Adolph Reuss

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Adolph Reuss , also Adolphus Reuss or Adolf Reuss , (born November 28, 1804 in Frankfurt am Main , † May 7, 1878 with Shiloh in Illinois ) was a German-American doctor and zoologist ( herpetologist , arachnologist ).

Life

Reuss, who came from a wealthy family who settled in Frankfurt from Amsterdam, studied medicine at the University of Göttingen with his doctorate in 1825 ( Dissertatio inauguralis anatomico-physiologica de systemate lentis crysallinae humanae ) after initially having literary inclinations . He then continued his studies in Paris and Berlin and was a resident doctor in Frankfurt am Main , where he was also a member of the Senckenberg Natural Research Society from 1829 , before leaving for political reasons (he was an opponent of the monarchy and sympathized with a Republic in the sense of the later 1848 revolution) emigrated to the USA. He looked around Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois. In 1834 he bought a 200 acre farm near Shiloh, Illinois, and worked as a farmer (on his death he left 450 acres of land) and a general practitioner. In 1856 he became a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of St. Louis. He did not seek political office, but was interested in politics. At first he was a supporter of the Democratic Party, when it sympathized with the southern states in Iowa in the run-up to the Civil War, he switched to the Republicans. He is buried in Shiloh.

1834 erstbeschrieb measure water snake Enhydris alternans , and he erstbeschrieb the toad Amietophrynus regularis (1833), the Egyptian Cat Snake ( Telescopus obtusus ), the Mexican Garter Snake ( Thamnophis eques ) and the false cobra and the African long-tailed lizard ( Latastia longicaudata ) and the Wüstenagame ( trapelus mutabilis ). He described many of the reptiles in Zoological Miscelles in 1834 : Reptilien, Ophidier (Museum Senckenbergianum 1, 1834, pp. 130–162).

In 1833 the Senckenbergische Naturforschende Gesellschaft acquired the important collection of local spiders belonging to the pastor in Beerfelden and arachnologist Karl Friedrich Wider , which Reuss edited in 1834, whereby he also published manuscripts by Wider (Zoological Miscelles: Arachniden, Museum Senckenbergianum, 1, 1834). He also has a catalog of the crustaceans collection in the Senckenberg Museum from 1832, which he shortly managed afterwards in agreement with its founder Eduard Rüppell .

literature

  • Lucius Zeuch, History of medical practice in Illinois, Volume 1, Chicago 1929, pp . 292-293

References and comments

  1. ↑ Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins, Michael Grayson, The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles, The Johns Hopkins University Press 2011, with a brief biography according to which he was a political refugee from the crackdown on the 1848 Revolution. However, he emigrated in the 1830s.
  2. ^ Arachnology, Senckenberg Museum , English
  3. ^ Senckenberg Museum, Crustaceans
personal data
SURNAME Reuss, Adolph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Reuss, Adolphus (full name); Reuss, Adolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American doctor and zoologist (herpetologist, arachnologist)
DATE OF BIRTH November 28, 1804
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH May 7, 1878
Place of death near Shiloh (Illinois)