CAMPER, Peter, eminent for his extensive knowledge in the various branches of medicine, zoology, and comparative anatomy, and for his taste in the fine arts, was born at Leyden on the 11th May 1722. His family had long held distinguished situations in the magistracy of that city, where his grandfather had exercised the profession of medicine. His father, Florent Camper, was a Protestant clergyman, and had officiated in that capacity for some years at Batavia; but had returned to his native country in 1718, after marrying Sarah Ketting, who was born of Dutch parents, at Surat. Florent Camper was an enthusiastic admirer of painting, and took great delight in the society of artists, whom he treated with the greatest liberality, his purse being ever open to such as needed his assistance. He was much connected with the learned men who adorned the university of Leyden at the beginning of the last century, and was on terms of intimate friendship with the great Boerhaave. Young Camper has, no doubt, been greatly indebted for his success to the fortunate circumstances in which he was placed in early life; being thus surrounded by men of enlarged and cultivated understandings, eminent for their taste and learning, and having, at the same time, every incentive that a wise education could supply to emulate those excellent models«; but nature had besides endowed him with that inherent desire of knowledge, that capacity, and that vigour and activity of mind, which, united as they were with a robust constitution of body, enabled him to reap the full benefit of these advantages. He gave very early proofs of his possessing those mental qualities which lay the foundation of future eminence; and his father, discerning with delight the auspicious dawn of his genius, judiciously removed whatever might cramp its growth, and avoided imposing on him as a task those instructions and attainments which he seemed so well inclined to acquire and pursue as an amusement.

He applied himself at an early age to drawing and painting, under the tuition of Moor and of his son, both of whom were celebrated artists, and soon became remarkably proficient in these accomplishments. He derived, in the course of his life, immense advantage from the skill with which he used his pencil in delineating any object in which he was interested, whether among the works of art or the productions of nature, or whether they were the offsprings of his own conception in the course of his philosophical researches. The value of this acquirement, as an object of early education, is not perhaps in general sufficiently appreciated. The power of conceiving readily, and with correctness, mechanical forms, is one of the most useful results that practice in the delineation of objects can confer, and is of incalculable advantage in a variety of pursuits, with which such a talent might not at first sight seem to be immediately concerned. There is no doubt, for instance, that it must remove many difficulties in the study of geometry, by facilitating the conception of figured space, the properties of which are the subjects of that science. An accurate knowledge of anatomy is still more directly dependent upon the same power of apprehending the relations of form. The progress which Camper made in this branch of science, and the range of inquiries to which he afterwards made his knowledge subservient, are striking illustrations of this position.

He was indebted to Laborde for his first lessons in geometry, and was instructed in natural philosophy by Muschenbroeck and Gravesande, who were the intimate friends of his father, and whose names will be ever illustrious in the annals of science. From these studies he was naturally led to the pursuit of medicine, of which the elementary branches have so close an alliance with the physical sciences; and having entered the university of Leyden, became the pupil of Gaubius, Van Rooyen, and the elder Albinus; for Boerhaave was by this time incapacitated, by the infirmities of age, from continuing his exertions as public teacher in the university. Camper earned the first fruits of his academical labours by receiving, in 1746, 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, which are mentioned with commendation by Baldinger in his Diography of Living Physicians, and which have been preserved by Haller. In the former he illustrates and defends Smith’s Theory of Vision, and in the latter describes and gives plates of Petit’s Canal in the Eyes of different Animals.
[7:6:49]

The acquaintance lie had formed at college with several foreigners of merit had long inspired him with a desire of travelling, and of gratifying his thirst for knowledge, by visiting different countries, and conversing with men distinguished for their acquirements in the several branches of science. But the declining health of his parents, who were now advanced in years, and required the continual presence and kindest attentions of their son, long prevented him from accomplishing his wishes. Their death, however, which happened in 1748, released him from duties which he had the consolation of reflecting had been so piously discharged; and he soon after, at the age of twenty-six, embarked for England. In London he met with the celebrated physicians Mead, Pringle, and Pitcairn, with whom he became acquainted. He pursued his medical studies under Hunter, Sharp, Smellie, and Winchester; and indulged his taste for natural history, by examining diligently the cabinets of Hans Sloane and Collinson, and the collections of Hill and Catesby. He studied botany under Elliot, and astronomy under Short, and was instructed in the use of the microscope by Baker, who was at that time applying this instrument with so much success to objects of natural history. He seemed determined to suffer no opportunity of amassing a store of useful knowledge to escape him; and although his views embraced a wide range of subjects, he was never satisfied with a superficial glance, nor trusted to the reports of others, when there was a possibility of seeing with his own eyes the objects of his curiosity. His attention was particularly directed to the mechanical arts; he visited the principal manufactories, and was indefatigable in collecting instructions from artists of eminence in every department; and his eager curiosity even extended to the details of naval architecture, to the study of which he devoted a considerable portion of time. He was in the habit, during all his travels, of making minutes of every thing he saw and learned; and his happy facility in the employment of the pencil enabled him to take sketches on the spot of every object of which a delineation could be useful. Knowledge thus derived from personal observation is the more valuable, as it is more strongly impressed on the memory, and as it is less liable to inaccuracy, and less likely to be tinctured with prejudice, or distorted by the medium through which it is received. 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, and devoted two months to the inspection of the principal public establishments in that capital. He then travelled onwards to Lyons and Geneva; but the prosecution of his journey in the direction of Italy was stopped by the intelligence he received of his being appointed professor in philosophy, medicine, and surgery, at Franeker, in Friesland; and he returned to Holland by Switzerland and the banks of the Rhine, visiting, as he passed through Basel, the great Bernoulli, 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 showed how well he was gifted with the talent for observation.

In consequence of a severe illness, with which he was attacked in 1749, he was obliged to defer entering upon the duties of his new professorship till the autumn of the following year, when, in conformity with the custom on these occasions, he pronounced apublic inaugural discourse,choosing as his subject De Mundo Optimo. About the same period he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London.

He had reaped so much advantage by his residence in

England, and was so much attached to its inhabitants, and full of admiration for the great public establishments of that country, that he returned there during the vacation of 1752, and resumed his various pursuits, both medical and scientific, with unabated ardour. Among other objects, his attention was much directed to the method of inoculating for the small-pox, the practice of which was as yet confined to England. On his return to Franeker he resumed his lectures, which were every year more numerously attended, and gained him 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 Athenaeum of Amsterdam, and came in consequence to settle in that city, which was then the seat of opulence and learning. According to custom, he pronounced two inaugural discourses, the first, De Anatomes in omnibus Scientiis 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, his avocations were so multiplied and fatiguing, that he yielded to the strong desire which Mrs Camper had long entertained of retiring to Friesland, and once more took up his abode at his country house at Franeker. He of course resigned his professorship at Amsterdam, but was allowed to retain the title of honorary professor of that academy. His principal work, during the time he had held that chair, was the first volume of his Demonstrationes AnatomicoPatho-logicae. But the leisure he now enjoyed in his retirement in Friesland allowed him to devote his whole time to science; and the second volume of the same work made its appearance in 1762, together with several other publications, of which notice will be taken in the sequel.

Two years thus glided by rapidly in the country, when he was again called to the active duties of an academical life, by the appointment which was conferred upon him of professor of medicine, surgery, and anatomy, in the university of Groningen. The proximity of this city to his present habitation, the natural activity of his mind, and a conscientious desire of being useful to the community, concurred with the love of fame, which retirement had not extinguished, in inducing him to undertake the office which he was now so honourably called upon to discharge. He accordingly established himself and his family at Groningen, and, at his inauguration as professor, delivered a discourse, De admirabili analogia inter Stirpes et Animalia. The great interest which he took in the improvement of agriculture led to the establishment, under his auspices, of a society for the purpose of conducting experiments in this important art. 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, and in devising the best means of diminishing its ravages. He made these the subject of several lectures, which he read in 1796, to the academy of Groningen; and his proposed method of inoculating the disorder, with a view of disarming it of its virulence, appears to have effectually succeeded in those districts where it was adopted. He was also much occupied, at this period, with researches in natural history; and made a variety of important discoveries in comparative anatomy, of which we shall afterwards give a brief account.

The ten years that he spent at Groningen were esteemed by Camper the happiest, at the same time that they were the most laborious, of his life; and he probably would never have quitted a situation in every respect so congenial to his taste, or the circle of friends he had formed there, by whom his talents were well appreciated, and in whose approbation he found the reward of his exertions, if the wishes of his wife, and his own anxiety to superintend[7:6:50] the education of his family, had not induced him to make the sacrifice of all these enjoyments, and once more remove to Franeker Academy, at which his sons were to be placed. He continued, nevertheless, steadily to prosecute his various philosophical and medical researches until the year 1776, when he sustained a heavy stroke of affliction in the death of his wife, in whom his affections had been centred during a union of twenty years, and whose domestic virtues, and exemplary attention to her children, had secured her the esteem and respect of all who knew her. As the most efficacious mode of soothing his grief, he determined upon varying the scene, and making occasional excursions to the neighbouring parts of the Continent. He accordingly visited all the cities that offered objects of attraction in the sciences or the fine arts; and, after gratifying his taste for painting by the sight of the masterpieces of Rubens, Vandyke, and other painters of the Flemish school, proceeded, in search of amusement and instruction, to pay another visit to Paris. Here he enjoyed the society of Franklin, Marmontel, Diderot, Daubenton, Portal, and other distinguished characters in the literary and scientific world. 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 departments, 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 of his life, brought 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 Dcsrogues 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, Soemmcr-ring, 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, conversing with him for a long time on the subject of the fine arts; and, on his return, he had the honour of spending two days with the brother of the king, Prince Henry of Prussia, at Rhynsberg.

In 1785 Camper was chosen member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, an honour which was the more highly prized, as the number of foreigners on whom it was conferred was limited to eight. In the same year he paid a fourth visit to England, a country for which he had always shown a strong partiality, and was again gratified with the society of the numerous friends he had left there, and of others whose acquaintance he then for the first time made.

His literary and philosophical occupations, numerous and important as they were, 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. He persuaded the assembly to reject a proposal for the restoration of the maritime dikes of that province. In 1783, on the recommendation of the stadtholdcr, 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 which soon afterwards occurred in Holland, he remained faithfully attached to the party of the stadtholdcr; without, however, yielding his unqualified approbation to all their measures. The triumph of his own party was even accompanied with circumstances which gave him much con cern, and embittered the latter period of his life. He died of a violent pleurisy, on the 7th of April 1789; and his remains were deposited in the tomb of his ancestors, in the church of St Peter at Leyden.

To a mind enriched 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. His conduct in the several relations of son, of husband, and of father, was in all respects exemplary. His manners were remarkably placid, and bespoke that habitual equanimity which formed the characteristic quality of his temper, and which, amidst strong sensibility to the affections of humanity, he constantly studied to preserve. Nature had bestowed upon him a dignified and graceful form, and a remarkably animated and expressive countenance. His voice, which was sonorous and flexible, was excellently adapted for public speaking. He had a singular facility in acquiring languages; and spoke fluently Latin, English, French, and German; and had, besides, attained a competent knowledge of Greek and of Italian.

Few men have received during their lives so many honourable marks of literary distinction as Camper. Besides those which have been already mentioned, he was chosen member of the academics of Petersburg, Berlin, Edinburgh, Manchester, Toulouse, Gottingen, 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 Chrrnic 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 Siirgical Diseases. To specify in detail the several subjects on which he has written would be to extend this article to too great a length. We shall therefore content ourselves with enumerating those works which are of most importance; and, instead of reciting them in the order of their publication, shall arrange , them according to the subjects to which they relate. 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. 8vo, 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; to which is prefixed an Essay on his Life and Writings by his son, and two eulogiums, one by Vicq d’Azyr, and the other by Condorcet. They contain his Dissection and 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 atmospherical air is introduced into them (of which the discovery was made by Camper prior to the time at which Hunter published his observations on the same fact); on the structure of the porpoise and the whale; on the classification of fishes according to the system of Linnaeus; on the anatomical structure of the organs of hearing in fishes, and of the blowing-holes of the cetacea ; on the dugon of Buffon, and [7:6:51]the sirena lacertina of Linnaeus, both of which he pronounces to belong to the class of fishes; on the generation of the pipa or American toad; on the croaking of the male frog; on the petrifactions found in the mountain of St Peter, near Maestricht, 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 diversity of features which characterize different nations, and the mode of expressing these differences in delineating the human figure; on the mode in which the passions are indicated by the countenance; on the beau physique, 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 small pox, 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 breast that do not admit of cure; on the herniae incident to new-born children, &c.; on ulcers in the urethra and prolapsus ani; on the fracture of the patella; 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 herniae; 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 Gescher on the utility of the section of the symphysis pubis in severe labours, and observations on the use of the lever of Roonhuysen in difficult parturition. Several memoirs on the subject of infanticide, and the juridical questions connected with that subject, were published by him at Leenwarden. (γ.)