Frederik Ruysch (March 28, 1638 - February 22, 1731) was a Dutch botanist and anatomist. Fascinated by anatomy he studied at the university in Leiden. where corpses to dissect were hard to come by and expensive. He became involved to find a way to prepare the organs and his chief skill was the preparation and preservation of specimens in a secret liquor balsamicum (believed to be one of the first to use arterial embalming to this effect). He also created dioramas incorporating human parts. In 1668 he was made the chief instructor to the city's midwives. In 1679 he was appointed as a forensic advisor to the Amsterdam courts and in 1685 as a professor in botany in the Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam. He came to recognition with his proof of valves in the lymphatic system, the Vomeronasal organ in snakes, and arteria centralis oculi (the central artery of the eye). He died in 1731 at the age of 92.