A Brill Calendar: October 13

"Dr J.F.S. Esser and his contributions to Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery"

Few founding fathers of a once brand-new branch of science are less generally known than Johannes Esser.

Esser was born in Leyden in a stately townhouse at the Middelstegracht, October 13, 1877. And few of those few lived as colourful and reckless a life as the extraordinary individual who died from a heart attack on a street in Chicago whilst taking a walk with his son Maarten, in the afternoon of August 3rd, 1946, than ‘Jan’ Esser.

The history of plastic and reconstructive surgery can’t be written without this wizard, whose Curriculum Vitae boasted a miraculous bundle of achievements; such as becoming national chess-champion in the Netherlands, the instant recognition of the painting genius of both Mondriaan and Sluijters, and a swashbuckling investor in real estate. The Leyden connection with Esser’s life is exemplified best by a book: ‘Esser Inlay (Epithelial Inlay)’, published by Brill in 1940 and a classic in its field.

Two years earlier, a Dutch translation of Esser’s ‘magnum opus’ – ‘Biological Flaps’ – realized by J. G. Remijnse, medical doctor at the Rotterdam Hospital Coolsingel, was also published by the prestigious Publishing Company in his hometown, where he had studied medicine as a wealthy young man.

Since he prepared for university in a new ‘Hogere Burger School’, rather than a traditional ‘Gymnasium’, Esser was denied the right to a doctorate; common procedure in the Netherlands of his day. That title was given to him in the Belgian University of Ghent.

Ton Neelissen, journalist and editor of documentary films, brought the genius back to life in a biography published in 2002. His book, written for the general reader, was preceded by the dissertation of Barend Haeseker, ‘Dr J.F.S. Esser and his contributions to Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery’ (1983). It is seldom that merit is so instantaneously and yet utterly forgotten; and Esser’s flamboyancy is at odds with the stolid sedateness in which many a Dutchman prides himself.