Born in 1877 in Leiden. In 1903 he did his exams for doctor and succeeded. In 1910, he defeated Janowsky in a match. Three years later, he became Champion of the Netherlands by defeating Loman. He was a very excentric man. He even wanted a independant country for a certain kind of surgery. What's even more amazing: he nearly did it. He had chosen a little island in Grece, but he asked too much; he even wanted his own kind of stamps etc. Something like Ilyumzjinov with his chess-country.

An excerpt:

<Jan Esser (1877-1946) was Dutch chess champion, chess columnist, president of the Dutch chess federation for a short time and founder of several chess clubs. He was an enthusiastic match player and once beat Janowski 2-1. But his most remarkable achievements were not in chess. He was a man who wanted to be the best in every field he touched and to a large extent he succeeded in this. Still, his most ambitious scheme became a failure and he died in poverty and isolation, his pioneering efforts forgotten and neglected.

While still living in the Netherlands as a general medical practitioner, his house became a meeting place of artists and intellectuals and his friendship with several of the greatest Dutch artists was to be the foundation of his career as one of the greatest private art collectors that the Netherlands has ever known. Just one example, given in Neelissen's book: at a time that Piet Mondriaan, who was to become the most famous Dutch artist of the 20th century, was still virtually unknown, Esser already possessed 70 of his works. Many Dutch museums possess works donated by Esser, some of them are the crown jewels of their collection.

Esser was also a shrewd financial speculator, who bought and sold castles, palaces, theatres and grand hotels as easily as if they were toy buildings from Legoland. He was a farmer, horse-breeder, builder, hotel manager, operator of a vaudeville house, but all these were only side-activities to his practical and theoretical work as a pioneer of plastic surgery.

This by the way was a term that Esser abhorred, because it suggested trivial cosmetic operations for the idle rich. From time to time he did not feel above making some easy money that way, but his real work was quite different: he gave new faces and a bearable life to the victims of battles or of terrible accidents whose faces had exploded.

The beginning of his spectacular career as a "structive surgeon" - the term invented by Esser - was in World War I. At first he had offered his services to the French and British governments, who were not interested, and so in 1915 he went to the other side, the German and Austrian empires. With him he took four Dutch nurses, recruited from the staff of a rival Dutch surgeon who was not at all pleased. Accommodating the wishes of others was never to be a consideration in Esser's grand schemes.

From Brünn (nowadays the Czech Brno) where he arrived in 1915, he moved to Vienna, then to Budapest and finally to Berlin, where he became quite famous. A Dutch newspaper reported in 1918 that the Emperor's sister in law, the Duchess of Sleeswijk-Holstein-Coburg, took part in his operations as an assistant and that the Empress visited his clinic and conversed with his patients.

Paris, end of May to beginning of June, +2 -1 in Dr. Esser's favor. Dr. Esser ground down Janowski in the Ruy Lopez with 4.Bxc6 thereby giving Janowski no chance to play in his usual combinative style as he was forced into an unfavourable endgame.

It's steep, but still far below qualifying for this list:

<Esser, Johannes Fredericus Samuel:

Artery flaps. Introd. by J. C. van der Meulen,

B. Haeseker. Amsterdam, Erasmus Publ., 2003. XXXV, 164 p. Ill. I 85.–. ISBN 90-5235-160-0.

Rééditer le texte de la chirurgie «structive» d’Esser, voilà une excellente initiative. Soutenu par les éditions Erasmus de Rotterdam et sous la direction de J. C. van der Meulen, Johannes Fredericus Samuel Esser (1877–1946) retrouve sa place dans l’histoire de la chirurgie plastique. Souvent mis de côté, voire occulté par Harold Delf Gillies (1882–1960), un autre grand plasticien du début du XXe siècle, Esser a aussi droit à autant de reconnaissance, ce qui est accompli avec cette publication.

L’ouvrage est partagé en deux parties: une première rassemblant une introduction, deux biographies partielles et une reproduction de la plupart des comptes-rendus parus lors de l’édition originale. La deuxième partie présente une reproduction complète de Biological or artery flaps of the face publié en 1932. La première notice biographique nous conduit dans des détails assez personnels de la vie d’Esser, tandis que, dans la deuxième notice biographique, écrite par son biographe Barend Haeseker, un autre plasticien hollandais, nous découvrons beaucoup plus de faits concernant sa vie professionnelle. Pour l’historien, il aurait été souhaitable que ces deux biographies soient complétées par des références, permettant à celui qui veut en savoir plus de compléter ses connaissances. La fin de la première partie est occupée par de nombreux comptes-rendus qui mettent véritablement en exergue l’importance du travail d’Esser. Il ne fut pas seulement celui qui décrivit des lambeaux vascularisés de la face et les lambeaux de rotation mais aussi celui qui développa la technique de couverture des greffons libres de peau d’un pansement humide pour améliorer l’intégration de la greffe avec les tissus avoisinants. La deuxième partie reproduit,in extenso, le texte original de l’ouvrage d’Esser. Elle est précédée par une reproduction de l’introduction d’une édition ultérieure et non datée.Par ailleurs, l’édition reproduite est mentionnée comme deuxième impression. Cela est quelque peu confus. Quelques lignes auraient suffi pour clarifier la situation. La première édition date de 1929 et comporte 407 illustrations.

La deuxième impression, livrée dans cet 316
ouvrage, date de 1932 et comporte 408 illustrations et quelques petites modifications. L’édition ultérieure,dont l’introduction figure aussi,comporte 420 illustrations et date certainement de 1935. La qualité de reproduction des nombreuses images est excellente et le prix de 85 euros est tout à fait correct pour un tel ouvrage. Malgré ces quelques petites imperfections, il devrait prendre place dans toutes les bibliothèques de chirurgie plastique, non seulement pour rappeler l’importance d’Esser mais aussi pour démontrer l’excellence de son travail.

Albert Mudry, Lausanne>

http://www.gesnerus.ch/fileadmin/me...

I wonder how many illustrations are in your edition, my dear <offramp>?

I could xpand a bit more, but will end with a note for biographers...

Our chess player's full name appears to be

http://www.endgame.nl/L1909.jpg

But also as a chess organizer Esser was very active. Already in 1893 he founded in Leiden together with some classmates at the chess Morphy. From 1898 to 1915 he was on the editorial board of the Journal, organ of the Dutch Chess Federation. He was a few months in 1908/1909 President of the Dutch Chess Federation. And in 1910 he founded the Amsterdam Chess Club Parkwijk on. From 1909 to 1913 he finally also kept the Saturday chess section of the Algemeen Handelsblad.>

http://www.euwe.nl/Singer-Laren.htm

It also includes a photograph of him as a young man. Here's a picture of him much older:

http://link.springer.com/static-con...

According to this site:

http://www.europeana1914-1918.eu/fr...

<The Allies did not use his services because he did not have the right papers. >

Which differs slightly with the other story that the Allies ~ "weren't interested", as told above.

Here's a photograph of what I assume is a sample of before/after his work (warning - graphic):

https://europeana1914-1918.s3.amazo...

I also recall reading that he may of been the coiner of the medical term Stent, after its eponymous inventer, Charles Stent, a dentist:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charle...