Rolfinck, Guerner [Werner]

1. Dates

Born: Hamburg, 15 Nov 1599

Died: Jena, 6 May 1673

Dateinfo: Dates Certain

Lifespan: 74

2. Father

Occupation: Cleric

His father, also Guerner Rolfinck, was rector of the Johanneum in Hamburg.

No information on financial status.

3. Nationality

Birth: Hamburg, Germany

Career: Jena, Germany

Death: Jena, Germany

4. Education

Schooling: Wittenberg; Leiden; Padua, Ph.D. and M.D.

He studied philosophy (1616-18) and medicine (from 1618) under Daniel Sennert at Wittenberg.

He then studied at Leiden for 2 years.

He visted Oxford and Paris.

He studied anatomy in Padua for a few years, and in 1625 he received both a Ph.D. and an M.D. from the University of Padua.

5. Religion

Affiliation: Lutheran (assumed).

6. Scientific Disciplines

Primary: Medicine, Botany, Chemistry

Subordinate: Anatomy.

7. Means of Support

Primary: Academia, Medicine

1625 - c.28, practiced medicine and taught anatomy in Venice. After graduating from Padua, he was in such demand as an anatomist that he received the license to teach simultaneously with his degree. In 1628 he received the call to become ordinary professor of medicine at Padua, but he had already returned to Germany.

1628-9, professor of anatomy, University of Wittenberg.

1629-73, professor of anatomy, surgery, and botany, University of Jena.

1639, he was appointed director exercitii chymia, which became a professorship of chemistry in 1641.

He was rector of Jena six times.

He also maintained a personal practice.

1631, he was named director of the botanical garden.

8. Patronage

Type: Court Official

He was evidently called to the court at Weimar once a year to do a public dissection before princes and other interested members of the court. ("Ferder ist bekannt, dass Rolfinck dem Unterricht in der Anatomie so fesselnd zu gestalten wusste, dass er alljährlich an den Hof zu Weimar beschieden wurde, um in Gegenwart benachbarter Fürsten und anderer hoher Persönlichkeiten unter mehrtagigen Festlichkeiten eine Leiche zu seciren," Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, 29, 74.) Giese and von Hagen (p. 104) confirm this. They suggest also that Rolfinck's humoring the court brought him favors. The most obvious of these is the permission Rolfinck obtained, with a recommendation from the prince, to have for dissection all the bodies that the church refused to inter.

9. Technological Involvement

Types: Medical Practice, Pharmacology

He established the first anatomical theater (1629), the botanical garden (1631), and chemical laboratory (1630) at Jena.

He maintained a medical practice.

10. Scientific Societies

Memberships: None

Sources

1. Pagel, Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, 29, 74.
2. A. Hirsch, Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Aerzte aller Zeiten und Voelker (3rd ed., Munich, 1962), 4, 861-2.
3. Partington, 2, 312-14.
4. Max Steinmetz, ed., Geschichte der Universität Jena 1548/58-1958, (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1958), 96b-9b. [LF2833.G389]
5. Ernst Giese and Benno von Hagen, Geschichte der medizinischen Fakultät der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1958).

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.