Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 880

ALBRECHT VON HALLER (1708-1777) Anatomen cadaveris virilis indicit ad diem XXIII Februar. MDCCXLI. et tabulam novam diaphragmatis addit. Typis Abram Vandenhoeck 1741] [8] pp., fold. plate. 36.8 cm.

Albrecht von Haller was one of the intellectual giants of the eighteenth century and, indeed, one of the most accomplished men of all time. He was born in Bern and educated at Tübingen and Leiden. His accomplishments in medicine, surgery, anatomy, physiology, botany, literature, bibliography, and public service were simply enormous, and he achieved distinction in all of them. Any one of his major works, Primae lineae physiologiae (1747), Elementa physiologiae corporis humani (8 vols., 1757-1766), Icones anatomicae (8 vols., 1743-1756), or his exhaustive bibliographies in twenty volumes, would have been enough to occupy the lifetime of a lesser man, but Haller carried on a vast correspondence with hundreds of scientists, wrote thousands of reports, composed poetry which was a landmark in the development of German literature, wrote on the history of medicine, and was active in public affairs. This brief and little-known anatomical work first appeared in the 1738 edition of Swammerdam's book on respiration (see No. 602) and was included in Haller's later anatomical treatises. The text has been prepared to correspond with the reference letters and numbers on the large foldout plate of the diaphragm drawn by Haller's fellow-physician, C. J. Rollinus.

See Related Record(s): 602

Cited references: Osler 1150; Waller 9386

Gift of John Martin, M.D.