Everything about Ole Worm totally explained
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. He married Dorothea Fincke, the daughter of a friend and colleague,
Thomas Fincke, a mathematician who invented the terms '
tangent' and '
secant'.
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
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 "Danish Monuments" was published. The first written study of Rune stones, it's also one of the only surviving sources for depictions of numerous Rune stones and inscriptions from Denmark, some of which are now lost.
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 didn't 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 (Worm 1655, p. 327), 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.
Ole Worms speech "Don't make me angry, or the Worm will turn into a snake" got very popular.
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.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Ole Worm'.
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