CAMPER, PETER (1722-1789)

This article appears in Volume V05, Page 135 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: CAL-CAR

CAMPER, PETER (1722-1789) , Dutch anatomist and naturalist, was born at Leiden on the 11th of May 1722. He was educated at the university there, and in 1746 graduated in philosophy and

medicine

MEDICINE

. After the death of his father in 1748 he spent more than a year in England, and then visited Paris, Lyons and Geneva, and returned to Franeker, where in 1750 he had been appointed to the professorship of philosophy,

medicine

MEDICINE

and surgery. He visited England a second time in 1752, and in 1755 he was called to the chair of anatomy and surgery at the

Athenaeum

ATHENAEUM

Amsterdam

AMSTERDAM
AMSTERDAM (NEw AMSTERDAM)

. He resigned this post after six years, and retired to his country

house

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

near Franeker, in order uninterruptedly to carry on his-studies. In 1763, however, he accepted the professorship of medicine, surgery and anatomy at

Groningen

GRONINGEN

, and continued in the chair for ten years. He then returned to Franeker, and after the death of his wife in 1776 spent some time in travelling. In 1762 he had been returned as one of the deputies in the assembly of the province of Fries-land, and the latter years of his life were much occupied with political affairs. In 1787 he was nominated to a seat in the council of state, and took up his residence at the Hague, where he died on the 7th of April 1789.

Camper

CAMPER, PETER (1722-1789)

's works, mainly memoirs and detached papers, are very numerous; the most important of those bearing on comparative anatomy were published in 3 vols. at Paris in 1803, under the title Ruvres de P.

Camper

CAMPER, PETER (1722-1789)

qui ont pour objet l'histoire naturelle, la physiologie, et l'anatomie comparee. His Dissertation physique sur les differences reelles que presentent les traits du visage chez les hommes de differents pays et de diffcrents ages; sur le beau qui caracterise les statues antiques et les pieces gravees, &c., which was published in 1781 both in Dutch and in French, contains an account of the facial

angle

ANGLE (from the Lat. angulus, a corner, a diminutive, of which the primitive form, angus, does not occur in Latin; cognate are the Lat. angere, to compress into a bend or to strangle, and the Gr. ayKOS, a bend; both connected with the Aryan root ank-, to

which he used as a cranial characteristic. (See also ANATOMY.)

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