Letter 2010

Groenveldt claims the rumours that his eyesight is poor and he is too old to practice medicine are completely false. He blames the rumours on people from ‘abroad’. John Groenveldt (bap.1648 d.1715/16) alias Greenfield, was a physician and surgeon. He began studying medicine at the University of Leiden and finished his degree at Utrect in 1670. Greenfield joined the Colegium Medicum and had a successful medical practice with partner Henricus Velthuys in Amsterdam where they provided surgical and medical services as well as administered medicines. He moved to London and joined the Royal College of Physicians in 1683. He fought censors and several law cases over some of his medicines which caused his practice to decline in the early 1700s. (Harold J. Cook, “Groenevelt, Joannes (bap. 1648, d. 1715/16)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).