Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 498.5

JOB VAN MEEK'REN (1611-1666) Jobi à Meek’ren, chirurgi Amstelodamensis, Observationes medico-chirurgicae. Ex officina Henrici & viduae Theodori Boom 1682 [16], 392, [6] p. : ill. 17 cm. (8vo)

[Uniform Title: Heel- en geneeskonstige aanmerkkingen (Dutch). Other Titles: Observationes medico-chirurgicae. Alternative author name: Job Janszoon van Meekeren] Amsterdam surgeon, born 1611, Amsterdam; died December 6, 1666. Job Janszoon van Meekeren was a pupil of Nicolaas Tulp (1593-1674). He became a surgeon in 1635 and mainly practiced medicine in his native town. He was both city surgeon, surgeon to the admiralty and the hospital and achieved a great reputation as an operator. Nicolaas Tulp and Albrecht von Haller (1798-1777) called him “chirurgis industrius" and “celebris et candidus chirurgus”, respectively. Under the name “milde Wassersucht” he described a cyst in the spleen. In amputations of limbs he applied artificial bloodlessness, and devised an instrument for the punctation of the hypopyon. Meekeren was also first to record a bone graft. In Chapter 1 of his book he states that he read a report of it in a letter received by the Reverend Engebert Sloot of Slooterdijk from John Kraanwinkel, a missionary in Russia, where the operation had been performed. It consisted of the transplantation of a piece of bone from a dog's skull into a cranial defect in a soldier. Although healing was perfect, the Church ordered the removal of the graft. Author of: Heel- en geneeskonstige aanmerkingen. (Posthumous publication; Amsterdam, C. Commelijn, 1668; Rotterdam, 1730; Haag, 1773.)

Cited references: Waller 6434; Welcome IV p.103; NLM 17th C. 7674

John Martin M.D. Endowment