ABSTRACT
One of the most important scientists of the eighteenth century, often called the last ‘homo universalis’ of his time, was the Swiss doctor Albrecht von Haller (1708-1777, Fig. 12.1). He wasn’t solely a famed doctor, anatomist, surgeon and physiologist, but he also made a name for himself as a botanist and poet. He was the son of a lawyer from Bern and showed signs of being a prodigy from a very young age. At only nine years old, he composed a Hebrew and Greek dictionary from words that he had managed to glean from the Bible. At the same age, he also wrote two thousand short biographies of notable figures from history. When he was fifteen years old, Albrecht von Haller started his medical studies in Tübingen, where he soon deemed the quality of education to be subpar. He decided to continue his studies in Leiden, inspired by Professor Herman Boerhaave, famed all throughout Europe, whose study books Haller had read. At the university of Leiden, the promising young student experienced a golden age. With permission from Boerhaave, he committed himself to his botanical studies in the botanical gardens of the university and, under the supervision of the anatomist Bernard Siegfried Albinus Jr., he was allowed to partake in anatomical dissections on cadavers. He obtained a doctorate in 1727 in Leiden, writing his dissertation on the ducts of the salivary gland.
