{{Short description|Bohemian physician, politician and philosopher}}
{{Short description| physician, politician and philosopher}}
{{Infobox scientist
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Jan Jesenius
| name = Jan Jesenius
}}
}}
”’Jan Jesenius”’, also written as ”’Jessenius”’ ({{langx|de|Johannes Jessenius}}, {{langx|hu|Jeszenszky János}}, {{langx|sk|Ján Jesenský}}; 27 December 1566 – 21 June 1621), was a [[Bohemia]]n [[physician]], anatomist, [[politician]] and [[philosopher]]. He gained fame in Prague after he conducted a public dissection of a human body for scientific purposes. He was publicly executed following the battle of [[Battle of White Mountain|Bílá hora]].
”’Jan Jesenius”’, also written as ”’Jessenius”’ ({{langx|de|Johannes Jessenius}}, {{langx|hu|Jeszenszky János}}, {{langx|sk|Ján Jesenský}}; 27 December 1566 – 21 June 1621), was a [[physician]], anatomist, [[politician]] and [[philosopher]]. He gained fame in Prague after he conducted a public dissection of a human body for scientific purposes. He was publicly executed following the battle of [[Battle of White Mountain|Bílá hora]].
== Life ==
== Life ==
Czech physician, politician and philosopher
Jan Jesenius, also written as Jessenius (German: Johannes Jessenius, Hungarian: Jeszenszky János, Slovak: Ján Jesenský; 27 December 1566 – 21 June 1621), was a Czech physician, anatomist, politician and philosopher. He gained fame in Prague after he conducted a public dissection of a human body for scientific purposes. He was publicly executed following the battle of Bílá hora.
Jesenský was from an old noble family, the House of Jeszenszky, originally from the Kingdom of Hungary. His father Boldizsár (Baltazar) Jeszenszky de Nagyjeszen was from Horné Jaseno in the Turóc County (today the Turiec region in Slovakia) and had settled in Wrócław around 1555 following the Ottoman campaign in Upper Hungary. He worked as a diplomat and was married to Martha Schiller who was of German origin. He presented himself in his own works as eques Ungarus (“Hungarian knight“).[1] According to scholar publications, he had Slovak,[2][3][4] Polish or German[1] roots.[5]
Johannes Jesenius was born in Breslau (Wrocław), where he studied at the Elisabeth gymnasium. From 1583 he studied philosophy and medicine at the University of Wittenberg, from 1585 at the University of Leipzig, where he conducted vivisection of a cat under the anatomist Georg Walther. He received a bachelors degree with a dissertation titled De animae humanae immortalitate (On the Immortality of the Human Soul) in 1587. From 1588 he was at the University of Padua where he was taught by Girolamo Fabrizio. In 1591 he defended his medical thesis De Putrescentis Bilis in Febre Tertiana Exquisita Intermittente Loco (On Place of Putrifying Bile in Acquired Malaria Tertiana) and another in philosophy Pro vindiciis contra tyrannos (For the Defence Against Tyrants). As a protestant he was eligible for the degree by the Catholic university of Padua but recommendations from his professors allowed him to obtain one. He returned to Wrócław where he worked as a physician.[6][7]
He married Maria Fels in 1595. She died in 1612 in Sopron.[7]
Professional achievements
[edit]
Jesenius was made court physician in Dresden in 1593. His most important philosophical work was Zoroaster (1593), a work of universal philosophy which attempted to recover the lost wisdom of the ancients. This work was dedicated to duke Friedrich Wilhelm von Sachsen-Weimar. In 1594 he became professor of anatomy at the University of Wittenberg. In 1597 he was dean of medical faculty. Tycho Brahe visited him in 1598-99 and invited him to Prague. After 1600 he settled down in Prague as professor and anatomical consultant for Rudolf II, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor.[7]
In 1600 he attracted considerable public interest by performing a public autopsy in Prague at the Reček College. A male cadaver of an executed man was used. This resulted in Anatomiae Pragae (1601). His notes on the autopsy were republished in 2005 by Karolinum, a publishing house of Charles University of Prague.[8] During the 1606 plague he wrote De cavenda peste (On Evading the Plague) and in 1608 he wrote De sanguine, vena secta dimisso, iudicium (Treatise on Blood and Blood-Letting).[7]
In 1617 he was elected rector of Charles University of Prague. He was forced to resign the position in 1620.[7]
Jesenius was also a diplomat and orator, and after the dethroning of Habsburgs in the Crown of Bohemia, he took several diplomatic missions for Bohemian estates and for the newly elected king Frederick of the Palatinate. After three years much of which was associated with religious conflict between the Catholics and Protestants he returned in 1612 to Prague and became rector at the University. Jesenius was mostly on the Czech protestant side and was involved with the rebels to prevent Ferdinand II from becoming king of Hungary.[7]
In 1618, Jesenius was arrested in Pressburg (Bratislava) after being sent as a deputy by the Bohemian estates, and was held in a prison of Vienna. In December, he was released in exchange for two Habsburg captives. There is a legend that, before his release, he wrote the inscription IMMMM on the wall of his prison cell. Ferdinand[who?] explained this as Imperator Mathias Mense Martio Morietur (Latin for “Emperor Mathias will die in the month of March”), and he wrote another prophecy next to it: Iesseni, Mentiris, Mala Morte Morieris (“Jesenius, you lie, you will die a horrible death”).[citation needed]
Both predictions came true: Emperor Mathias died in March 1619, and Jesenius was arrested after the defeat of King Frederick of Bohemia by Emperor Ferdinand II in 1620 (Battle of White Mountain) and executed, along with 26 other Bohemian estates leaders, on the Old Town Square in 1621. The committe that interrogated him came to the verdict “ex gratia imperalia his tongue will be cut out alive, then he will be beheaded and quadrisected and hung at a crossroads close to the scaffold; his head with his tongue will be placed at the bridge” and after the execution his head was displayed on the Old Tower bridge along with eleven others.[7]
Jesenius was honored during the 450th anniversary of his birth (2016) by a postage stamp jointly issued by Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, & Slovakia.[9]
- ^ a b Balázs Trencsényi, Márton Zászkaliczky: Whose Love of Which Country?, Brill, 2010 [1]
- ^ Royal College of Physicians of London
- ^ Studia historica Slovac. Historical Institute SAV
- ^ Toma, Peter A.; Kovac, Dusan; Kováč, Dušan (2001). Slovakia: from Samo to Dzurinda – Peter A. Toma, Dušan Kováč – Google Books. Hoover Institution Press. ISBN 9780817999520. Retrieved 2014-04-12.
- ^ Ruttkay László: Az orvos Jessenius mint történetíró Archived 2016-12-20 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Nejeschleba, Tomáš (2016). “Justification of Anatomical Practice in Jessenius’s “Prague Anatomy”“. Early Science and Medicine. 21 (6): 557–574. ISSN 1383-7427.
- ^ a b c d e f g Kachlik, David; Vichnar, David; Musil, Vladimir; Kachlikova, Dana; Szabo, Kristian; Stingl, Josef (2012). “A biographical sketch of Johannes Jessenius: 410th anniversary of his Prague dissection”. Clinical Anatomy. 25 (2): 149–154. doi:10.1002/ca.21237. ISSN 0897-3806.
- ^ History of Anatomy in the Czech Lands (1600–1746) (in Czech) – on web pages of the Institute of Anatomy, 1st Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague
- ^ “Hungary – Postage stamps – 2016 – The 450th Anniversaery of the Birth of Jan Jessenius, 1566–1621 – Joint Issue with Czech Republic, Poland & Slovakia”. stampworld.com. Retrieved 2024-10-16.
- Ľudo Zúbek: Doktor Jesenius, Szlovákiai Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó-Móra Ferenc Könyvkiadó, Bratislava(Pozsony)-Budapest, 1958. (in Hungarian)
- Ľudo Zúbek: Doktor Jesenius, Móra Ferenc Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 1966. (in Hungarian)
- Ruttkay László: Jeszenszky (Jessenius) János és kora 1566–1621, Semmelweis Orvostörténeti Múzeum és Könyvtár, Budapest, 1971. (in Hungarian)
- Philippe Malgouyres, La Science de l’émerveillement. Artistes et intellectuels à la cour de Rodolphe II (1552-1612), Paris, Mare & Martin, 2025, 978-2-36222-125-5 (in French)
