Ole Worm

Ole Worm (1588 to 1654), who often used the Latinized name Olaus Wormius, was a Danish physician, natural historian and antiquary. Born in Aarhus into a prosperous family, the son of the town mayor, he entered the University of Marburg in 1605 to study theology, turned to medicine, earned his doctorate at the University of Basel in 1611 and by 1617 had taken a Master of Arts degree at the University of Copenhagen, where he spent the rest of his career as a professor teaching Latin, Greek, physics and medicine. He was personal physician to King Christian IV of Denmark. In medicine his chief contributions were in embryology, and the Wormian bones, small bones that fill gaps in the cranial sutures, are named after him. He collected early literature in the Scandinavian languages and wrote treatises on runestones. He stayed in Copenhagen to treat the sick during an epidemic of bubonic plague and died of it in 1654.