LAURENCE, an eminent physician, surgeon, and anatomist, was born at Frankfort on the Mayne, in the year 1683. After being educated in the universities of Germany, he prosecuted the study of anatomy and surgery at Amsterdam, in 1706. Next year he acted as surgeon in the Dutch camp in Brabant, and afterwards studied medicine at Leyden under the celebrated Boerhaave, at the expiration of which he took his degrees. In 1709, he was appointed physician-general to the Dutch military hospital, by which means he acquired vast experience, both in medicine and surgery. He was appointed professor of anatomy and surgery at Altdorf in 1710, where he acquired great celebrity by his lectures and writings.

In 1720 he removed to the university of Helmstadt, where he continued during the remainder of his life. The czar Peter invited him to Russia; but the esteem in which he was held by different sovereigns induced him to remain in Germany. His death happened in the year 1758, in the 75th year of his age. Dr Heister was uncommonly industrious, and wrote a prodigious number of books; but his principal fame was derived from his singular skill and success in surgery. He is particularly known by his Compendium Anatomicum, which has been frequently reprinted, and translated into different languages. The chief of his surgical publications is his Institutions of Surgery, which was long considered as a standard book of the kind, till it was superseeded by more modern systems. As a physician his principal works are, Observations Medico-miscellaneae, Theoretice et Practice; De Medicina Mechanice Prefantia; and Compendium Institutionum et Fundamentorum Medicinae. A Collection of Medical, Chirurgical, and Anatomical Observations, was published after his death in 2 vols quarto.