Graaf, Regnier de

Born July 30, 1641, in Schoonho-ven; died Aug. 17, 1673, in Delft. Dutch anatomist and physiologist.

Graaf studied medicine at the University of Utrecht beginning in 1660. He held the chair of anatomy in Paris and worked as a physician in Angers and in the hospital at Delft. His most important work was on the anatomy of the reproductive organs in animals and man. He studied the structure of the female gonads and established that they contain follicles of varying sizes (Graafian follicles); he took these to be the ova and proposed calling the female sex glands ovaries (ovaria). He also studied the chemistry of digestion and the action of pancreatic juice, carrying out prolonged experiments using his own method of salivary and pancreatic fistulization. Graaf was a representative of the school of iatrochemistry.