Salomon Alberti (30 September 1540 – 28 March 1600) was a German physician who is best known for being the first to illustrate venous valves in his book Tres Orationes (1585).

An engraving from a medallion

Life edit

Salomon Alberti was born in Naumburg. His father who was from Nürnberg died when Salomon was just a year old leaving his mother Dorothea to take care of him. As she was too poor to provide him an education, he was supported by the city council and given a free education. He then went to study medicine at the University of Wittenberg, obtaining a degree in liberal arts in 1564 and then became a professor of physics in 1575 and a professor of anatomy in 1577. In 1592 he became physician to Duke Friedrich Wilhelm in Dresden.[1][2]

Alberti followed the traditions of anatomy set by Andreas Vesalius and began to describe the venous valves that had been written about by Girolamo Fabrizio,[3] the lachrymal structures of the eye and wrote a text on anatomy that went into several editions.

References edit

  1. ^ August Hirsch (1875), "Alberti, Salomon", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 1, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, p. 215
  2. ^ Magnus Schmid (1953), "Alberti, Salomon", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 1, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 141–142; (full text online)
  3. ^ Franklin, K. J. (1927). "Valves in Veins: An Historical Survey". Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine. 21 (1): 1–33. doi:10.1177/003591572702100101. PMC 2101797. PMID 19986134.