Govard Bidloo (March 12, 1649 - March 30, 1713) was a Dutch Golden Age physician, anatomist, opera librettist, poet and playwright. He first studied surgery and in 1670 became a student of the anatomist Frederik Ruysch. He studied medicine at the University of Franeker, receiving his degree in 1682. In 1685 he published an anatomical atlas, Anatomia Hvmani Corporis. It described papillary ridges on skin (fingerprints) and was one of the pioneering scientific observations which laid the foundation of forensic identification using fingerprints. The atlas was illustrated with 105 plates by Gerard de Lairesse, showing the human figure both in living attitudes and as dissected cadavers. He wrote the libretto for the first-ever Dutch opera, Ceres, Venus en Bacchus (1686) by Johan Schenck. His collected works were published in three volumes after his death. In 1688 he became a lecturer of anatomical dissection, and from 1690-92 he was appointed head of the national hospital service. In 1694 he became a professor of anatomy and medicine at the University of Leiden, a position he held until his death in 1713. William III, Dutch stadholder and king of England, asked Bidloo to become his personal physician in 1695. The king died in his arms on March 8, 1702. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1696. Bidloo died in 1713 at the age of 64.