Olaus Wormius

Olaus Wormius (May 13, 1588 – August 31, 1654), his name sometimes appears, without Latinization, as Ole Worm; he was a Danish physician and antiquarian.

Biography

Worm, the son of Willum Worm who was mayor of Aarhus, was a wealthy man due to his father's inheritance. His grandfather, Johan Worm, was a magistrate from Aarhus and a Lutheran who had to flee Arnhem in Gelderland while it was under Catholic control.

Ole Worm was somewhat of a "perpetual student": after attending school in Aarhus, he continued his education at the University of Marburg in 1605, receiving the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of Basel in 1611 and the degree of Master of Arts from the University of Copenhagen in 1617. The remainder of his academic career was spent in Copenhagen, where he taught Latin, Greek, medicine, and physics. He was the personal physician to King Christian V of Denmark. It should be noted, since he was not a normal behavior physician at the time, that he remained practicing in Copenhagen during the bubonic plague epidemic.

Scientific and cultural significance

In medicine, Wormius's main contributions were in the area of embryology. Worm bones (small bones that cover the spaces in the skull) are named after him in honor of his contributions to the field.

Wormius is also known as a collector of early literature in Scandinavian languages. He also wrote several treatises on runes and collected texts written in runic alphabets. In 1626 Wormius published his Fasti Danici or "Danish Chronology", which contained the results of his research into runic folk traditions. In 1636 he published Runir seu Danica antiquissima literature, (& # 34; Runes: the oldest Danish literature & # 34;), a compilation of transcriptions of texts in runes.

"Musei Wormiani History," Curiosities Cabinet Museum Wormianum.

As a naturalist, Wormius amassed a large collection in his 'Cabinet of Curiosities,' ranging from native New World artifacts to stuffed animals and fossils, about which he speculated widely. Wormius compiled engravings from his collection as well as speculations about its significance in the catalog of his Museum Wormianum , published after his death in 1655. As a scientist, Wormius straddled the modern and pre-modern science. As an example, in a modern and empirical way Wormius determined that Unicorns did not exist and that the supposed unicorn horns were actually from Narwhal. At the same time, however, he wondered if the supposed antidote properties associated with unicorn horns were still true, so he carried out primitive experiments in which he poisoned domestic animals and then gave them narwhal horn (the poison must have been very mild since who reported that the animals recovered). Other empirical research he conducted included proving that Lemmings were rodents and not, as some thought, spontaneously generated through the air. He also provided the first detailed drawings of a bird of paradise showing that, despite much popular speculation to the contrary, it had feet like all other birds. The main utility of Wormius's natural history collections was pedagogy.

Wormius in popular literature

In more recent years, the real Wormius (and his various accomplishments) have been supplanted by a fictional character bearing his name. Olaus Wormius is a fictional character who appears in the Cthulhu Mythos, specifically in the story of the Necronomicon, written by H. P. Lovecraft. According to this, he was a lover of the esoteric, more out of curiosity than out of faith. This man for many years collected old texts and manuscripts that nobody wanted or whose authenticity was in doubt.

It was in 1228 when he found in a gaazha (a place where manuscripts are kept that nobody uses, but it is considered disrespectful to their author to get rid of them) in Egypt what seemed to be a fragment of the Necronomicon. At first these documents could not be understood as they were not in order and were poorly legible. But as he began to translate them into Latin, Olaus began to have continual nightmares about demon worlds. Olaus was so desperate that he tried to soothe his anguish in the Catholic faith, but the frightening dreams continued until he stopped translating the book. It was then that he realized the importance and power that it had. When he had it ready, he read it with much more patience and he believed more and more in his powers.

Lovecraft describes him as a Dominican father and places him in the 13th century.