George Lievin Henri Ellerman (1817-1849) followed his medical-military training at the Military Medical Training College (RKMG) in Utrecht, the Netherlands, from 1835 to 1839, and gained his PhD from Leiden University in 1841. From 1843 to 1849 he was a lecturer in pharmacology at the RKMG. He was one of the first editors of the Nederlandsch Lancet. Together with his fellow board members Donders and Jansen he set this journal on a new course. Due to the new mix of scientific and practice-oriented articles the journal developed into the most important medical scientific journal in the Netherlands; it was however not among the journals that merged to become the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde [Dutch Journal of Medicine]. In 1846 Ellerman published a Dutch translation of Friedrich Oesterlen's textbook of pharmacology 'Handbuch der Heilmittellehre'. This book was considered to be a complete and lucid survey of pharmacology and a major step towards a more scientific pharmacology. After his death at the age of 32, he was remembered as a good scientist and dedicated, hardworking lecturer.