Christlob Mylius

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Christlob Mylius (born November 11, 1722 in Reichenbach near Kamenz , † March 6/7, 1754 in London ) was a German science journalist , writer and naturalist .

Life

Christlob Mylius, son of the pastor Caspar Mylius and his third wife Marie Elisabeth born. Ehrenhaus, studied medicine at the University of Leipzig in 1742. In Leipzig he was involved in the edition of various magazines.

As a physician, Mylius made little mention of himself, only with his essay, In 1744, Investigation of Whether Animals Can Be Opened to Life for the Sake of Physiological Experiments , he took part critically in the discussion about the meaning of vivisection .

Although writers like Johann Christoph Gottsched and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing were among his close circle, he never achieved great fame in the poetic-literary field. He became known because he was colloquially the "cousin" Lessing (Mylius' father married the sister of Lessing's father as a second wife). As a free spirit and seven years older friend, he gave Lessing access to the higher circles of Berlin . Lessing arranged for Mylius' literary estate to be published. A few poems have survived, which are based almost exclusively on scientific topics, as well as Mylius' comedies, of which the play The Doctors parody reflects the medical research discourse of the early enlightenment.

Christlob Mylius was the publisher of the magazine " Ermunterungen zum Genuss des Gemüths" in Berlin (1747) and in 1748 of the Berlin privilege newspaper . Other journals, in which he was involved partly as an editor and partly as a collaborator, were Naturforscher (1747), Critical Messages from the Realm of Erudition (1751) and Physical Amusements (1751). Current topics and problem cases in science were dealt with in an entertaining way in these sheets. Through his contributions, Mylius drew attention to himself as a keen observer of contemporaries and conditions.

On July 25th, 1748, Mylius, who was very interested in medicine and science, observed the solar eclipse in Berlin.

In February 1753 Mylius embarked on an expedition to America under the patronage of Albrecht von Haller with the aim of "Finding rare plants, rock samples, meteorological observations, etc., which should benefit German scholars" . Haller had been in correspondence with the self-taught natural scientist Mylius since January 1751. The idea for this trip across Suriname and British North America arose in the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Haller changed the travel destination to Eben-Ezer, Georgia , where he knew German contacts. Further reasons for the selection of this destination of the trip, where Mylius should stay at least one year, are not known. Eben-Ezer was not far from the former, sometimes contested borders of the colonial powers of America; on the other hand, after the final failure of the social experiments of James Oglethorpe in the years 1752-55 , the society of the colony was in upheaval. In his second year, Mylius was supposed to travel along the Atlantic coast, preferably by land, to Pennsylvania and on to Fort Oswego . In the third year he was to tour the Antilles and either Jamaica or Suriname. The research trip was to be financed by a large number of sponsors, to which the traveler himself had to contribute.

Haller, who, as president of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, made the trip to an academy project and appointed Mylius as a corresponding academy member, refused a large donation from Austria by Gerard van Swieten , so that the financing of the trip remained fragile. In addition, there were organizational problems (short-term changes to the travel route, delays in the delivery of money and mail). Mylius traveled by land via Hamburg to Rotterdam and reached London on August 22, 1753. On the way he made extensive studies (natural and mineral cabinets, libraries, botanical studies) and sought contact with scientists and influential officials who were useful for the protection of the trip, e.g. B. George Anson . He sent articles, translations and preparations ready for printing to Haller and his representative Samuel Christian Hollmann . Yet Haller repeatedly accused him of delaying travel and wasting money. The expedition failed because Mylius died in London on March 6, 1754 after a serious illness.

In the short time he spent in England , he worked on a translation of William Hogarth's art-theoretical work Analysis of Beauty (1753).

According to recent research, Mylius is considered to be the first "winter conqueror of the Brocken ". So far, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's first journey to the Harz Mountains in 1777 was considered the first ascent with deep snow, but Mylius already had the Blocksberg on the 24th and 25th. Climbed April 1753.

His son Wilhelm Christhelf Sigmund Mylius was a successful translator.

Works (selection)

  • The Freygeist , 1746 (magazine)
  • The natural scientist , 1747/1748 (journal)
  • The fortune teller , 1749
  • The Doctors , 1745 (comedy)
  • The unbearable , 1746 (comedy)
  • The Kiss , 1748 (comedy)
  • The Shepherd's Island , 1749 (comedy)
  • Description of a new Greenlandic animal plant , 1753 London and Hanover ( online  - Internet Archive )
  • Mixed writings , collected by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Berlin 1754 (Reprint Frankfurt / M. 1971)

translator

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert Oettel ( memento of November 30, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) in the Upper Lusatia Biographical Lexicon
  2. ^ A b Sandra Pott: Secularization in the sciences since the early modern period . de Gruyter Volume 1 S122f ISBN 978-3-11-017266-9
  3. ↑ Lessing's biography in the Lessing portal of the Lessing Academy Wolfenbüttel , year 1746 ff.
  4. ↑ See Walther Killy: Literaturlexikon: Authors and Works in the German Language, Vol. 8, Gütersloh, Munich 1990, p. 321
  5. ↑ Dieter Hildebrandt: Prussian Heads, Stapp-Verlag Berlin, 1981, 162 pages, ISBN 3-87776-155-0
personal data
SURNAME Mylius, thank Christ
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 11, 1722
PLACE OF BIRTH Reichenbach near Kamenz
DATE OF DEATH March 6, 1754 or March 7, 1754
Place of death London