Gerard van Swieten
Gerard van Swieten on the memorial to Maria Theresa, Vienna
Born	May 7, 1700 Leiden
Died	June 18, 1772 Vienna
Residence	Austria
Nationality	Dutch
Fields	Physician
Known for	Debunking ghosts and vampires

Gerard van Swieten (1700-1772) was a Dutch-Austrian physician.

Van Swieten was born in Leiden. He was a pupil of Hermann Boerhaave and became in 1745 the personal physician of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. In this position he implemented a transformation of the Austrian health service and medical university education. He founded a botanical garden, a chemical laboratory and introduced clinical instruction.

Contents 1 Van Swieten's part in the fight against superstition 2 As reformer 3 Family 4 Honors 5 References

[edit] Van Swieten's part in the fight against superstition

Especially important is his part in the fight against superstition during the enlightenment, particularly in the case of the vampyres, that were reported from villages in Eastern Europe in the years between 1718 and 1732. After the last of the wars against the Turks in 1718 some parts of the land, e.g. Northern Serbia and a part of Bosnia, went to Austria. These parts were settled with refugees that had the special status of dutyfree farmers. But for that they had to take care of the agricultural development and secure the frontier. Because of that the reports about the vampyres reached for the first time German-speaking area. In the year 1755 Gerard van Swieten was sent by Empress Maria Theresa to Moravia to investigate the situation relating to vampires. He viewed the vampire myth as a "barbarism of ignorance" and his aim was to eradicate it.

He investigated it very thoroughly, and wrote a rational report, Abhandlung des Daseyns der Gespenster (or Discourse on the Existence of Ghosts), in which he offered an entirely natural explanation for a belief in vampires. He explained the unusual states in the graves with possibles causes like processes of fermentation and lack of oxygen what was a reason for preventing decomposition. Characteristic for his opinion is this quotation from the preface to his essay of 1768: “… that all the fuss doesn't come from anything else than a vain fear, a superstitious credulity, a dark and eventful imagination, simplicity and ignorance among the people.” Some other physicians supported his theory or even found out other reason for the frequent deaths in the villages, e.g. epidemics.

Therefore Gerard van Swieten was one of the most important fighters against the superstition of the "simple" people. Because of his report, Empress Maria Theresa enacted an edict about vampyres that prohibited all traditional processes such as impalement, beheading and burning of dead bodies.

[edit] As reformer

Beside his medical activities, Gerard van Swieten was also active as a reformer. Especially the censorship was organized in a different way under his direction. He drove out the Jesuits that were in charge of the censorship before and carried out a centralization of the censorship that was only partly successful. He also tried to use scientific and rational aspects for the judgement of literature.

[edit] Family

Gerard van Swieten was the father of Gottfried van Swieten, who had his own career in government service and is remembered as a patron of Haydn, Mozart, and other composers.

[edit] Honors

In 1751, van Swieten was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

A genus of mahogany was named after Gerard van Swieten, Swietenia, by Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin.

The Frank - van Swieten Lectures, an international course about strategic information management in hospitals that is organized by TU Braunschweig, University of Amsterdam, University of Heidelberg, UMIT at Hall near Innsbruck and Fachhochschule Heilbronn are named after him.

[edit] References

• Hamberger, Klaus: Mortuus non mordet. Dokumente zum Vampirismus 1689-1791. Wien 1992