Hoorne, John Van

, a distinguished anatomist and physician, was born at Amsterdam in 1621, and educated at the university of Utrecht, where he went through his medical studies with honour. With a view to farther improvement he visited Italy; but on his arrival in that country he entered the Venetian army, in which he served for some time. Subsequently, however, his taste for science returned; and having studied under the most eminent professors of Italy, he went to the universities of Basil, Montpellier, and Orleans, in the first of which he received the degree of M. D. On his return he was appointed professor of anatomy and surgery at Amsterdam; and in 1653 he was made professor of the same sciences in the university of Leyden, where he died January 1670.

Van Hoorne was a man of considerable literary attainments, being master of eight languages. His reputation with posterity, however, rests principally on his anatomical knowledge. He seems to have first described the thoracic duct in the human body, which Pecquet had already demonstrated in other animals; and the intimate structure of the testes. He drew a great number of anatomical figures, with great elegance; and besides editing the works of Botallus, in 1660, and the book of Galen “De Ossibus,” with the commentaries of Vesalius, Sylvius, &c. in 1665, he wrote, 1. “Exercitationes Anatomicae I & II ad Observationes Fallopii anatomicas,” &c. Liege, 1649, 4to. 2. “Novus ductus chyliferus, nunc primum delineatus, descriptus, et eruditorum examini propositus,” ibid. 1652. 3. “Microcosmus, seu brevis manuductio ad historiam corporis humani, in gratiam discipuloium,” ibid. 1660, and several subsequent editions. 4. “Mjcrotechne, id est, brevissima Chirurgiae Methoclus,” ibid. 1663, 1668, Lipsiae, 1675. 5. “ProdromusObservationum suarum circa partes gemtales in utroque sexu,” Leyden, 1668. This work was afterwards published by Swammerdam, who had made the greater part of the experiments there recorded, of which Van Hoorne only paid the expences, under the title “Miraculum Naturae,” 1672, 4to. 6. “Observationes Anatomico-Medicce,” &c. Amst. 1674, 12mo. 7. A posthumous | collection, under the title of “Opnscula Anatomico-Chirurgica,” was published by professor Pauli, at Leipsic, in 1707, 8vo, with annotations. ¹