Clas Fredrik Hornstedt

Clas Fredrik Hornstedt , also Klas Fredrik Hornstedt (born February 10, 1758 in Linköping , † in May 1809 in Helsinki ) was a Swedish doctor and naturalist.

Live and act

Clas Fredrik was born as the son of the city secretary and later mayor Olof Hornstedt and his wife Charlotte Ell. Both the father and the grandfather represented the hometown Linköping in several sessions of the Swedish parliament. The young Clas Fredrik was first brought up by a private tutor , then attended school in Linköping for four years and from 1774 to 1777 high school.

This was followed by studies at Uppsala University , where he passed the usual theological exam in 1780 and the philosophical exam the following year. He was particularly interested in the natural sciences. While still a student, he went on an excursion to Lapland to collect plants and animal specimens. His academic teacher was the well-traveled, eminent naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg , one of the outstanding students of the founder of modern taxonomy Carl von Linnés . On November 24, 1782, Hornstedt defended a dissertation on various plants that Thunberg had brought from South Africa and Asia.

Plants from Japan and the Cape region in Hornstedt's botanical dissertation (1782)

On Thunberg's advice, he then moved to the Netherlands . Thanks to the patronage of his influential teacher, Hornstedt received free passage on the ship Drottning Sofia Magdalena to Batavia (today Jakarta). Here, in turn, the Governor General of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) Willem Arnold Alting granted him 15 Rijksdaalders a month. The Royal Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, founded by Jacob Cornelis Mattheus Radermacher in 1778 (Dutch: Koninklijk Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen ) accepted him as a member and added another 20, later 40 Rijksdaalder per month. Thanks to this funding, he was able to carry out excursions in and around Java and to build up a collection of plants, minerals, animal preparations and ethnological objects.

Hornstedt learned the Malay language . Regardless of the funding, he did not find very friendly words for European society in Batavia. All the more he was drawn to the Chinese quarter of the city, where, sometimes in Chinese costume, he conducted intensive studies on the customs and life of the inhabitants and recorded them in extensively annotated watercolors. He also received valuable materials on Japanese medicine from the VOC salesman, lawyer and collector Isaac Titsingh , who had returned from his year of service at the Dejima branch in Nagasaki and was pursuing a major Japanese project.

The tropical climate bothered him very much, so that after overcoming malaria and yellow fever he had to return to Europe in 1785 because of his health. After arriving in Amsterdam, he met fellow countryman Johan Arnold Stützer (1763-1821). Stützer was also a student of Thunberg, who on his advice set out on a trip to East Asia.

Hornstedt moved to Greifswald a little later , which was under Swedish rule at the time. Here he acquired the degree of doctor of medicine with a dissertation on 90 plants of Java, which he defended in September 1786 under the chairmanship of Professor Christian Ehrenfried von Weigel (1748–1831): Fructus Javæ esculentæ eorumque usus cum diæteticus tum medicus . Despite the rich materials and valuable observations in East Asia, an academic career did not get off to a good start. For a while Hornstedt worked as curator of the natural history cabinet and lecturer of the museum in Linköping.

In 1796 he joined the Swedish Navy and was stationed at Fort Sveaborg in the Finnish Bay off Helsinki . When the Russians took the fortress in 1808, he switched to their service, but died in May of the following year.

Hornstedt's letters and his diary as well as the numerous sketches are attracting great attention when recording the situation in the Dutch East Indies . During his comparatively short stay in Southeast Asia, he brought together an impressive collection of ethnological and natural history objects that are now guarded in Uppsala. In botany his name is immortalized in the Hornstedtia genus (family of the Zingiberaceae).

Works

Nova Genera Plantarum, quorum partem primam exhibent Praeses Carol. P. Thunberg, et Resp. Claudius Fr. Hornstedt, Upsal. d. xxiv. Nov. MDCCLXXC. (Many of the dissertations prepared under Thunberg come from Thunberg's pen, who then had his students defend the theses he had put on paper. Hornstedt had at least made the drawings of the plants himself.)
Dissertationem inaugural CF Hornstedt, qua Fructus Javae Esculenti Eorumque Usus Cum Diaeteticus Tum Medicus… Praeside… Christ. Honor Weigel… Pro Gradu Doctoris Publico Examini Submittit Auctor Claudius Fr. Hornstedt ,… In Aud. Maj. D. VII. Sept. A. MDCCLXXXVI. Gryphiae: Röse, 1786.

literature

R. Tigerstedt: Hornstedt, Klas Fredrik . In: John Rosén, Theodor Westrin, BF Olsson (eds.): Nordisk familjebok konversationslexikon och realencyklopedi . 1st edition. tape 6 : Grimsby – Hufvudskatt . Gernandts boktryckeri, Stockholm 1883, Sp. 1527–1528 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
R. Tigerstedt: Hornstedt, Klas Fredrik . In: Theodor Westrin (Ed.): Nordisk familjebok konversationslexikon och realencyklopedi . 2nd Edition. tape 11 : Harrisburg – Hypereides . Nordisk familjeboks förlag, Stockholm 1909, Sp. 1138 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
Olle Franzén: Clas Fredric Hornstedt. In: Svenskt biografiskt lexikon. Volume 19: Heurlin-Inge. Bonnier, Stockholm 1973, p. 417 ( sok.riksarkivet.se ).
Ann Kumar: A Swedish View of Batavia in 1783-4: Hornstedt's Letters. In: Archipelago. 37, 1989, pp. 247-262 ( persee.fr ).
Christina Granroth, Patricia Berg, Maren Jonasson (eds.): CF Hornstedt, Brev från Batavia - En resa till India 1782–1786. In: Bokförlaget Atlantis, Stockholm 2008, ISBN 978-91-7353-260-0 (Sweden), Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, Helsingfors 2008, ISBN 978-951-583-160-6 (Finland).

Web links

Literature by and about Hornstedt, CF in the bibliographic database WorldCat

Individual evidence

↑ Nils Erik Villalba beach: Claës Fredrik Hornstedt. In: Granroth, Berg, Jonasson (2008), pp. 9–28.
↑ Nova genera plantarum, quorum partem primam… praeses Carol. P. Thunberg ... et respondens Claudius Fr. Hornstedt. Edman, Upsala 1782.
↑ Christina Granroth: En resa till India. In: Granroth, Berg, Jonasson (2008), pp. 29–83.
↑ Wolfgang Michel: Japansk läkekonst i teckningar av Clas Fredrik Hornstedt. In: Granroth, Berg, Jonasson (2008), pp. 117–150.
^ W. Michel: A naturalist lost - Johan Arnold Stützer (1763-1821) in the East Indies. In: Josef Kreiner (Ed.): Japanese Collections in European Museums III. Regional Reports 2. Biersche Verlagsanstalt, Bonn 2015, pp. 147–162.

personal data
SURNAME	Hornstedt, Clas Fredrik
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Hornstedt, Klas Fredrik; Hornstedt, Claës Fredrik
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Swedish medic and naturalist
DATE OF BIRTH	February 10, 1758
PLACE OF BIRTH	Linkoping
DATE OF DEATH	May 1809
Place of death	Helsinki

[1] Nils Erik Villalba beach: Claës Fredrik Hornstedt. In: Granroth, Berg, Jonasson (2008), pp. 9–28.

[2] Nova genera plantarum, quorum partem primam… praeses Carol. P. Thunberg ... et respondens Claudius Fr. Hornstedt. Edman, Upsala 1782.

[3] Christina Granroth: En resa till India. In: Granroth, Berg, Jonasson (2008), pp. 29–83.

[4] Wolfgang Michel: Japansk läkekonst i teckningar av Clas Fredrik Hornstedt. In: Granroth, Berg, Jonasson (2008), pp. 117–150.

[5] W. Michel: A naturalist lost - Johan Arnold Stützer (1763-1821) in the East Indies. In: Josef Kreiner (Ed.): Japanese Collections in European Museums III. Regional Reports 2. Biersche Verlagsanstalt, Bonn 2015, pp. 147–162.