, Kjoebenhauns Universitets Historle fra 1537 til 1621, (Copenhagen, 1873-77), 8, passim.

Not Available and Not Consulted

1. Ole Peter Grell, "Caspar Bartholin and the Education of the Pious Physician," in Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham, eds. Medicine and the Reformation, (London, 1993), pp. 78-100.

Compiled by:

Richard S. Westfall

Department of History and Philosophy of Science

Indiana University

Note: the creators of the Galileo Project and this catalogue cannot answer email on geneological questions.