Ole WORM

Ole WORM or Olaus Wormius (born the May 13rd 1588 - died the August 31st 1654) was a Médecin and a collector Danish.

He is the son of Willum WORM, mayor of the town of Århus, which bequeaths to him to its death a great fortune.

Ole WORM remains, in some fate, a student all his life: after having attended the school of letter of århus, it goes to the university of Marbourg in 1605, it receives a title of doctor in at the university of Basle in 1611 and receives a master arts at the university of Copenhagen in 1617. It passes the remainder of its professional life to Copenhagen, where it teaches the Latin , the Greek , the Physique and the Médecine. He is the personal doctor of the king Christian IV of Denmark. Remarkable thing for a doctor of its time, it remains in Copenhagen during a epidemic of black Peste to organize the care.

In medicine, the principal contributions of WORM are in the field of the Embryologie. The supernumerary bones or wormiens, being in the framework of the cranium, were dedicated to him.

Its collections of Scandinavian manuscripts in language are famous. He wrote several treaties on the stones comprising of the Rune S and collected texts written with the Runic alphabet. The king forwards to him of the letters of accreditation for the bishop S of the Denmark and of Norway, thus showing his interest for his research. WORM publishes in 1626 its chronology of Denmark, Fasti Danici , which presents its knowledge on this subject. This book is followed, in 1636, of Runir seu Danica will literatura antiquissima , a runic compilation of translation of texts.

WORM gathers also a large collection of objects of Natural history, where it also classifies ethnographic parts coming from the Nouveau World, as well as animals naturalized, Fossile S on the origin of which it is questioned. WORM compiles engravings representing its collection in a catalog entitled Museum Wormianum and which is published after its death in 1655 with Leyde. The role first of its cabinet is teaching.

It represents the type of scientist at the border of old and the modern one. Thus, by using the modern empirical analysis he affirms that the Licorne does not exist and that the horn which one often allots to the unicorn comes, in fact, of the Narval. In same time, it accredits the thesis on the role like antidote of the horn of unicorn by experiments on pets. It also proves that the Lemming S are Rongeur S and are not the result of the spontaneous Generation coming from the atmosphere.

It gives also the first precise description of the birds of paradise and showing in a clear way, contrary to the ideas of its time, which they do not have of the feet. It devotes 22 pages to the Oiseau X which is the probable indication of the great place that they hold in its collections.

After the death of WORM its collections are integrated into those of the king of Denmark Frederic III.

Today, the real personality and the work of WORM are competed with by characters of fiction bearing his name. It is the case of H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) which created an Arab scientist translator of the texts S in Latin, author of the legendary book the Necronomicon . Lovecraft also describes it like a priest Dominicain and replaces it at the 13th century.

Source

Michael Walters (2003). has Concise History Ornithology off. Yale University Close (New Haven, Connecticut): 255 p.

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