Theodor Kerckring (1638–1693) and his contributions to describing fetal development and craniospinal malformations

Excerpt

Very little is written about Theodor Kerckring, a Dutch anatomist who lived from 1640 to 1693 mostly in Amsterdam and Hamburg. It is questionable whether he was born in Amsterdam or Hamburg [1]. He studied medicine at Leiden University and he studied under Franciscus Sylvius. Kerckring was a friend with Niels Stensen and his contemporaries included the well-known anatomists and scientists Bartholin, Pecquet, Wirsung, Brunner, de Graaf, Malpighi, Peyer, Ruysch, Swammerdam, and van Leeuwenhoek. During a period of human anatomical revelation, the Kerckring name was rarely mentioned among his contemporaries such as Vesaulis, Boerhaave, and Harvey. His most renown descriptions were of the valves of Kerckring of the small intestines, better known as the plicae circularis or valvulae conniventes [5]. …