JERONIMUS CORNELISZ
JERONIMUS CORNELISZ ‘I, Jeronimus, am a man of phials, a measurer of powders on bronze scales, a potion brewer, an opium and arsenic merchant. ... The Dutch East India flagship, the Batavia sank off the coast of Western Australia in 1629 and Jeronimus Cornelisz, a deranged psychopath, took command of the 316 castaways. ... Jeronimus Cornelisz was born in the year 1598, probably in Friesland, one of the most isolated of the northern provinces of Holland. ... It was common in those times for most boys and girls to leave school by the age of nine or ten, but as the son of wealthy parents Jeronimus would have continued his education at one of the famous Latin schools. ... Jeronimus instead chose apothecary, a less high-powered but still well-paid job, He was apprenticed some time between 1615 and 1620. ... For Cornelisz to become a fully-fledged apothecary he would have spent at least three years learning how to prepare the myriad potions, unguents, poultices and clysters sold by the 17th century pharmacist. ... Cornelisz set up his own shop in Haarlem in 1624. ... Cornelisz rented a house on one of the richer streets of Haarlem. ... Things at this time for Jeronimus seemed to be perfect. ... If life had continued this way for Cornelisz he was heading for a life of prosperity, maybe a civic career, and eventually a position on the town council. But no, for Jeronimus Cornelisz the future held nothing but disease, disgrace and death. In 1624 Jeronimus Cornelisz married Belijtgen Jacobsdr a young Dutch lady from a family like Jeronimus’s , powerful and quite well off. Her father was also an apothecary, and since pharmacists tended to marry among themselves, she certainly would have assisted Jeronimus in his shop. ... She might have seemed like a great wife but she was the beginning of the end for Jeronimus. ... In the eighth month of the pregnancy she had been so unwell she had thought she was going to die and was so sure of her fate she had even summoned a solicitor to write her a will, which named Jeronimus her ‘universal heir’. ... During her time as the Cornelisz’s midwife Cathalijntgen drank, danced and sang compulsively, confessed to suffering from “torments inside her head” and slept with an axe beside her bed. This lady must have been suffering from some sort of brain disorder but Belijtgen and Jeronimus seemed oblivious to this. ... As a result of the infection Cornelisz’s wife contracted puerperal fever, which was a cruel blow. ... As was common at the time Jeronimus had paid an old woman named. ... But after the birth, while Beljtgen lay in her bed suffering from a horrible fever, she could not feed her son, forcing Jeronimus to seek a wet nurse. ... Jeronimus chose a woman called Heyltgen Janidr, who lived in the North of Haarlem.