Graaf, REGNIER DE

Graaf, REGNIER DE, a Dutch physician and anatomist, was born at Schoonhoven, 30th July 1641, studied at Leyden under Dubois (De le Boë), better known as Sylvius, and afterwards in France, taking the degree of doctor of medicine at Angers in 1665. The year after he settled at Delft, where he practised until his death, 17th August 1673. In 1663 he wrote Disputatio Medica de Natura et Usu Succi Pancreatici, which gained him a great reputation. In the course of his investigations in abdominal anatomy he discovered, in 1672, the Graafian vesicles or follicles of the female ovum (see OVARY). He wrote several dissertations on the organs of generation in both sexes, which involved him in a prolonged and angry controversy with Swammerdam. His Opera Omnia were published at Leyden in 1677, and republished in 1686 and 1705.