Jan Marek Marci

Jan Marek Marci, also known as Johannes Marcus Marci de Cronland, was a Czech medical doctor and scientist, born in Lanškroun in 1595 and died in 1667. He spent over thirty years as a professor of medicine at Charles University in Prague, was eight times dean of its medical school and rector in 1662, and served as personal physician to the emperors Ferdinand III and Leopold I. He distinguished himself in the defence of Prague against the Swedish armies in 1648. His studies covered the mechanics of colliding bodies, epilepsy and the refraction of light, and he held that colours arise from refraction in a dense medium, preceding Isaac Newton in that belief. He came into possession of the Voynich Manuscript and sent it to his friend Athanasius Kircher, and a crater on the far side of the Moon is named after him.