How to dissect animals and plants
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The Dutch were interested in dissection of human bodies for both forensic and scientific purposes.
City anatomists
- Cornelis 's Gravesande
Collectors of rarities and curiosities noted in Engel who lived in Delft during Leeuwenhoek's lifetime:
- Adriaan Gerrit Doublet - 1669-1726. Magistrate and a director of the VOC chamber.
- Cornelis de la Faille - 1674-1730. Magistrate.
- Johan Bernard de la Faille - 1672-1727. "Auditeur van de Kamer van Reekening". Possessed the most famous shell collection of his days. It contained a.o. two specimens of the Conus Cedo Nulli. After his death one of them was bought by the King of Portugal.
- Cornelis Gravesande - ca. 1631-1691. Physician, magistrate, lecturer in anatomy and surgery. He had a collection of shells.
- Jan van der Meer - 1616-1683. Apothecary; 1650-1660 chief of the St. Nicolaasguild; physician after 1666. His cabinet certainly contained mammals, birds, fishes and shells and material from the East and the West Indies of pharmaceutical interest.
- Valerius Rover (Roever) - 1686-1739. Came to Delft in 1709. He had a cabinet of curiosities and paintings.
DELFT On several engravings the cages at the walls of the town-hall, in which eagles were kept, can be seen. Two eagles were fed by the town; the caretaker of these eagles got a salary till far into the 18th century. Brereton 1844, I, p. 22 mentions tame storks kept in town.
source: H.L. Houtzager 1979: Dieren in Delft, in: Tijdschr. Gesch. Geneesk. Natuurwet. & Techn. II, p. 52-61,
