Christoph Ludwig Hoffmann

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Christoph Ludwig Hoffmann
Munster 1782

Christoph Ludwig (von) Hoffmann (born December 3, 1721 in Rheda , † July 28, 1807 in Eltville ) was a German doctor and health care reformer. He is the inventor of an optical-mechanical telegraph, about ten years before the realization of the wing telegraph by Claude Chappe .

Christoph Ludwig Hoffmann, memorial plaque in the electoral castle of Eltville

life and work

Christoph Ludwig Hoffmann is the son of the Countess-Bentheim government councilor Wilhelm (von) Hoffmann and his wife Dorothea Maria Poppelmann, a Rinteln merchant's daughter. His grandfather, Johann Balthasar von Hoffmann (1639–1705), who came from a Hessian civil servant family, was the counsel and comforter of Count zur Lippe-Brake . For the son of the reformed civil servant family, the illustrious Arnoldinum grammar school in Burgsteinfurt would actually have been the obvious place of instruction, but due to family ties between the parents, Hoffmann attended the grammar school in Rinteln . It is not certain that he started studying medicine after graduating from the Lutheran university there . Rather, it is documented that he was enrolled in the register of the University of Jena on April 29, 1740 . On August 26, 1741 he was enrolled as a student of medicine at the Dutch University of Harderwijk , which at that time was attended by many Westphalians of all denominations and was particularly popular because of its quick doctorates . In fact, Hoffmann received his doctorate in medicine from the University of Jena in 1746.

After a short activity as a resident doctor, first in Rheda and then in Detmold, his application for a civil service position was approved by the state estates , so that on November 30, 1749 he was appointed and civil servant as a Rheda regional physician. His successful work here fulfilled the high expectations and established his reputation.

Karl Paul Ernst von Bentheim-Steinfurt brought him to Burgsteinfurt as a doctor and natural scientist. From 1756 to 1764 he was his personal physician and at the same time professor of medicine and philosophy at the Illustre Arnoldinum high school there . During this time he invented an opto-mechanical telegraph.

In a letter to Count Ludwig , son of Count Karl, he wrote:

“During his reign I invented telegraphy in Burgsteinfurt . In Munster I had an abbreviated message printed about this matter in 1782, ten years earlier than the French made something known to the world. Not the Germans, the French valued me. "

In an article entitled "Description d´un télégraphe trés simple et à la portée le monde A. Paris et Amsterdam 1800" one finds the following - translated here - note:

“During the Seven Years' War it was carried out in Schönbusch on the hill near Burghorst (Borghorst). His High Countess, Dero, the same father, had a part in the execution. "

From 1763 Hoffmann was the personal physician of Prince-Bishop Maximilian Friedrich von Königsegg-Rothenfels in Münster, where - as later in Kassel - he achieved reforms for the health system in the sense of an enlightened absolutism .

In 1784, von Hoffmann was called to Münster as personal physician to the Elector of Cologne and Bishop of Münster , where he was unable to implement a planned medical regulation. In 1787 he moved to Mainz, where he received the title of electoral privy councilor, later went to Aschaffenburg and finally to Eltville.

Through his varied public and private work he had gained a very considerable fortune. In his last will, he used these funds to give the two children of his sister Wilhelmine Elisabeth Gerstein (1727–1789): (I) Ludwig Friedrich Wilhelm Gerstein (1750–1808) and (II) Dorothea Charlotte Giercke, née. Gerstein (1748–1826) and (III) Catharina Wilhelmine Helwing (1767–1833), a daughter of his cousin Ferdinand Bernhard von Hoffmann , or their descendants with a substantial academic foundation.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Heinrich Kneschke (ed.): New general German nobility lexicon . tape 4 . Leipzig 1863, p. 410-411 .
  2. ↑ a b Michael Kutzer: Hoffmann, Christoph Ludwig. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 608.
  3. ↑ Julius Pagel . In: Biographical lexicon of the outstanding doctors of all times and peoples . Volume III, p. 241, Urban & Schwarzenberg, Vienna and Leipzig 1896 digitized
  4. ↑ About the family. Retrieved October 2, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Hoffmann, Christoph Ludwig
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hoffmann, Christoph Ludwig von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor, health reformer and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH December 3, 1721
PLACE OF BIRTH Rheda
DATE OF DEATH July 28, 1807
Place of death Eltville