Petrus Forestus

Pieter van Foreest, called Petrus Forestus (1521 to 1597), was one of the most prominent physicians of the Dutch Republic and was known as the Dutch Hippocrates. Born in Alkmaar, he started at the University of Leuven around 1536 and from 1540 travelled to learn medicine at several European universities, spending three years in Bologna, where he graduated on 29 November 1543, and also studying at Padua, Venice and Ferrara. After working in Rome and Paris he opened a practice in Alkmaar in 1546 and in 1558 became city physician of Delft, a post he kept for more than thirty-seven years. During the siege of Leiden in 1574 he was consulted by William of Orange and afterwards by other members of the princely family, and in 1584 he carried out the autopsy and embalming of William after the assassination, with Cornelius Busennius, reporting to the States of Holland. Invited to the opening of Leiden University in 1575, he signed its statutes but chose to remain in practice rather than take a chair.