ABSTRACT
In April 1760 the Danish anatomist Jacob Benignus Winsløw (Jacques Bénigne Winsløw) died in Paris. With his death the line of famous Danish anatomists which had begun with Caspar Bartholin, the elder, came to an end. Like Bartholin, Winsløw was born into a family which had already produced a number of clergymen serving the Lutheran Church in Denmark. Winsløw’s father, like Bartholin’s, was a Lutheran minister, and both Jacob Winsløw and Caspar Bartholin had originally been destined to follow in their fathers’ footsteps, starting their university careers by studying theology. But both quickly switched from theology to medicine, and both made considerable efforts to improve the study of medicine while producing anatomical textbooks which achieved European fame.
