PETER

See also:

• PETER CAMPER (1722-1789)

CAMPER (1722-1789)  , Dutch anatomist and naturalist, was born at Leiden on the 11th of May 1722 . He was educated at the university there, and in 1746 graduated in philosophy and medicine . After the death of his father in 1748 he spent more than a year in England, and then visited Paris, Lyons and Geneva, and returned to Franeker, where in 1750 he had been appointed to the professorship of philosophy, medicine and surgery . He visited England a second time in 1752, and in 1755 he was called to the chair of anatomy and surgery at the Athenaeum in Amsterdam . He resigned this post after six years, and retired to his country house near Franeker, in order uninterruptedly to carry on his-studies . In 1763, however, he accepted the professorship of medicine, surgery and anatomy at Groningen, and continued in the chair for ten years . He then returned to Franeker, and after the death of his wife in 1776 spent some time in travelling . In 1762 he had been returned as one of the deputies in the assembly of the province of Fries-land, and the latter years of his life were much occupied with political affairs . In 1787 he was nominated to a seat in the council of state, and took up his residence at the Hague, where he died on the 7th of April 1789 . Camper's works, mainly memoirs and detached papers, are very numerous; the most important of those bearing on comparative anatomy were published in 3 vols. at Paris in 1803, under the title Ruvres de P . Camper qui ont pour objet l'histoire naturelle, la physiologie, et l'anatomie comparee . His Dissertation physique sur les differences reelles que presentent les traits du visage chez les hommes de differents pays et de diffcrents ages; sur le beau qui caracterise les statues antiques et les pieces gravees, &c., which was published in 1781 both in Dutch and in French, contains an account of the facial angle which he used as a cranial characteristic .