Florae Altdorffinae Deliciae Hortenses sive Catalogus Plantarum Horti Medici Quibus Auctiorerat A. C. 1660

Article description

With engraved frontispiz and a folded map of the surrounding of Altdorf. Moritz Hoffmann (born September 20, 1621 in Fürstenwalde; died April 20, 1698 in Altdorf near Nuremberg) was a German physician. Moritz Hofmann was the son of the mayor David Hofmann and his wife Anna Nößler, daughter of the Berlin court chaplain Martin Nößler (1554-1608). After the death of his parents, he was brought up by his uncle Georg Nößler in Altdorf and studied medicine here and in Padua. According to his own statement, as a student in Padua in 1641 he discovered the excretory duct of the pancreas (Ductus pancreaticus) while dissecting a turkey and shared this with his teacher Johann Georg Wirsung, who found it on a human corpse in Padua a year later. Since Hofmann never published his discovery, most medical historians believe that Wirsung was the first to describe the pancreatic duct. In 1648 Hofmann became a professor of medicine in Altdorf and in 1653 also of botany. In 1655 he held the first public anatomy in Altdorf. In addition to building the anatomical theater, Moritz Hofmann founded a chemical laboratory in Altdorf. In 1649 he married Anna Margaretha Saturday (1627–1663). The son Johann Moritz (1653-1727) also became a professor of anatomy, chemistry and botany in Altdorf.