Peter, a celebrated naturalist and anatomist, born at Leyden, May 11, 1722. His family had long held distinguished situations in the magistracy of that city. His father, Florent Camper, a Protestant clergyman, was an enthusiastic admirer of painting, and a great patron of artists; and was intimate with several of the learned men who adorned the university of Leyden at that time, especially Boerhaave.

Under circumstances that afforded him so many advantages, young Camper applied himself at an early age to drawing and painting, in which he soon became remarkably proficient.

He was indebted to Laborde for his first lessons in geometry, and was instructed in natural philosophy by Muschenbroeck and Gravesande. At Leyden university he became the pupil of Gaubius, Van Rooyen, and the elder Albinius; and in 1746 he took the degree of doctor in philosophy and medicine, on which occasion he published two dissertations, the one De Visu, the other De Oculi quibusdam Partibus. In the first he illustrates and defends Smith's Theory of Vision, and in the latter describes, with plates, Petit's Canal in the Eyes of different Animals.

After the death of his parents, which happened in 1748, Camper visited London, where he made the acquaintance of Mead, Pringle, and Piteairn. He pursued his medical studies under Hunter, Sharp, Smellie, and Winchester; and diligently examined the cabinets of Hans Sloane and Collinson, and the collections of Hill and Catesby. He studied botany under Elliot, astronomy under Short, and the use of the microscope under Baker. He also directed his attention to the mechanical arts; visiting the principal manufactories, and collecting instructions from artists of eminence in every department, including even naval architecture. He was in the habit of making minutes of everything he saw and learned; and his facility with the pencil enabled him to take sketches of every object of which a delineation could be useful. He still cultivated his taste for painting, and acquired much practical skill in the art of engraving. After remaining about a year in London, and visiting the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, he proceeded to Paris, where he inspected the principal public establishments in that capital. He then proceeded to Lyons and Geneva, when having received intelligence of his being appointed professor in philosophy, medicine, and surgery, at Franeker, he returned to Holland by Switzerland and the banks of the Rhine, visiting as he passed through Basle the great Bernouilli, and examining in the library of that city the writings of Erasmus and the paintings of Holbein. The itinerary which he kept of his journey contains a great number of valuable remarks on agriculture and geology, and shows how well he was gifted with the talent for observation.

In consequence of a severe illness he was obliged to defer entering upon the duties of his professorship till the autumn of 1750. On this occasion he pronounced a public inaugural discourse, De Mundo Optimo. About the same period he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London.

He again visited England in 1752, and resumed his favourite pursuits with unabated ardour. Among other objects, his attention was much directed to the method of inoculating for the smallpox, the practice of which was as yet confined to England. On his return to Franeker he resumed his lectures, and gained such increasing celebrity that he was soon ranked as one of the ablest men of science in Holland. In 1755 he was appointed professor of anatomy and surgery at the Atheneum of Amsterdam, and settled in that city. According to custom, he pronounced two inaugural discourses, the first, De Anatomiae in omnibus Scientiarum usu; and the second, De Certo in Medicina. In 1756 he married the widow of the burgomaster of Harlingen.

After continuing six years in Amsterdam, he resigned his chair, and retired to his country house at Franeker. His principal work during the time he had held that chair was the first volume of his Demonstrationes Anatomico-Pathologicae, the second volume of which appeared in 1762.

Having, two years afterwards, been elected professor of medicine, surgery, and anatomy, at Groningen, he took up his abode in that city, and at his inauguration as professor Camper delivered a discourse *De admirabili analogia inter Stirpes et Animalia*. Under his auspices was established a society for the purpose of conducting experiments in agriculture. To this society Camper was nominated secretary. He bestowed much pains in investigating the nature of an epidemic disorder which prevailed extensively among the cattle of Holland. He made this the subject of several lectures which he read in 1796 to the academy of Groningen; and his proposed method of disarming the disease of its virulence by inoculation appears to have effectively succeeded where adopted. At this period he also made a variety of important discoveries in comparative anatomy.

After ten years spent at Groningen, he was induced to remove to Franeker, that he might superintend the education of his sons, who were to be placed at the academy in that place. In 1776, the death of his wife, in whom his affections had been centred during a union of twenty years, determined him to seek in travel some alleviation of his sorrow. After visiting all the cities that offered objects of attraction in the sciences or the fine arts, he proceeded to Paris, where he enjoyed the society of Franklin, Montmort, Diderot, Dau- benton, Portal, and other distinguished men. Returning to his own country with recruited spirits, he applied himself with fresh ardour to his favourite pursuits; and aiming at more comprehensive views of the animal kingdom, occupied himself in pursuing the analogies which connect its several departaments, and in tracing the successive links of that extended chain by which the different orders of beings are united in one continued series of gradation. A tour through Germany, at a later period, made him acquainted with many treasures in natural history, with which that country abounds. The anatomical preparations of Kerkringius, and the observatory of Tycho Brahe at Hamburg, the collections of natural history of Taube and Desroques at Zell, and the superb cabinet of antiquities of the Count Walmoden at Hanover, particularly attracted his attention; and he explored with the eye of a geologist the volcanic district of Cassel. He formed also the acquaintance of Zimmerman, Soemmerring; and other eminent physicians. The following year he visited Prussia, and was presented to the great Frederick, who received him at Potsdam with much affability and respect; and on his return he had the honour of spending two days with the brother of the king, Prince Henry of Prussia, at Rheinsberg.

In 1785 Camper was chosen member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris; and in the same year he paid a fourth visit to England.

His literary and philosophical occupations did not preclude him from taking an active part in the political concerns of his country. In 1762 he was returned as deputy in the assembly of the province of Friesland; and in 1776 he appeared there as deputy for Idaarderadeel. In 1783, on the recommendation of the stadtholder, he was nominated one of the council of state of the United Provinces, and was of course obliged to reside at the Hague. During the revolution he remained faithfully attached to the party of the stadtholder. Camper died of a violent pleurisy, on the 7th of April 1789; and his remains were deposited in the church of St Peter at Leyden.

To a mind crammed with vast stores of knowledge, and adorned with a taste at once elegant and refined, Camper united the most benevolent affections, and possessed all the virtues of domestic and social life. Nature had bestowed upon him a dignified and graceful form, and a remarkably animated and expressive countenance. He spoke fluently Latin, English, French, and German, and had a competent knowledge of Greek and Italian.

Besides the honorary distinctions already mentioned, Camper was member of the academies of Berlin, Edinburgh, Manchester, Toulouse, Göttingen, Haarlem, Rotterdam, and Flushing; and was foreign associate of the Royal Society of Medicine at Paris. He obtained the prize of the academy of Haarlem for his Memoir on the Physical Education of Children. His Researches on Specific Remedies gained him the prize of the Academy of Sciences of Dijon; his Observations on Inoculation that of the Academy of Toulouse; and his Memoir on Chronic Diseases of the Chest that of the Academy of Lyons. The Royal Academy of Surgery voted him three prizes for his Memoirs on the Influence of Different Circumstances in Regimen on the Treatment of Surgical Diseases. Of Camper's numerous works, the most important only can be noticed here. His principal labours were bestowed on comparative anatomy and physiology, and his discoveries in this wide field of research are numerous and important. A posthumous collection of his works on these subjects appeared at Paris in 1803, in 3 vols. Svo, with a folio atlas of plates, under the title of *Oeuvres de Pierre Camper*, qui ont pour objet l'Histoire Naturelle, la Physiologie, et l'Anatomie Comparée*, of which is prefixed an Essay on his life and Writings by his son, and two eulogisms, one by Vice d'Arzy, and the other by Condorcet. These contain his *Dissertation on the Natural History of the Orang-outang, and other Species of Apes*. He examines especially the peculiarities in the structure of the organ of voice of those animals, which deprive them of the power of uttering articulate sounds, and which alone would place an immense interval between them and the human species. His anatomical description of the two-horned rhinoceros, of the rein-deer, and of the elephant, are the subjects of separate dissertations; as also his researches on the structure of the great bones of birds, and the manner in which atmospheric air is introduced into them (a fact which was discovered by Camper prior to the time at which Hunter published his observations on it); on the structure of the porpoise and the whale; on the lamellae of fishes according to the system of Linnæus; on the anatomical structure of the organs of hearing in fishes, and of the blowing-holes of the cetacea; on the *dupex* of Buffon, and the *sirena lacertina* of Linnaeus, both of which he pronounces to belong to the class of fishes; on the generation of the pipe or American toad; on the croaking of the male frog; on the petrifications found in the mountain of St Peter near Maastricht, and the fossil bones of fish and other animals; on the analogies that may be traced between the several parts of the animal kingdom, especially in the structure of the human species compared with those of quadrupeds, birds, and fishes; on the alteration of form in the human species produced by age; on the diverse and various features which characterize different nations, and the mode of expressing these differences in delineating the human figure; on the mode in which the human body is affected by the countenance; on the *locus physicus*, or the beauty of forms; and on the analogy between plants and animals. In the practical branches of medicine he has written observations on the inoculation of the smallpox, founded on experiment; on the theory and treatment of chronic diseases of the lungs, and a historical inquiry into the principal methods of cure employed by the ancients and moderns in these disorders; on the nature, employment, and mode of operation of remedies termed specifics; on the nature, causes, and treatment of dropsy, and the different indications of cure derived from the symptoms; on the nature of cancer, and on the signs denoting those of the bone that do not admit of cure; on the humors of the eyes and neighboring children, etc.; on ulcers in the urethra and prolapsus ani; on the fracture of the femur; on the callus of fractured bones; on lithotomy, and especially on the method of performing that operation at two different times, according to the plan of the celebrated Franco; on the construction of bandages for hernia; on bandages in general; on the abuse of ointments and plasters in the treatment of ulcers, and on improved methods of managing them; on the noxious effects attending the admission of air into the body, and the influence of this principle on the treatment of surgical diseases. In the department of midwifery he has written a letter to Dr Van Gascher on the utility of the section of the symphyses pubis in severe labours, and observations on the use of the lever of Roehmhausen in difficult parturition. Several memoirs on the subject of infanticide, and the juridical questions connected with that subject, were published by him at Leeuwarden.

(Camphor)

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