Abraham Gagnebin

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Abraham Gagnebin (1707–1800) with collectibles. Artist unknown.

Abraham Gagnebin (born August 20, 1707 in Renan , † April 23, 1800 in La Ferrière ) was a Swiss physician and naturalist . Its official botanical author's abbreviation is " Gagnebin ".

Life

Abraham Gagnebin was born in 1707 into a family of doctors in Renan in the Bernese Jura . He was the eldest son of a large family. After basic training by a private teacher, he came to Basel at the age of sixteen to train as a doctor. His main teachers were Theodor and Johann Rudolph Zwinger , through whom he was introduced to botany. During this time he went on numerous excursions in the Basler Jura. In 1725 he returned to his father's house and from there explored the near and far surroundings with his former tutor.

In 1728, at the age of 21, Gagnebin joined a Swiss regiment in Strasbourg . In addition to his work as a surgeon , he continued to devote his free time to botany. In Strasbourg he met the botanist Franz Balthasar von Lindern , whom he was able to accompany on excursions. From 1730 to 1735 he changed garrisons several times and got to know a large part of France. Everywhere he explored the area and recorded his research in a diary.

In 1735 he resigned and settled as a doctor in La Ferrière. In the same year he married Esther Marchand from the neighboring village of Sonvilier . He had six children with her. In addition to his work as a doctor, he continued to deal with scientific studies. In addition to botany, he also dealt with meteorology and paleontology and began to set up his own collection. From La Ferrière he made contact with other natural scientists in the region. These were, for example, Jean-Antoine d'Ivernois (1703–1765), Laurent Garcin (1683–1752) and Louis Bourguet (1678–1742) from Neuchâtel , Pierre Cartier from La Chaux-du-Milieu and Friedrich Salomon Scholl (1708–1771 ) from Biel .

In 1739 he met Albrecht von Haller . Together with d'Ivernois, he accompanied him on an excursion to the Creux du Van . Since then, Gagnebin has remained on friendly terms with Haller. As a result, he became a colleague of Haller, to whom he sent his research results and on whose behalf he went on various excursions. A total of 118 letters from Gagnebin to Haller have been preserved. He also corresponded with other well-known scholars of his time, such as Joseph de Jussieu , Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton and René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur from France, Jacob Reinbold Spielmann from Strasbourg, Moritz Anton Kappeler from Lucerne , Johannes Gessner from Zurich and his former sponsors Zwinger and Werner de Lachenal (1736–1800) from Basel.

He made a special acquaintance in 1765 when he was able to accompany Jean-Jacques Rousseau , who was in Môtiers in Neuchâtel from 1762 to 1765 , to botanize. In June 1765, Rousseau stayed in La Ferrière for a total of twelve days, where he will also have visited Gagnebin's cabinet of curiosities.

Together with his brother Daniel, Gagnebin had put together a large natural history collection that received great attention. In 1768 he put his collection of curiosities together in a catalog ( Catalog très-abrégé des curiosités naturelles ). In addition to 700 coins and medals, the collection included thousands of natural history objects, including plants, stuffed animals and more than 2,500 fossils . The showpiece of the collection was a fossilized specimen of a rare sea ​​star that Gagnebin had found in La Ferrière and was therefore named after him ( Ophiomusium gagnebini ). The collection was dissolved after his death; individual pieces have been preserved in museums in Basel and the region. His house, in which the collection was housed, is still standing today and has been included in the list of cultural assets of national importance in the canton of Bern ( Maison Gagnebin ).

Honors

According to Abraham Gagnebin, the plant genus is Gagnebina Neck. ex DC. named from the legume family (Fabaceae).

Works

  • Histoire naturelle des insectes et crustacés. Manuscript 1733.
  • Catalog très-abrégé des curiosités naturelles qui composent le Cabinet des deux frères [Abraham et Daniel] Gagnebin, de la Ferriere en Erguël, évêché de Bâle en Suisse, que l'on pourra négocier en faveur des amateurs de l'histoire naturelle, et dans lequel on trouvera abondamment de quoi former un cabinet curieux et considérable . 1768.
  • Description d'une espèce de Myrrhis de montagne . In: Acta Helvetica . 3 (1758), pp. 109-127.
  • Description of the grande Campanule, à feuilles très-larges, & à fleur bleue, avec ses variétés . In: Acta Helvetica . 4 (1760), pp. 40-45.
  • Description de l'etoile de mer, ou poisson à l'etoile à queues de lézard petrifie, qui se trouve dans le cabinet des raretés des Frères Gagnebin . In: Acta Helvetica . 7 (1772), pp. 25-35.

literature

  • Jules Thurmann: Abraham Gagnebin de La Ferrière. Fragment pour servir à l'histoire scientifique du Jura bernois & neuchâtelois pendant le siècle dernier. Avec un appendice geologique . Porrentruy 1851 ( online ).
  • Marcel S. Jacquat: Abraham Gagnebin, médecin (1707–1800) . In: Biographies neuchâteloises . Vol. 1, pp. 97-102.
  • Marcel S. Jacquat: La loupe d'Abraham Gagnebin . In: Panorama du pays jurassien . 3: 184-195 (1983).
  • Marcel S. Jacquat: Une page régionale d'histoire des sciences relue récemment: Abraham Gagnebin (1707–1800) et son cabinet de curiosités à La Ferrière . In: Bulletin de la Société neuchâteloise des sciences naturelles . 123 (2000), pp. 23-26.
  • Musée d'histoire naturelle: Un célèbre naturaliste du 18e: Abraham Gagnebin de La Ferrière et communier de La Chaux-de-Fonds: exposition temporaire: 2 June – 2 September 1984 . La Chaux-de-Fonds 1984.
  • Gavin de Beer, Bernard Gagnebin: Abraham Gagnebin de La Ferrière, d'après sa correspondance . In: Bulletin de la Société neuchâteloise des sciences naturelles 80 (1957), pp. 45-79.
  • H. Brandt (Ed.): Lettres inédites adressées à Abraham Gagnebin . In: Actes de la Société jurassienne d'Emulation . 1931, pp. 215-223.
  • Bernard Gagnebin: Histoire de la famille Gagnebin . In: Actes de la Société jurassienne d'Emulation . 1939, pp. 95-160, (1940-1941), pp. 89-130.
  • Rudolf Wolf: Abraham Gagnebin from La Ferrière . In: Biographies on the cultural history of Switzerland . Volume 3. Zurich 1861. pp. 227-224.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On the life data cf. Biographies neuchâteloises . Vol. 1, pp. 97-102.
  2. ^ Repertory for Albrecht von Haller's correspondence 1724–1777 . In: Urs Boschung, Barbara Braun-Bucher, Stefan Hächler, Anne Kathrin Ott, Hubert Steinke, Martin Stuber (eds.): Studia Halleriana VII / 2 . tape 2 . Verlag Schwabe & Co. AG, Basel 2002, ISBN 3-7965-1325-5 , p. 3 ( albrecht-von-haller.ch [PDF; 114 kB ; accessed on February 10, 2014]).
  3. ↑ See Albert Jansen: Jean-Jacques Rousseau as a botanist . Berlin 1885.
  4. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names . Extended Edition. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Free University Berlin Berlin 2018. [1]
personal data
SURNAME Gagnebin, Abraham
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss physicians and natural scientists
DATE OF BIRTH August 20, 1707
PLACE OF BIRTH Renan BE
DATE OF DEATH April 23, 1800
Place of death La Ferrière BE