Martinus Willem Woerdeman

Vocation

Notable

Family

Dutch professor of anatomy and embryology. He grew up as the only child in a teacher's family. After finishing the higher civil school (HBS) in 1909, he went to study medicine in Amsterdam. He also learned Greek and Latin, needed for a scientific career. During his study he got a job at the Laboratory of Prof. Louis Bolk (1866-1930), a leading anatomist known for the fetalization theory of the human body (neoteny). Woerdemans first publication on the pineal gland appeared in 1913, in 1917 he won a gold metal with an essay on the odontology of reptilia. On 24 april 1918 he became a physician. He first worked as assistant in the histology lab of Prof. Jacob van Rees (16 April 1854, Amsterdam – 4 January 1927, Hilversum). Jacob van Rees was not just a from real life estranged academy professor, but also an engaged Christian, anarchist, vegetarian, vivisection and alcohol opponent and anti-militarist. Woerdeman dissertated 6 June 1921 on "Histologisch onderzoek naar den fibrillairen Bouw van enige Cellen en Weefsels" under Van Rees . He spent the summer of 1920 with Hermann Braus (1868–1924) in Heidelberg and learned from Tibor Peterfi (1883-1953) and Nobel prize Laureate Hans Spemann (1869-1941), the founder of the experimental embryology. On 2 January 1920 he married in Sloten the teacher Geertruida Elizabeth Polderman (20 Augustus 1894, Gorinchem - 7 October 1958). Later he married Hanna Nijman (6 June 1915 - 7 January 2000). On 23 December 1921 he became a private lecturer in histology at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). From 11 March 1925 till 21 July 1926 he succeeded the histologist Van Rees. In 1925 he also taught the anatomy of motion at the just erected Akademie voor Lichamelijke Opvoeding (ALO, Academy of Physical Education) in Amsterdam. On 11 May 1926 he was appointed as a professor of anatomy and embryology in Groningen, as the succeeder of Van Wijhe. On 19 January 1931 he left Groningen, because of a new professorship in Amsterdam. After the death of his teacher Louis Bolk (10 December 1866, Overschie – 17 June 1930, Amsterdam), he became professor of anatomy and embryology in Amsterdam (8 October 1930). He brought out anatomical atlases with drawings of the anatomical preparations of paintress Louise H. Blumenthal. Among his students were pineal gland researcher Johannes Ariëns Kappers , Robert DeHaan and Christiaan Pieter Raven. During the war he was some time kept hostage by the Germans in Michielsgestel (1942). In 1943 he gave illegal lesson anatomy to for the Germans hiding medical students in the Valerius Kliniek. After the war he became Rector magnificus of the UvA from 1945-46 and from 1953-1959, during which time he professionalised the university governing board. Woerdeman and his students published a lot and erected Acta Neerlandica Morphologiae Normalis et Pathologicae (1937), today known as Acta Anatomica Scandinavica and the Excerpta Medica series: "A Complete Monthly Abstracting Service of the World Medical Literature comprising fifteen sections and covering the whole field of theoretical and clinical medicine". He was member of many committees and chairman of the Dutch Academy of Science (KNAW) from 1954 till 1960. From 1948 till 1957 he was chairman of the Institut International d'Embryologie, the later precursor of the International Society of Developmental Biology. At age 70, on 1 September 1962, he officially retired. But from 1962 till 1964 he still taught histology. He died on 3 Augustus 1990 in Amsterdam after a long illness. He and his wifes share a grave in Zaandijk.