The anatomical-surgical and engraving instruments of the Danzig physician Christoph Gottwald

Abstract

Christoph Gottwald (1636–1700) was one of the most important Danzig doctors and collectors to live in the 17th century. Gottwald was a graduate of Leiden University and a student of Frans de la Boë, known as Sylvius, becoming a doctor of medicine and philosophy as well as being an engraver. His legacy has been preserved among others in seven works of chalcography, which together with an array of surgical-anatomical instruments present also pigments, microscopes as well as a vivisection table that constituted a part of his scientific workshop. This constitutes a unique piece of evidence depicting the research of a naturalist living in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the second half of the 17th century. The paper was originally published as Instrumenty chirurgiczno-anatomiczne i rytownicze gdańskiego lekarza Christopha Gottwalda (1636–1700), “Klio” 2018, vol. 46, issue 3, pp. 157–183, DOI: 10.12775/KLIO.2018.037.

Keywords

• Christoph(orus) Gottwald (1636–1700)
• Musaeum Gottwaldianum
• natural history collections – Royal Prussia
• natural history – the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
• history of medicine – Danzig (Gdańsk) – 17th century
• history of anatomy