Job Baster

He studied and took his degree of doctor of medicine at Leiden in 1731, and Albrecht von Haller has thought his thesis, De Osteogenia, worthy of a place in his collection.

After his study he visited the hospitals and botanical gardens in Paris and London where he became friends with Philip Miller and Hans Sloane.

In 1759 he published his most famous multivolume book: Natuurlyke Uitspanningen behelzende eenige waarnemingen over sommige zee-planten en zee-insecten (Natural accounts about some observations of some marine plants and insects).

In the first two volumes of this work he contributes to the discussion if organisms on the bottom of the sea were merely animals, plants or, as Carl Linnaeus thought, zoophytes (plant-animals).

Happily Baster continued to work on this beautifully illustrated book on marine fauna at the Dutch coast.