Ole Worm - encyclopedia article about Ole Worm.

Ole Worm

Ole Worm (May 13, 1588–August 31, 1655), (pronounced "Olə Vorm") who often went by the Latinized form of his name Olaus Wormius, was a Danish physician and antiquary.

Life

Worm was the son of Willum Worm who served as the mayor of Aarhus, and was made a rich man by the inheritance from his father. Ole Worm's grandfather Johan Worm, a magistrate in Aarhus, was a Lutheran who had fled from Arnhem in Gelderland while it was under Catholic rule.

Ole Worm was something of a perpetual student: after attending the grammar school of Aarhus, he continued his education at the University of Marburg in 1605, received his Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Basel in 1611, and received a Master of Arts degree from the University of Copenhagen in 1617. The rest of his academic career was spent in Copenhagen, where he taught Latin, Greek, physics, and medicine. He was personal physician to King Christian IV of Denmark. Somewhat remarkable for a physician of the time, he remained in the city of Copenhagen to minister to the sick during an epidemic of the Black Death.

Scientific and cultural significance

Worm's illustration of the Runamo inscription, where he could read the name Lund. The "inscription" was later found to be natural formations in the rock.

In medicine, Worm's chief contributions were in embryology. The Wormian bones (small bones that fill gaps in the cranial sutures) are named after him.

Worm is also known to have been a collector of early literature in the Scandinavian languages. He also wrote a number of treatises on Rune stones and collected texts that were written in runic. Worm received letters of introduction to the bishops of Denmark and Norway from the King of Denmark due to the King's interest and approval. In 1626 Worm published his Fasti Danici, or "Danish Chronology," containing the results of his researches into runic lore; and in 1636 Runir seu Danica literatura antiquissima, "Runes: the oldest Danish literature," a compilation of transcribed runic texts. In 1643 his Danicorum Monumentorum^[1] "Danish Monuments" was published. The first written study of Rune stones, it is also one of the only surviving sources for depictions of numerous Rune stones and inscriptions from Denmark, some of which are now lost.

"Musei Wormiani Historia," the frontispiece from the Museum Wormianum depicting Wormius' cabinet of curiosities.

As a natural philosopher, Worm assembled a great collection of curiosities, which ranged from native artifacts collected from the New World, to taxidermed animals, to fossils, on which he speculated greatly. Worm compiled engravings of his collection, along with his speculations about their meaning, into a catalog of his Museum Wormianum, published after his death, in 1655. As a scientist, Worm straddled the line between modern and pre-modern. As an example, in a very modern, empirical mode, Worm determined that the unicorn did not exist and that purported unicorn horns were really simply from the narwhal. At the same time, however, he then wondered if the anti-poison properties associated with a unicorn's horn still held true, and undertook primitive experiments in poisoning pets and then serving them ground up narwhal horn (his poisoning must have been relatively mild because he reported that they did recover).

His other empirical investigations included providing convincing evidence that lemmings were rodents and not, as some thought, spontaneously generated by the air, and also by providing the first detailed drawing of a bird of paradise proving that they did, despite much popular speculation to the opposite, indeed have feet like regular birds. Worm's primary use of his natural history collection was for the purpose of pedagogy.

Worm in popular literature

In more recent years, the real Worm (and his various accomplishments) have been supplanted to many by a fictional character with his name. H. P. Lovecraft created the character Olaus Wormius as a translator from Greek into Latin of his notorious fictional grimoire, the Necronomicon. Lovecraft also writes him as a Dominican priest, and misplaces him in the thirteenth century.

References

1. ^ Danicorum Monumentorum is viewable via the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz website here: [1]

External links

Computus Runicus. a Runic calendar collected by Wormius in Gotland.

May 13 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events

1497 - Pope Alexander VI excommunicates Girolamo Savonarola.

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15th century - 16th century - 17th century
1550s 1560s 1570s - 1580s - 1590s 1600s 1610s
1585 1586 1587 - 1588 - 1589 1590 1591

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Subjects: Archaeology - Architecture -
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August 31 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events

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8th century - 9th century - 10th century
850s 860s 870s - 880s - 890s 900s 910s
885 886 887 - 888 - 889 890 891

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Subjects: Archaeology - Architecture -
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Motto
none
(Royal motto: Guds hjælp, Folkets kærlighed, Danmarks styrke
"The Help of God, the Love of the People, the Strength of Denmark" )
Anthem
Der er et yndigt land (national)
Kong Christian
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physician applies to a person who practices some type of medicine. Such medical practitioners are concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis and treatment of disease and injury, through both an area of knowledge
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An antiquarian or antiquary is one concerned with antiquities or things of the past. Also, and most often in modern usage, an antiquarian is a person who deals with or collects rare and ancient "antiquarian books".
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Aarhus ( Danish pronunciation (help info ) : [ˈɒːhus, ˈɒːhuːˀs]
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Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestant Christianity that identifies with the teachings of the sixteenth-century German reformer Martin Luther. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Church launched the Protestant Reformation and, though it was not
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Arnhem

Coordinates:
Country Netherlands
Province Gelderland
Area (2006)
- Municipality 101.53 km (0 sq mi)
- Land 98.
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Provincie Gelderland
Province of Gelderland

Flag Coat of arms

Capital Arnhem
Largest city Nijmegen
Queen's Commissioner Clemens Cornielje
Religion (1999) Protestant 31%
Catholic 29%
Area
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Catholic is an adjective derived from the Greek adjective καθολικός, meaning "general; universal" (cf. Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon) .
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A perpetual student, also known as a professional student (though the latter term has more than one meaning), is a college or university attendee who re-enrolls for several years, typically more than what is necessary to obtain a given degree.
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A grammar school is a school that may, depending on regional usage as exemplified below, provide either secondary education or, a much less common usage, primary education (also known as "elementary").
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University of Marburg (German: Philipps-Universität Marburg 'Philip's University, Marburg'), was founded in 1527 by Landgrave Philipp I of Hesse (usually called the Magnanimous, although the updated meaning 'haughty' is sometimes given) as the world's first and oldest
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16th century - 17th century - 18th century
1570s 1580s 1590s - 1600s - 1610s 1620s 1630s
1602 1603 1604 - 1605 - 1606 1607 1608

:
Subjects: Archaeology - Architecture -
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The University of Basel (German: Universität Basel) is located at Basel, Switzerland.

History

Founded in 1459, it is Switzerland's oldest university.
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University of Copenhagen (Danish: Københavns Universitet) is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark.
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Latin}}}
Official status
Official language of: Vatican City
Used for official purposes, but not spoken in everyday speech
Regulated by: Opus Fundatum Latinitas
Roman Catholic Church
Language codes
ISO 639-1: la
ISO 639-2: lat
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Greek}}}
Writing system: Greek alphabet
Official status
Official language of: Greece
Cyprus
European Union
recognised as minority language in parts of:
European Union
Italy
Turkey
Regulated by:
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Physics is the science of matter^[1] and its motion^[2]^[3], as well as space and time^[4]^[5] —the science that deals with concepts such as force, energy, mass, and charge.
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Medicine is the science and "" of maintaining and/or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of patients. The term is derived from the Latin ars medicina meaning the art of healing.
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Christian IV
King of Denmark and Norway

Coronation 29 August 1596, Copenhagen
Born 12 March 1577
Frederiksborg Palace
Died 28 January 1648 (aged 72)
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In epidemiology, an epidemic (from Greek epi- upon + demos people) is a classification of a disease that appears as new cases in a given human population, during a given period, at a rate that substantially exceeds what is "expected," based on recent experience
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Bubonic Plague
Classification & external resources

Yersinia pestis'' seen at 2000x magnification with a fluorescent label. This bacterium, carried and spread by fleas, is the cause of the various forms of the disease plague.
ICD-10 A 20.
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Embryology is the study of the development of an embryo. An embryo is defined as any vertebrate in a stage before birth or hatching. Embryology refers to the development of the egg cell (zygote) after fertilization and the differentiation of cells into tissues and organs.
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sutural or Wormian bones. They occur most frequently in the course of the lambdoidal suture, but are occasionally seen at the fontanelles, especially the posterior. One, the pterion ossicle, sometimes exists between the sphenoidal angle of the parietal bone and the great
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skull is a bony structure found in many animals which serves as the general framework for the head. The skull supports the structures of the face and protects the head against injury.

The skull can be subdivided into two parts: the cranium and the mandible.
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