Biography

Dutch anatomist, medic and botanist famous for his preservation of human body parts and skeletons, often arranged in complicated dioramas. Frederik Ruysch was born in The Hague to a family who had historically held quite high-ranking government positions. Due to the early death of his father he had to leave school and become an apprentice in an apothecary's shop, and in 1661 he began to make his own medicines, opening a shop in the same city. Not yet a member of the apothecaries' guild they soon shut down his business, although that same year Ruysch passed the examination and was able to reopen legally. At the same time he married Maria Post with whom he would have many children.

Ruysch had long been interested in anatomy, so much so that in his youth he would ask grave-diggers to open up graves and allow him to study the bodies. Not long after opening his apothecary's shop he began to study medicine in Leiden and travelled every day from The Hague where he still ran his business. Graduating in 1664 he soon published an important treatise on the presence of valves in the lymphatic system, a discovery which put to rest a long standing disagreement in the field. His shop in The Hague became a medical practice and Ruysch was quickly overrun with plague victims, but still found time to continue with his anatomical studies.

Named praelector of the Surgeons Guild in Amsterdam in 1666, he moved to this city the following year and would work in this capacity until his death, teaching and conducting public dissections. Later Ruysch held other important roles in Amsterdam including city obstetrician, in which he educated midwives (from 1672 until his son, Hendrick, took over from him in 1712); doctor to the court of justice, which involved forensic investigations (from 1679); and professor of botany at the Athenaeum Illustre, which included supervising the botanic garden (from 1685). As a botanist he gave lectures three times a week and published descriptions of the garden's rarest plants alongside F. Kiggelaar.

Although Ruysch was a collector of all manner of natural history specimens, including local Dutch plants, butterflies and minerals, he is most famous for his anatomical collection. Using the bodies of babies found in the harbour and of executed criminals he perfected an embalming technique superior to anyone at the time. Although he kept his recipe a secret, it was later discovered that he injected the vessels with a mixture of white wax, talc and cinnabar, and used an embalming fluid of alcohol with black pepper. These were displayed in several houses in Amsterdam and became quite a tourist attraction; in 1697 Peter the Great visited from Russia and marvelled at the collection as well as attending many of Ruysch's lectures. It is said that one of the babies was so beautifully preserved that the Tsar was compelled to kneel down and kiss its forehead. What makes these specimens so intriguing is their arrangement into dioramas and the addition of clothing made by his daughter Rachel. One of the classic scenes includes the skeletons of babies surrounded by a landscape of preserved organs (including the moulds of veins and arteries for 'trees'), often holding objects associated with death and corruption, weeping into their handkerchiefs or infested with 'worms'. Ruysch added quotes on the brevity of life or other social commentaries.

In 1715 he decided to sell the collection, containing nearly 1,000 items, and it was bought by Peter the Great for 3,000 Dutch guilders. Adding them to his curiosity chamber in St. Petersburg, many of these have since been lost (there is even a suggestion that some were destroyed when sailors drank the embalming fluid on the journey from the Netherlands) but Ruysch continued to produce his macabre creations up until his death when they were sold publicly. Many can still be found at the Leiden National Museum. His plant specimens, on the other hand, are primarily housed in St. Petersburg at the V.L. Komarov Botanical Institute (LE). Ruysch was elected to the Royal Society of London in 1720.

Sources:
W.J. Bryce, 2008, A Botanist's Paradise: The Establishment of Scientific Botany in Russia in the Eighteenth Century
G.A. Lindeboom, 1975, "Ruysch, Frederick", Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 12: 39-42
R. Wolff Purcell and S.J. Gould, 1992, Finders, Keepers.