Herman Spöring Sr.

Herman Diedrich Spöring (19 October 1701 – 17 June 1747) was a Swedish-Finnish physician, professor, and naturalist at the Royal Academy of Turku. He is chiefly remembered for modernising medical education in Finland and for being the first in the Nordic countries to describe variolation — an early form of smallpox inoculation — in print. During nearly two decades as the only academically trained physician in Finland, he laid the foundations for clinical medicine, anatomical teaching, and natural history collections at the academy.

His son Herman Diedrich Spöring Jr. (1733–1771) was a naturalist and draughtsman who sailed with James Cook on the Endeavour expedition (1768–71) and died in the Indian Ocean.

Life

Early life and education Spöring was born in Stockholm, where his father Eberhard Christian Spöring was vice-rector of the German School. He enrolled at Uppsala University in 1717, studying medicine under Olof Rudbeck the Younger and Lars Roberg, and later continued privately in Stockholm under the anatomist Magnus von Bromell, in whose household he served as a tutor and gained access to a large library and natural history collection.

Teaching and publications Because the number of students under his supervision was small, Spöring supervised relatively few dissertations. In 1733, in the absence of suitable textbooks, he published a pamphlet entitled Medicina Salernitana containing hygienic precepts derived from the medieval School of Salerno. Under his supervision Johan Ekelund defended a master's thesis in 1741 on the waters at Kuppis, and in 1742 Ekelund became the first physician to graduate from the academy in its hundred-year history.

Learned societies On account of observations he had submitted to the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Spöring was elected a member of the former in 1730 and of the latter in 1742. During a stay in Stockholm in January 1743 he delivered the first memorial address ever given before the Academy of Sciences, honouring Johan Moraeus, the father-in-law of Carl Linnaeus. After Spöring's death, Abraham Bäck delivered a memorial address in his honour on 11 January 1749.

Personal life and character In 1732 Spöring married Hedvig Ulrika Meurman. He was of medium height, with masculine and pleasant features and curly hair. According to Bäck, he was an excellent physician, as evidenced by his wide reputation and the confidence his patients placed in him, and he was noted everywhere for the great compassion he showed them. He died in Turku on 17 June 1747 after a prolonged illness.

Legacy His son Herman Diedrich Spöring Jr. participated in James Cook's first voyage and died in the Indian Ocean. The drawing skills the elder Spöring had cultivated in his youth were later put to use in illustrated accounts of German mining operations, a copy of which he donated to the academy.