Table Of ContentTroels Kardel
Paul Maquet
Nicolaus Steno
Biography and Original Papers
of a 17th Century Scientist
Second Edition
Nicolaus Steno
Nicolaus Steno
Biography and Original Papers
of a 17th Century Scientist
Second Edition
Edited and Translated
by Troels Kardel and Paul Maquet
From
VilhelmMaar,ed.,
NicolaiStenonisOperaPhilosophica,Copenhagen1910.
Gustav Scherz, ed.,
Steno. Geological Papers, Odense 1969.
Gustav Scherz, Niels Stensen, eine Biographie, vol. 1, Leipzig 1986.
123
Troels Kardel Paul Maquet
Gammel Holte Aywaille
Denmark Belgium
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Book 1
–
Gustav Scherz: Niels Stensen Eine Biographie.
Bearbeitet von Harriet M. Hansen
Herausgegeben von Franz Peter Sonntag.
St. Benno-Verlag GmbH, Leipzig. Band I, 1987.
English translation by Paul Maquet
by agreement with
Stiftung zur Herausgabe der Niels-Stensen-Biographie von Gustav Scherz
Book 2
NICOLAI STENONIS OPERA PHILOSOPHICA [OPH] I-II
Edited by Vilhelm Maar, Copenhagen, Vilhelm Tryde Publ., 1910
Translated into English by
Paul Maquet, OPH 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 28, 31, 32, 33
OPH 22, 31a and 31b by Paul Maquet in cooperation
with S. Emmanuel Collins
OPH 17 by Margaret Tallmadge May
OPH 23 and 27 by Alex J. Pollock who also translated DE THERMIS
OPH 29, 30 and ORNAMENTS by Maureen Rhode
e.Transcripts1
fi
The scienti c works of Stensen in original languages transcribed by
August Ziggelaar, Paul Maquet and Troels Kardel
1Additionalmaterialtothisbook,thetranscriptsoftheoriginaleditions,canbedownloadedfrom
http://extras.springer.com
v
Preface to the First Edition
Boni enim interpretis est, non ipsa modo verba seorsum considerare, sed & cum
antecedentibus simul & conseqventibus conferre. (Steno, OPH I, 66)
A good interpreter considers not only the words as such but also confers
them with what precedes and what follows. <474>
’
Vilhelm Maar s scholarly edition from 1910, the Nicolai Stenonis Opera
Philosophica (OPH), is after one hundred years still the foundation for the
’ fi
study of Niels Stensen s scienti c works in their original languages. Most
works were written in Latin, one is in French and two small works were
’
published later in Italian. Gustav Scherz s Niels Stensen, eine Biographie, for
25 years the most exhaustive existing biography, provides the documentation
’
that lies behind the author s contribution on Stensen in the Dictionary of
Scientific Biography.2
Both these editions came out in small numbers, the biography from a
mainly religious publisher in the former German Democratic Republic. It
would be of little service just to make re-editions or to provide access on the
fi
Web, since only few readers today master the Latin suf ciently enough to
’
studyMaar seditionofStensen;orreadGermanwellenoughtostudyScherz
fi fi
with bene t; or read or even can get hold of the rst and only complete
translation of OPH in modern language, the richly illustrated Italian edition,
— fi
Niccolò Stenone Opere Scienti che, edited by Luciana Casella and Enrico
Coturri in 1986.
2DSB 13, 30–35.
vii
viii PrefacetotheFirstEdition
’
We present here what was missing, English translations of all Stensen s
fi fi ’
printed scienti c works and of the rst volume in Scherz s biography on
Stensen.Intenchaptersitdealswithgenealogy,youth,education,hislifeand
achievements as a scientist and his religious conversion. A brief summary of
’
Scherz s volume 2 deals with Stensen as a Catholic bishop in Northern
–
Germany between 1677 and 1686 is found on <p. 3 4>. That volume and
’
Stensen s theological writings await a new team to take over.
33 published works in science and additional texts were collected and
’ fi
edited in the OPH by Vilhelm Maar in 1910. Stensen s rst published work
—
in science from 1661, De Thermis On hot springs, was still undiscovered
when Vilhelm Maar numbered the works.
’
Stensen s active life in research lasted altogether from 1660 to 1674. His
sciencefallsintotwomaincategories,theanatomicalworksandthegeological
works.Thegeologicalworksbetween1667and1670areOPH23,27,29,30.
VilhelmMaar(1871–1940)completed medical studiesatCopenhagen University in 1896.After
studiesatlearned centres inEurope, mainly inLondon, Maarbecame an assistant to histeacher
ofphysiology, Prof.Christian Bohr.Based onstudies ofthe respiration,Maar becameDoctor of
Medicinein1902.Alongsidetheacademiccareer,Maarpracticedmedicine.MaarwasProfessorof
theHistoryofMedicineinCopenhagenbetween1911and1933andpublishedseveralbibliophile
editions,thefirstofwhichwastheDanishtranslationoftheProdromusonsolidsin1902incooper-
ation withAugust Krogh,the zoophysiologist and later Nobellaureate
PrefacetotheFirstEdition ix
Thematically, theanatomicalworkscanbesubgroupedas follows,withthe
time and place of origin indicated.
1. WorksontheglandsandlymphaticscompriseOPH1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,11,
–
12, 13 from the Netherlands 1661 1663 and the second part of OPH 15
from Copenhagen in 1664. Many pages were spent on a dispute with
Gerard Blaes and his allies on priority for the discovery of the excretory
duct of the parotid gland.
2. Worksontheheartandmuscles,OPH9,10and14fromtheNetherlandsin
– fi
1662 1663,the rstpartofOPH15fromCopenhagenin1664,themain
work,SpecimenofelementsofmyologyOPH22,fromFlorencein1667,and
OPH 32 from Copenhagen in 1673. Annotated English translations of
OPH 14 and 22 were published by the Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society in 1994.
3. Works on the brain, OPH 22, the Discourse of anatomy of the brain, from
Paris in 1665 and OPH 28 from Innsbruck in 1669.
4. Works on the circulation of the blood, OPH 11 from Leiden in 1662 and
OPH 33 from Copenhagen in 1673.
5. Worksonfoetalmalformations.OPH20isfromParisin1665andOPH28
from Innsbruck in 1669.
6. Comparative works on reproductive organs and foetal growth. OPH 16 and
17 are from Copenhagen in 1664 and OPH 19, 20, 21, 24, 25 and 26
from Florence in 1668.
fi
7. An essay on scienti c endeavour is the Prooemium, OPH 31 from
’
Copenhagen in 1673, which contains Steno s most famous words,
Beautiful is what we see, more beautiful what we know, but by far the most
beautiful is what we do not know <857>.
There are thematic overlaps. Thus, the main geological work, the
Prodromus on solids, OPH 27, contains an original description of the com-
partmentsofthewaterspaceinthebodywithaconclusionthattheformation
of stones, such as bladder and gallstones, takes place by accretion in the
’
so-called external water space of the body. Stensen s interest in stone for-
mation in living beings was revealed in the Chaos-manuscript as a medical
student, a prompter for his later interests.
fi
English translations of the scienti c works remained few and scattered
—
when Gustav Scherz edited Steno Geological Papers (GP) in 1969 with new
translations from Latin by Alex J. Pollock of 2 of the 33 works in OPH and
of the dissertation on hot springs. The GP further contains two letters in
x PrefacetotheFirstEdition
Italian on Grottos, OPH 29 and 30, translated by Maureen Rhode.3 These
fi
vegeologicalpaperswithanexcerptofthenotesbyScherzarereprintedhere
with kind permission by the publisher, the University Press of Southern
Denmark.
Of 29 anatomical works, only a few were accessible in English when we
published two works in Steno on Muscles and one work, the Prooemium, in
—
Steno Life, Science, Philosophy in 1994. These translations were based on
preliminaryworkbythelateSisterM.EmmanuelCollins,OSF,inRochester,
Minnesota. We thank the editors of the Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society and the Acta Historica Scientiarum Naturalium et
Medicinalium for permission to republish these translations.
In continuation, Paul Maquet, assisted by August Ziggelaar, S.J., D.Phil.,
fi
translated all remaining scienti c works into English with the exception of
OPH 17, which was uniquely translated by Margaret Tallmadge May in
1950. The Journal of History of Medicine and Allied Sciences granted the
’
permission to republish Dr. May s translation.
ThescholarlyannotationsbyVilhelmMaarinOPHaretobefoundinthe
additional material to the present edition (Part III) which can be downloaded
from http://extras.springer.com, together with the anatomical works by
Stensen in their original languages transcribed from OPH.
Those translations completed, Paul Maquet took up the task of translating
’
Gustav Scherz s biography of Stensen from the German.
3We were unable to trace Alex J. Pollock and Maureen Rohde (or Rhode?) to give them
acknowledgement fortheirtranslations which ishereby presented.
PrefacetotheFirstEdition xi
Fr.GustavScherz,C.ss.R, D.Phil.& theol. &h.c.(1895–1971),isthe second great scholar on
Stensenofthetwentiethcentury.Amongnumerousbooksandpapers,Scherzco-editedStensen’s
Operatheologica(OTH)andeditedhiscorrespondence,theEpistolae(EP),bothworkshavingbeen
publishedinquartotwo-volumesetsliketheOperaphilosophica.SeetheGustavScherzbiography
byIvarHoel in <p.xvii>
Dr. August Ziggelaar, of Copenhagen, now Nijmegen in the Netherlands,
’
also assisted in this translation and revised Scherz s many quotations from
’
Stensen s student journal, the Chaos-manuscript, based on his own English
edition (N.S. Chaos, ed. Z).
Texts and illustrations were edited by Troels Kardel. Alan Cutler, Ph.D.,
fi
Washington D.C., geologist and the author of a widely distributed scienti c
biography on Stensen,4 kindly undertook the revision of geological issues and
4Recent English biographies: Hans Kermit, Niels Stensen. The scientist who was beatified; Alan
Cutler, Theseashell onthe mountaintop.
