Bartholin [key], renowned Scandinavian family. Kaspar Bartholin, 1585–1629, b. Sweden, was a Danish physician. He was professor of medicine and later of theology at the Univ. of Copenhagen and author of a textbook of anatomy, Institutiones anatomicae (1611). His son, Thomas Bartholin, 1616–80, physician, naturalist, and philologist, was professor of mathematics and of anatomy at the Univ. of Copenhagen. He was the first to describe the entire lymphatic system. Kaspar Bartholin, 1655–1738, a son of Thomas Bartholin, also a professor at the Univ. of Copenhagen, is credited with discovering the glands of Bartholin (a pair of glands of the vagina) and an accessory duct of the sublingual salivary gland.
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