Everything about Petrus Camper totally explained
Peter,
Pieter, or usually
Petrus Camper (
May 11,
1722 in
Leiden –
April 7,
1789 in
The Hague) was a
Dutch anatomist,
anthropologist and a
naturalist, as well as a furniture maker, a sculptor and a patron of art. One of the first to interest himself in
comparative anatomy and
paleontology, he also invented the measure of the facial angle.
Studies and teaching
As the son of a local minister and a brilliant alumnus, he studied in the
University of Leiden sciences, philosophy and drawing. His professors included
Pieter van Musschenbroek (1669-1721) and
Willem Jacob 's Gravesande (1688-1742) for physics and mathematics,
Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738) and
Hieronym David Gaubius (1705-1780) for medicine. Petrus Camper became doctor in medicine and philosophy at the same day at 24. After both his parents died then traveled to
Prussia,
England,
France and
Switzerland. He was offered sundry professorships, being first named professor of philosophy, anatomy and
surgery in 1750 in the
University of Franeker.
Camper married the young and rich widow of a burgomaster from
Harlingen. Starting in 1755, he resided in Amsterdam where he occupied a chair of anatomy and surgery at the
Athenaeum Illustre, later completed by a medicine chair. He retired five years later to dedicate himself to scientifical research and lived on her property, just outside Franeker. Three years later he chose, to accept the chair of anatomy, surgery and botancis at the
University of Groningen. Camper started a surgical clinic and showed drawings to illustrate his eloquent lectures, before retiring in 1773. He was appointed as an (
orangist)
burgomaster of
Workum and in
1787 as a member of the
state council of the
Dutch Republic.
Among his many works, he studied
osteology of birds and discovered the presence of air in the inner cavities of birds' skeletons. He also interested himself to the anatomy of the
orangutan, demonstrating against contemporary theories that it was a different specie from the
human being, and not simply a "degenerate" type of human. Petrus Camper published memoirs on hearing of fishes, the best form of shoes,
rinderpest,
rabids, building of
dikes, etc. Petrus Camper was an associate of the
French Academy of Sciences and had an eulogy in his honour composed by
Nicolas de Condorcet and
Félix Vicq-d'Azyr.
Comparative anatomy
One of the first scholar to study
comparative anatomy, Petrus Camper demonstrated the principle of correlation in all organisms by the mechanical exercise he called a "metamorphosis". In his 1778 lecture, "On the Points of Similarity between the Human Species, Quadrupeds, Birds, and Fish; with Rules for Drawing, founded on this Similarity," he metamorphosed a horse into a human being, thus showing the similarity between all vertebrates.
Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1884) theorized this in 1795 as the "unity of organic composition," the influence of which is perceptible in all his subsequent writings; nature, he observed, presents us with only one plan of construction, the same in principle, but varied in its accessory parts. Camper's metamorphoses which demonstrated this "unity of Plan" greatly impressed
Diderot and
Goethe. In 1923 and 1939 some Dutch authors suggested that Camper foreshadowed Goethe's famous idea of "type" — a common structural pattern in some manner
"Facial angle"
Petrus Camper is also known for his theory of the "facial angle" in connection with intelligence. The measuring of the facial angle claimed to determine
intelligence among various species of animals. According to this technique, an angle is formed by drawing two lines: one horizontally from the
nostril to the
ear; and the other perpendicularly from the advancing part of the upper
jawbone to the most prominent part of the
forehead. Measuring this angle was thought to determine the intelligence of animals and human beings. One of the founders of
scientific racism theories, he claimed that antique Greco-Roman statues presented an angle of 90°, Europeans of 80°, Black people of 70° and the orangutan of 58°, thus displaying a hierarchic view of mankind, based on a
decadent conception of history. These scientific racist researches were continued by
Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844) and
Paul Broca (1824-1880).
Camper, however, agreed with
Buffon in drawing a sharp line between human and animals (although he was misinterpreted by
Diderot, who claimed that he was a supporter of the
Great Chain of Being theory) .
Legacy
Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) praised his "genius eye" but criticized him for keeping himself to simple sketches ("Camper porta, pour ainsi dire en passant, le coup d'œil du génie sur une foule d'objets intéressants, mais presque tous ses travaux ne furent que des ébauches"). Petrus Camper's main works were:
- Démonstrations anatomicx-pathologicœ, Amsterdam, 1760-1762 ;
- Dissertation sur les différences des traits du visage ;
- Discours sur l'art de juger les passions de l'homme par les traits de son visage ;
- Dissertation sur les variétés naturelles de l'espèce humaine.
In 1888, the son of the last female descendant of Petrus Camper petitioned the Dutch crown for a name change to honor his mother, Theodora Aurelia Louisa Camper (1821-1890). The petition was granted by Royal Decree No. 15; and the descendants of Abraham Adriaan Aurelius Gerard Camper-Titsingh Sr. (1845-1910) and Abraham Adriaan Aurelius Gerard Camper-Titsingh Jr. (1889-1974) live today in the United States.
The Dutch author, Thomas Rosenboom, used Petrus Camper as a character in his novel,
Gewassen vlees (1994).
Works
Demonstrationes anatomico- pathologicae [1760-1762]
On the Best Form of Shoe
On the Points of Similarity between the Human Species, Quadrupeds, Birds, and Fish; with Rules for Drawing, founded on this Similarity (1778)
Historiae literariae cultoribus S.P.D. Petrus Camper. A list of his work, published by him self.
Works on natural history, a translation of Camper's work, published by Hendrik Jansen in 1803 in three in-octavo volumes.Further Information
Get more info on 'Petrus Camper'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://petrus_camper.totallyexplained.com">Petrus Camper Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
