Anton Wiest

Eberhard Emminger : View from the Schussenthal in the 19th century (view over Baindt to Weingarten and Ravensburg)

Anton Wiest (born September 27, 1801 in Altdorf , † May 9, 1835 in Cairo ) was a doctor and botanist who died on a research assignment in Egypt .

Live and act

Origin and education

Anton Wiest was born in 1801 as the son of a doctor from the Weingarten Monastery, who later became a public health officer and a wealthy woman from Altdorf (now Weingarten). In 1812 the family was able to acquire the new building in the city, from which the Latin school later developed into a "private high school". There he and his brothers were also taught by his uncle. As a Catholic Upper Schwabe he studied one of the first "Neuwürttemberger" in Tuebingen first philosophy , wrote in Medicine for four semesters and returned after a short time in Heidelberg back to Altdorf, where he at Ferdinand Gottlob Gmelin the homeopathy met. In 1827, A. Wiest obtained his doctorate in medicine with studies of the plant-geographical conditions in Germany .

Practical work

At first he helped his father in the practice, but due to a love affair with a domestic helper, he probably left his parents' house under pressure from the family and moved to Laichingen . There he devoted himself to homeopathy, which Hahnemann's publications began to spread, including the success in fighting cholera with camphor .

In Egypt

In response to his application, the Württemberg natural history travel association commissioned him to undertake a research trip to Egypt and Arabia with Wilhelm Schimper . There they were both supposed to collect unexplored plants and seeds, identify them and send them dried to Germany. Despite reported fighting in Egypt and the plague in Constantinople, both ventured out from Trieste in 1834. After a storm and shipwreck, rescue and stay on the Greek island of Kephalonia , they landed in Alexandria , where the plague raged, and reached Cairo by water. On the way, the two researchers were already collecting plants and expanding this collecting activity around Cairo, although hordes of robbers roamed around.

After differences of opinion, Wiest and Schimper separated. Anton Wiest sent around 5,000 plants to Germany from Cairo. Now the plague broke out in Cairo too. Wiest still treated sick people. He died himself on May 8, 1835.

plant

• Investigations into the plant-geographical conditions in Germany . Tübingen 1827 (digitized version)

literature

• Werner Heinz: girlfriend impregnated - shipwrecked - died of the plague . Life and fate of the doctor and botanist Anton Wiest from Weingarten. In: Oberland . Ravensburg 2016, issue 1, pp. 42–49.