Job Janszoon van Meekeren
| Born | 1611 |
| Died | 1666 |
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Biography of Job Janszoon van Meekeren
Job Janszoon van Meekeren was a pupil of Nicolaas Tulp (1593-1674). He became a surgeon in 1635 and mainly practiced medicine in his native town. He was both city surgeon, surgeon to the admiralty and the hospital and achieved a great reputation as an operator. Nicolaas Tulp and Albrecht von Haller (1798-1777) called him “chirurgis industrius" and “celebris et candidus chirurgus”, respectively.
Under the name “milde Wassersucht” he described a cyst in the spleen. In amputations of limbs he applied artificial bloodlessness, and devised an instrument for the punctation of the hypopyon. Meekeren was also first to record a bone graft. In Chapter 1 og his book he states that he read a report of it in a letter received by the Reverend Engebert Sloot of Slooterdijk from John Kraanwinkel, a missionary in Russia, where the operation had been performed. It consisted of the transplantation of a piece of bone from a dog's skull into a cranial defect in a soldier. Although healing was perfect, the Church ordered the removal of the graft.
