In this environment, Reinier de Graaf was able to let his great intellectual talents unfold during his short life. He was born on 30 July 1641 in Schoonhoven. Amid the nation-wide misery of the disastrous year of 1672 he married Maria van Dijck in Gouda on June 14th. On 17 August 1673 Reinier de Graaf died and was buried in the Old Church in Delft on 21 August 1673.

De Graaf began his university education in Louvain where he attended the lectures of the anatomist Plempius (1601-1671). In 1661 he was enrolled as a student of medicine in Utrecht and on 5 April 1663 he became a student at Leyden University. Here again De Graaf attended lessons in anatomy, just as he had done in Louvain and Utrecht, but this time from Johannes van Horne. As a young student De Graaf helped Van Horne prepare anatomical specimens and he has the honor of being the inventor of the injection syringe with which liquids and wax could be introduced into the prepared blood vessels as a coloring and preservation medium.

Besides being attracted by the anatomy work of Van Horne, De Graaf was a dedicated pupil of François Dele Boë Sylvius (1614-1672). He was one of the most gifted proponents and defenders of the iatrochemical school of thought in the medicine of those days. Like many of his contemporaries De Graaf went to France in 1665 where he performed autopsies as part of his research on the pancreas. In 1663 De Graaf published his first discourse on the pancreatic "juice" in the form of a treatise; in the following year, he recorded his investigations in a book entitled 'De Succi Pancreatici Natura et Usu Exercitatio anatomica Medica' (On the Nature and Use of the Pancreatic Juices in the Practice of Medical Anatomy). On 23 July 1665 he received, with honors, his doctorate from the University of Angers in France. De Graaf found that there was a great deal of interest in his scientific work in France.

Although Reinier de Graaf deserves a place in the gallery of famous physicians of the past by virtue of his investigations of the pancreas juice and the male reproductive organs alone, he is mainly known in today's medical world for his remarkable discoveries in the field of the female reproductive biology and anatomy. In the literature it is generally asserted that, although De Graaf was the discoverer of the follicles named after him, he nevertheless made the error of thinking that these were the ova themselves. In part, De Graaf's merits are rated too highly. The discovery of the ovarian 'vesicles' which has been attributed to him, had already been made many years earlier by Vesalius (1514-1564), among others. On the other hand, De Graaf's merits are rated too low, for despite the fact that although the microscopically small egg cell could not be seen by de Graaf himself, he did understand the true significance of the follicle better than might be thought from his incorrect conclusion of the follicles being 'ova'. In addition to this, De Graaf described the corpus luteum which we know is of such essential importance for maintaining early pregnancy. De Graaf published the results of his research on and discoveries of the female sexual organs in 1672 in a treatise entitled 'De mulierum organis in generationi inservientibus tractatus novus'.

After his visit to France, Reinier de Graaf returned to the Netherlands in 1667 and settled in Delft. Here he acquired a large practice. It was to be expected that De Graaf would be the successor of Dele Boë Sylvius, but as a Roman Catholic, his entry into the professorship at the Protestant University of Leyden was blocked. A few months before his death, De Graaf laid the groundwork for the remarkable discoveries that made his fellow citizen and friend Antonie van Leeuwenhoek more widely known. On 28 April 1673, himself a correspondent of the Royal Society, De Graaf wrote a very appreciative letter about Van Leeuwenhoek to Henry Oldenburg, the first secretary. In many letters the 'amateur microscopist'  Van Leeuwenhoek informed this famous Society about the wonderful world he saw through his self-ground lenses.

In his brief life span Reinier de Graaf won great fame and renown by his exhaustive research in the anatomical and medical field. He is therefore one of the most important personalities from Holland's great past and founder of what we know today about the process of reproduction.

Dr. H.L. Houtzager
Van der Dussenweg 14
2614 XE DELFT
The Netherlands

References

Ankum, W.M., Houtzager, H.L. and Bleker, O.P. (1996): Reinier de Graaf and the Fallopian tube. Human reproduction update. vol. 2, nr. 2, 365-369.

Houtzager, H.L. (1981): Reinier de Graaf, a historical review. Europ. J. Obstet. Gynec. Reprod. Biol., 12, 385-387; (1991): Experimenteel geneeskundig onderzoek in ons land ten tijde van Reinier de Graaf in: Houtzager, H.L. (ed.) Reinier de Graaf 1641-1673, bundel opstellen verschenen bij gelegenheid van de herdenking van de 350ste geboortedag van Reinier de Graaf. Erasmus Publishing, Rotterdam, 55-82.

Jocelyn, H.D. and Setchell, B.P. (1972): Reinier de Graaf on the human reproductive organs. J. Reprod. fertil., Suppl. 17.

Lindeboom, G.A. (1973): Reinier de Graaf leven en werken. Elmar B.V., Delft.