Ulbe Gerrit Bijlsma

Vocation

Lifestyle

Notable

Traits

Family

Dutch professor of pharmacology. He was the son of Pieter Bijlsma (5 January 1863, Franeker - 22 July 1920, Franeker) and Jetske Hannema, who married 14 June 1888 in Franeker. He followed the Higher Civil School (HBS) in Leeuwarden and studied medicine at the University of Amsterdam. In 1917 he became a physician. First he worked as a bacteriologist. In 1919 he dissertated on the epidemiology of intestinal protozoa under Prof. Willem Abraham Kuenen. From 1919 till 1927 he worked for the Rijksinstituut voor de Volksgezondheid, now called Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). The RIVM is an independent advisory board for the Dutch Government that performs tasks to promote public health and a safe living environment by conducting research and collecting knowledge worldwide. At the same time he worked as an assistant of the eminent German physiologist Rudolf Magnus (1873-1927) and became a pharmacologist. On 19 May 1927 he married Maria Sophia Stroband (17 April 1909, Ngaroi, Indonesia - 22 Augustus 1984, Bilthoven) in Soest. On 3 August 1928 he was elected to follow up professor of pharmacology Rudolf Magnus in Utrecht. He started 18 September 1928 and his first speech was held on 4 February 1929 having the title "Geneeskunde en Geneesmiddelenleer". Early 1940 he and his family travelled to Indonesia. That year Holland was occupied, so they could not go back to Utrecht. During the war he worked in the Eijkman Institute in Jakarta. Later he became internalised in a Japanese concentration camp. From 1947 till 1948, he was rector of the University of Utrecht. He held positions in advisory boards like the Gezondheidsraad, advised pharmaceutical companies, wrote some 300 articles and helped more than forty PhD students. His last speech was held on 29 April 1962 and on 1 August 1962 he retired, though he temporarily came back as a professor between 1 September 1962 till 13 February 1963. He died 24 February 1977 in Bilthoven after a short disease. He was described as self confident, optimistic, very reliable and sincere in the NTvG of 1977.