Lars Roberg (4 January 1664 – 21 May 1742) was aSwedishphysician andnatural science researcher. He served as a professor of anatomy and medicine atUppsala University.[1]
Roberg was born inStockholm, Sweden. He was the son of the royalapothecary Daniel Roberg. He matriculated atUppsala University at a young age in 1675, and left for a long foreign journey in 1680 toGermany,France andEngland, during which he studied at theUniversity of Wittenberg andUniversity of Leiden. He completed his doctorate in medicine at Leiden in 1693.He became a professor of anatomy and practical medicine at Uppsala University in 1697 and retained the chair until 1740. Lars Roberg was the teacher ofCarl Linnaeus andPeter Artedi.[2][3]
In 1708, he founded a clinic for the purpose of facilitating the practical education of medical students.Nosocomium academicum at Oxenstiernska huset in Uppsala would later be merged into theUppsala University Hospital.[4][5]
Roberg helped move Swedish medical training from lecture hall to bedside. In 1708 he persuaded the universityconsistory to let students accompany him onward rounds in the Nosocomium academicum (university hospital), makingUppsala the firstNordic school to introduce compulsory clinical clerkships. His workPraxis medica empirica (1715) compiledcase notes from those sessions, emphasising direct observation overGalenic authority and recommendingcinchona bark rather thanbloodletting forintermittent fevers.[6]
An enthusiasticdissector, he obtained a royal privilege (1698) that obliged citymagistrates to deliver executed criminals to the university anatomy theatre; the resulting preparations were illustrated in hisfolioIcones organorum corporis humani (1701), plates from which were still used byLinnaeus four decades later. Roberg also coined Swedish terms such ashjärtöra ("auricle of the heart") andhjärnhinna ("meninges"), many of which entered Dalin's dictionary (Ordbok öfver svenska språket, 1734).[7]
Electedprorector of Uppsala University in 1728, he argued—unsuccessfully—for a separate medical faculty, but did secure state funding to expand the botanical garden that would later be tended by Linnaeus. Upon the founding of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1739) he was among the first eight ordinary members and chaired the medicine section until his death in 1742.[6] He died in Uppsala.[8]
