Frederik Ruysch

Frederik Ruysch (1638 to 1731) was a Dutch botanist and anatomist, born in The Hague, who became one of the most famous anatomists of his age. He studied at Leiden under Franciscus Sylvius, graduated in 1664 with a thesis on pleuritis, and became praelector of the Amsterdam surgeons' guild in 1667, instructor of the city's midwives in 1668 and forensic advisor to the Amsterdam courts in 1679. In 1685 he became professor of botany at the Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam, where he worked with Jan and Caspar Commelin. Ruysch developed methods of preserving specimens by arterial injection and embalming, including an injection based on mercuric sulfide, which let observers follow even the smallest blood vessels and keep preparations for long periods. He assembled a celebrated private anatomical museum of more than two thousand specimens that he opened to paying visitors, and he is credited with proving valves in the lymphatic system and with first describing the condition now called Hirschsprung's disease. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1715.