Petrus Camper
Dutch scientist (1722-1789) · Netherlands · On the map · Scientists · Died at 66
Petrus Camper FRS, was a Dutch physician, anatomist, physiologist, midwife, zoologist, anthropologist, palaeontologist and a naturalist in the Age of Enlightenment. He was one of the first to take an interest in comparative anatomy, palaeontology, and the facial angle.
Petrus Camper is read about 21 times a day, in 20 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 30 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 140 days, one point a day.
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Photos 7
The Academia van Vrieslant in Franeker
Camper's Anatomy lesson painted in 1758 commemorating his installment as "praelector" of the Surgeon's guild in 1755 in Amsterdam. This painting hung in the Waag and later in the Athenaeum Illustre of Amsterdam
The Indian Elephants Hans and Parki Belonging to the menagerie of Stadholder Willem V
Camper was interested in the classification of all sorts of fossil discoveries, such as the Mosasaurus in Maastricht, which he inspected and drew in the 1770s. His drawings were later published by Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond
Picture of a human male based on Petrus Camper measurements
Abbildung der Camperschen Ebene basierend auf einem Kupferstich aus Peter Campers Werk Über den natürlichen Unterschied der Gesichtszüge in Menschen verschiedener Gegenden und verschiedenen Alters von 1792. Die Campersche Ebene ist orange hervorgehoben.Awards
About this person
He was among the first to mark out an "anthropology," which he distinguished from natural history. He studied the orangutan, the Javan rhinoceros, and the skull of a mosasaur, which he believed was a whale.
