The Bartholin family.

DURING a review of the aetiology of intlammation and cysts of Bartholin’s glands, interest was aroused in the discoverer of these glands. This led to a search of the literature and the tracing out of the history of a remarkable family of Danes, who flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries. The first of the line of medical interest was Caspar Bartholinus who lived from 1585 to 1629. He was born at Malmo in Sweden and was extremely precocious. He could read at the age of 3 and by the time he was 13 he was composing Greek and Latin verse and delivering public orations in those tongues. He studied at Copenhagen, Rostock and Wittenberg. Underwood (1950) states that by the age of 26 he had refused chairs of philosophy, anatomy and Greek, but Singer (1925) says he was professor of philosophy at Basel, of anatomy at Naples and of Greek at Montpellier. Whichever of these versions is accepted it seems that Caspar Primus would have been a notable man in any age. Singer’s version of the activities of Caspar Bartholinus shows that he travelled widely and visited Germany, the Netherlands, Britain and France, as well as Switzerland and Italy. When he was in Italy he studied under Fabricius ab Aquapendente (1533-1619) who was professor of anatomy at the University of Padua, which played an important part in the Renaissance of Medicine. Fabricius was one of the successors of the anatomist Andreas Vesalius (1 5 14-1 564), who has been described as the founder of modem anatomy. Other pupils of Fabricius were William Harvey (1578-1 657) and Olaus Wormius (1 588-1654). One is tempted to suggest that Caspar Bartholinus must have met William Harvey before the latter’s discovery of the circulation of the blood. He might have met him in Padua or in Britain, but there is no evidence to support such a speculation. Olaus Wormius was a contemporary of Bartholinus, and he practised in London before finally settling in Copenhagen. It was he who described the bones which may occur within the sutures of the skull, and it was Caspar Bartholin who suggested they should be called Wormian bones. The uncharitable may feel that this was very much a family affair since Bartholinus and Wormius were brothers-in-law, Bartholin having married Anna Fincke and Worms having married her sister. There may even be more to it than this, because in the National Medical Library at Washington is a book by the son of Bartholin which camed the portraits of Fuirenius, Olaus Wormius, Thomas Fincke, Caspar Bartholin, Sim. Paulli and Joh. Rhodius. The book is a history of anatomy at Copenhagen and one wonders if the Thos. Fincke mentioned was the father of the wives of Bartholin and Worms. In 1610, at the age of 25, Caspar Bartholinus took his degree of Doctor of Medicine. Three years later he became professor of medicine at Copenhagen, and he held this chair till 1624. In that year he suffered a serious illness, the nature of which is not known, and vowed that if he recovered he would devote himself to divinity. He did recover and with apparently characteristic brilliance he became canon of Roskilde and professor of theology at Copenhagen. This chair he held until his death in 1629 at Soro in Zeeland. There are at least nine papers published by Caspar Bartholin, mentioned in the SurgeonGeneral’s catalogue. During his lifetime they were published in Wittenberg, Copenhagen and Frankfurt and after his death one was published