Adolf Traugott von Gersdorff

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Adolf Traugott von Gersdorff

Adolf Traugott von Gersdorff (born March 20, 1744 in Niederrengersdorf , † June 16, 1807 in Meffersdorf ; partly also Gersdorf ) was a manor owner, natural scientist and co-founder of the Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences . His Physikalisches Kabinett is now part of the Kulturhistorisches Museum in Görlitz , and he has published several papers on atmospheric electricity .

Life

Gersdorff was born as the son of Colonel Karl-Ernst von Gersdorff and Johanna Eleonora von Gersdorff, née von Richthofen . He had an older brother Rudolph Ernst; five other siblings died in childhood. His father died as early as 1745; the guardianship was taken over by Karl August von Gersdorff, who was State Secretary and Minister of War at the Dresden court. In 1750 the mother married the guardian Karl August. Gersdorff was taught by several private tutors, from 1762 to 1763 he was a student at the Augustum grammar school in Görlitz. In 1764 he enrolled at the University of Leipzig . He attended lectures in moral philosophy and literary history with Christian Fürchtegott Gellert and also lectures on experimental physics.

Niederrengersdorf Manor
Meffersdorf manor around 1860, Alexander Duncker collection

In 1766 he returned to Upper Lusatia , where he began with meteorological records in 1767. In 1770 he married Henriette von Metzrad; he moved to the castle in Niederrengsdorf, where he set up a library and mineral collection. In 1776 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the then University of Wittenberg . In 1779 he founded the Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences together with Karl Gottlob Anton . In 1782 he was appointed an external member of the Society of Friends of Natural Sciences in Berlin , and in 1787 he became an extraordinary member of the Society for Mining Studies in Freiberg .

From 1788 he began to investigate the use of electricity in medicine, from 1791 he planned the establishment of his physical cabinet; this collection is still part of the cultural history museum in Görlitz as a physical cabinet . Before his death, he ordered the transfer of his library and collections to Görlitz to the Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences. His estate is now in the Upper Lusatian Library of Sciences in Görlitz and in the cultural history museum there.

The secondary school in Kodersdorf is named after him. On the 200th anniversary of his death, a memorial stone in German and Polish was erected at the cemetery in Pobiedna (Wigandsthal-Meffersdorf) .

Fonts

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Memorial plaque in Meffersdorf. Retrieved March 7, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Gersdorff, Adolf Traugott from
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German naturalist
DATE OF BIRTH March 20, 1744
PLACE OF BIRTH Niederrengsdorf
DATE OF DEATH June 16, 1807
Place of death Meffersdorf