Studies and Teaching
Camper was the son of a local well-to-do minister, who made his fortune in the East Indies. As a brilliant alumnus, he studied in the University of Leiden both medicine and philosophy, and got a degree in both sciences on the same day at the age of 24. His professors included Pieter van Musschenbroek and Willem Jacob 's Gravesande for physics and mathematics, Herman Boerhaave and Hieronymus David Gaubius for medicine, and François Hemsterhuis for philosophy. After both his parents died Camper then traveled in 1748 to Prussia, England (where he met with William Smellie), France and Switzerland. He was offered sundry professorships, being first named professor of philosophy, anatomy and surgery in 1750 at the University of Franeker. Camper married Johanna Bourboom in 1756, the daughter of the burgomaster of Leeuwarden, whom he had met in 1754 while treating her husband, the burgomaster from Harlingen, who died the same year he married her.
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