Rembert Dodoens


Rembert Dodoens was a Flemish physician and botanist, also known under his Latinized name Rembertus Dodonaeus.

Life

Dodoens was born Rembert van Joenckema in Mechelen, a town between Antwerp and Brussels and capital of the Spanish Netherlands, in 1517 to Denis Van Joenckema and Ursula Roelants. The van Joenckema family and name were Frisian in origin. In Friesland they were active in politics and jurisprudence, and in 1516 moved to Mechelen. His father was one of the municipal physicians in Mechelen and had been one of the private physicians to Margaret of Austria, Governor of the Netherlands, in her final illness, whose court was based in Mechelen. Rembert later changed his last name to Dodoens.
He was educated at the municipal college in Mechelen before beginning his studies in medicine, cosmography and geography at the age of 13 at the University of Leuven, under Arnold Noot, Leonard Willemaer, Jean Heems, and Paul Roelswhere. He graduated with a licentiate in medicine in 1535, and as was the custom of the time, began extensive travels in Europe till 1546, including Italy, Germany, and France. In 1539 he married Kathelijne De Bruyn, who came from a medical family in Mechelen. With her he had four children, Ursula, Denijs, Antonia and Rembert Dodoens. He had a short stay in Basel. In 1557, Dodoens turned down a chair at the University of Leuven. He also turned down an offer to become court physician of king Philip II of Spain. After his wife's death at the age of 55 in 1572, he married Maria Saerinen by whom he had a daughter, Johanna. He died in Leiden in 1585, and was buried at Pieterskerk, Leiden.

Work

After graduation, he eventually established himself as one of the three municipal physicians in Mechelen, as his father had been, together with Joachim Roelandts and Jacob De Moor, in 1548. He became the court physician of the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian II, and his successor, Austrian emperor Rudolph II in Vienna. In 1582, he finally became professor in medicine at the University of Leiden in 1582.

Life and times

At the opening of the sixteenth century the general belief was that the plant world had been completely described by Dioscorides, in his De Materia Medica. During Dodoens' lifetime, botanical knowledge was undergoing enormous expansion, partly fueled by the expansion of the known plant world by New World exploration, the discovery of printing and the use of wood-block illustration. This period is thought of as a botanical Renaissance. Europe became engrossed with natural history from the 1530s, and gardening and cultivation of plants became a passion and prestigious pursuit from monarchs to universities. The first botanical gardens appeared as well as the first illustrated botanical encyclopaedias, together with thousands of watercolours and woodcuts. The experience of farmers, gardeners, foresters, apothecaries and physicians was being supplemented by the rise of the plant expert. Collecting became a discipline, specifically the Kunst- und Wunderkammern outside of Italy and the study of naturalia became widespread through many social strata. The great botanists of the sixteenth century were all, like Dodoens, originally trained as physicians, who pursued a knowledge of plants not just for medicinal properties, but in their own right. Chairs in botany, within medical faculties were being established in European universities throughout the sixteenth century in reaction to this trend, and the scientific approach of observation, documentation and experimentation was being applied to the study of plants.
Otto Brunfels published his Herbarium in 1530, followed by those of Jerome Bock and Leonhard Fuchs, men that Kurt Sprengel would later call the “German fathers of botany”. These men all influenced Dodoens, who was their successor.

Publications

Dodoens' initial work was in the fields of cosmography and physiology. His De frugum historia, a treatise on cereals, vegetables, and fodders marked the beginning of a distinguished career in botany, and his herbal Cruydeboeck with 715 images was influenced by earlier German botanists, particularly that of Leonhart Fuchs. Rather than the traditional method of arranging the plants in alphabetical order, he divided the plant kingdom into six groups, based on their properties and affinities. It treated in detail especially the medicinal herbs, which made this work, in the eyes of many, a pharmacopoeia. This work and its various editions and translations became one of the most important botanical works of the late 16th century, part of its popularity being his use of the vernacular rather than the commonly used Latin.
Cruydeboeck was translated first into French in 1557 by Charles de L'Ecluse, and into English in 1578 by Henry Lyte, and later into Latin in 1583. The English version became a standard work in that language. In his times, it was the most translated book after the Bible. It became a work of worldwide renown, used as a reference book for two centuries.
His Latin translation of 1583, the Stirpium or Pemtdades, was also a considerable revision, adding new families, enlarging the number of groups from 6 to 26 and including many new illustrations, both original and borrowed. It was used by John Gerard as the source for his widely used Herball. Thomas Johnson, in his preface to his 1633 edition of Herball, explains the controversial use of Dodoens' work by Gerard.

List of selected publications

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Dodoens has been called the father of botany. Dodoens life and work is commemorated by this statue, in the Botanical Garden of Mechelen. There is also a commemorative plaque at St Peter's church, Leiden, where he is buried.

Eponomy

The plant genus Dodonaea was named after Dodoens, by Carl Linnaeus. The following species are also named after him: Epilobium dodonaei,: Comocladia dodonaea, Phellandrium dodonaei, Smyrnium dodonaei, Hypericum dodonaei and Pelargonium dodonaei .

Books and articles

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