(1860–1885) Willem Einthoven’s ancestors. Early childhood at Semarang; school-days and medical training at Utrecht

Abstract

Around the middle of the 18th century the Jewish merchant David Joseph left the Palatinate on the banks of the river Rhine, after its ruler in 1744 had issued a decree limiting the number of Jews in his state. David Joseph settled in Eindhoven, then a small town, in Holland. When he subsequently moved to the Hague, he occasionally called himself Enthoven; presumably using the name of the town where he came from, as a means of identification. Later his eldest son Juda David moved to neighbouring Delft. In 1806 Napoleon occupied Holland and made it a kingdom for his brother Louis Napoleon, but in 1810 he annexed it to France as a province. The Code Napoléon required all inhabitants to choose and officially adopt a last name for themselves, their wives and their children. Juda David had died by that time but among those who had to obey the rule, was his brother Israel David with his wife, who chose the name of Enthoven. From Juda David’s two sons, one simplified his name to Hoven and the other — who was to become Willem Einthoven’s grandfather — made a slight change from Salomon Juda Enthoven to Salomon Jurdan Einthoven after he went to England. There he was trained in surgery and became assistant military surgeon of the King’s German Legion. The latter was mainly recruited from Hannover, where the King himself came from. The purpose of the legion was to assist in the fight against Napoleon.It participated in the resistance to Napoleon’s invasion of Italy and especailly Spain; later it joined in the battle of Waterloo.