A significant discovery with symbolic meaning: after decades of searching, Czech experts have succeeded in identifying the remains of one of the most outstanding physicians of the Baroque era.
Anthropologists from the National Museum (Národní muzeum) in Prague, in collaboration with the Criminalistics Institute of the Czech Police, the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Military Hospital, archivists and librarians, have achieved a scientific breakthrough: they were able to conclusively identify the remains of Jan František Löw von Erlsfeld (1648–1725) – a nobleman, four-time rector of Charles University, and leading physician of his time.
The discovery coincides with a double anniversary: exactly 300 years after Löw’s death and 100 years after the birth of anthropologist Emanuel Vlček, who had previously attempted to identify the remains in 1971. What he was unable to accomplish at the time with the means available has now been achieved with the help of state-of-the-art forensic and anthropological methods.
The remains had already been recovered in 1971 and again in 1999–2000 from the crypt of the Church of Our Lady of Victory and St. Anthony of Padua (Kostel Panny Marie Vítězné a svatého Antonína Paduánského) in Prague. It was originally assumed these burials were of little historical relevance – until new investigations led to a very different suspicion: that the bones could be those of the former personal physician of Prince Johann Adolf I von Schwarzenberg and author of the first Czech textbook on forensic medicine – Theatrum medico-judicorum.
The analysis of so-called ‘celudky’, Baroque grave medallions traditionally placed with nobles, was particularly revealing. These suggested that the remains were not those of simple clergymen but of a high-ranking individual.
However, the decisive evidence was provided by osteological analysis – the scientific examination of human bones. This made it possible to reconstruct age, sex, height and indications of lifestyle and diseases. The examination was supplemented by the forensic method of superimposition, in which skull features are compared with historical portraits. The result: a clear match – including the health complaints Löw documented in his own diary.
The identification not only closes a decades-old scientific chapter, but also sheds new light on the life of a man who shaped medicine in the Bohemian Baroque period like no other. The fact that this success came in a year marked by two important anniversaries seems a fitting – almost poetic – twist of fate.
