Theodor Kerckring

Who was Theodor Kerckring?

Theodor Kerckring or Dirk Kerckring was a Dutch anatomist and chemical physician.

Kerckring was born as the son of the Amsterdam merchant and VOC captain Dirck Kerckring and Margaretha Bas. In the second half of the 1650s he was a pupil at the Latin School in Amsterdam of Franciscus van den Enden, before studying medicine at Leiden University under Franciscus Sylvius. Around 1660 he was painted by Jurgen Ovens. In 1667 he was visited by Cosimo III de' Medici, interested in new developments in science and curious to see his collection of anatomical objects.

Several sources reveal that Kerckring remained on good terms with Van den Enden, whose daughter Clara Maria he married in 1671. In order to marry the 27 year old woman, who had a limp, Kerckring became a Roman Catholic. She helped her father teach Latin and Spinoza seems to have been interested in her.

Although further details of his early life are sketchy, it is known that he spent much of his medical career prior to 1675 in Amsterdam at Singel. Afterwards he travelled throughout continental Europe, settling in Hamburg in 1678. In 1683 he invited his old friend Niels Stensen, once one of the leading anatomists but converted to Catholicism. Nielsen, becoming a priest in Florence and bisshop in Münster, needed new position. Kerckring helped Stensen with an appointment in Hamburg and Stensen asked the Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo III de' Medici to help Kerckring with a post. Then both men were able to share experiences and ideas.