Volcher Coiter

Volcher Coiter, also spelled Coyter or Koyter, and in Latin Volcherus Coiterus, was a Dutch anatomist of the sixteenth century who established the study of comparative osteology and was the first to describe cerebrospinal meningitis. Born in Groningen to a patrician family, he studied in Italy and France under teachers including Ulisse Aldrovandi, Gabriele Falloppio, Bartolomeo Eustachi and Guillaume Rondelet, and graduated in 1562. He taught at Bologna, served the Duke of Bavaria, and from 1569 was city physician of Nuremberg, where he performed autopsies and dissections. He also studied the human eye and showed the replenishment of the aqueous humor, and he illustrated his works with his own detailed drawings.