Eduard Friedrich Poeppig

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Eduard Friedrich Poeppig was Professor of Zoology at Leipzig University
Eduard Friedrich Poeppig. The only surviving photograph

Eduard Friedrich Poeppig (originally Pöppig) (born July 16, 1798 in Plauen , † September 4, 1868 in Wahren near Leipzig ) was a German zoologist , botanist , geographer , explorer and one of the most important American researchers of the 19th century. Its official botanical author's abbreviation is “ Poepp. "

Eduard Friedrich Poeppig conducted research in America from 1822 to 1832, namely in Cuba, the USA, Chile, Peru and Brazil, crossed the Andes and sailed the entire Amazon. Back in Leipzig he became professor of zoology and laid the foundations for the natural science collections at Leipzig University. His report from America is one of the most literary travelogues of the 19th century. The focus of his collecting activities were natural objects, but also ethnographics.

Life

Origin, youth and studies

Eduard Friedrich Poeppig came from a family of merchants from Plauen or Leipzig and first attended the St. Thomas School in Leipzig and from 1810 to 1815 the St. Augustin State School in Grimma, which he graduated a year earlier as a particularly gifted student . He then studied medicine and natural sciences at the University of Leipzig from 1815 to 1822 , where his teacher was the botanist Christian Friedrich Schwägrichen . Schwägrichen, who was to become director of the Leipzig Botanical Garden in 1826, dreamed of a research trip to America, but it never came about. Collective trips, about which little is known, led Poeppig mostly on foot through the Rhineland, Austria (ascent of the Großglockner in 1822), Hungary and France to the Pyrenees. A "model" for such hikes were those of the writer Johann Gottfried Seume , also from Saxony and (involuntarily) in America, who walked from Grimma to Syracuse and back in a few months (cf. Seumes Walk to Syracuse , 1803).

The America trip

Poeppig's ten-year trip to America has clear peculiarities in organization, sequence and implementation:

  • The trip was, as one of the first in the history of discovery, not a trip on a sovereign (state or dynastic) mission, but was financed by the scientifically interested bourgeoisie through sales of natural produce. For this purpose, shares were issued by the Leipzig Natural Research Society, which was founded in 1818, and sales in kind were organized. The Natural Research Society set up collections, a library and reading circles (with a focus on America), Poeppig was accountable to it, and his reports were read out regularly. The interest in the trip was fueled by regular travel reports in German newspapers.
  • Poeppig's trip was a series of individual trips that were repeatedly interrupted by times when Poeppig (as a plantation doctor or teacher) had to earn money. One consequence of this inherently unfortunate circumstance was an extremely precise knowledge of the country.
  • Poeppig was “alone” as a scientist, ie only with local, mostly Indian helpers (often rowers), who kept changing. (That Poeppig is said to have sailed the Amazon alone is a legend, even technically impossible). He went on collective excursions only accompanied by his dog, described himself as the "lonely one" and felt himself at the mercy of the indigenous population.

The purpose of the trip "was the collection of natural history objects in the greatest possible quantity."

Poeppig researched and collected animals and plants first in Cuba (1823-1824), where he landed in Havana on July 1, 1827 and later also was a doctor on a coffee plantation, and then in Pennsylvania in the USA (1824-1826 in Center County, Susquehenna Bottoms, Alleghenies = Appalachians). In 1825, 25,000 dried Poeppigs plants from Cuba and the USA arrived in Leipzig. Little is known about this section of the journey, because Poeppig's great travel description only begins with his arrival in South America, that part of the journey that he considered the actual travel destination.

Chile 1827-1829

Poeppig left Baltimore in November 1826 and crossed the Atlantic on a merchant ship, sailed around Cape Horn and landed in Valparaíso in March 1827 after a 109 day voyage . Before Patagonia, then still Indian country, one had sailed near the coast. Later Poeppig described the country, which he had seen but never set foot on, in an extensive article, one of the first scientific descriptions of Patagonia (article Patagonia in Erf / Gruber Vol. 40, 1840).

Poeppig researched the high mountain flora of the Andes (including description of the araucarias , first ascent of the Antuco volcano ), and in particular the biobioregion . Southern Chile was a heavily contested area largely dominated by Araucans. Poeppig survived the acquaintance with the Pehuenchen Indians, who were involved in a constant guerrilla war with the whites, unscathed. At the beginning of 1828, however, he failed when crossing a creek while crossing the Andes (with the goal of Argentina), lost books, instruments and parts of his collection, but was able to save his life.

Peru 1829-1831

In May 1829 Poeppig arrived by ship in Callao and Lima in Peru, where he was to work for the next two years. He crossed the coastal desert and the Andes and lived from July 1829 to April 1830 in Pampayaco (eastern slope) in the headwaters of the Huallaga . There he led “almost a Robinson life” (so the obituary) in a self-built hut in the rainforest. Shortly before Christmas 1829 he received a life-threatening snakebite, was given up by the Indians, wrote his will, but recovered after four weeks. The description of this accident by a doctor and zoologist is one of the highlights of his travelogue.

Brazil 1831-1832

Poeppig's main collection areas in Amazonia were the rainforests in the catchment area of ​​the Río Huallaga, ie the provinces of Maynas on the eastern slopes of the Andes of Peru (an old mission area of ​​the Jesuits ) and the upper Amazon around Ega (today Tefé ) in Brazil. Poeppig also collected objects from tribes, some of which no longer exist today (e.g. Yameo, Urarina, today in the Ethnographic Museum in Dresden). The last part of the trip on the lower reaches of the Amazon was more like an escape or a game of hide and seek, since Poeppig did not want to fall into the hands of insurgents and marauders; the unrest that began in 1831 and was directed against Dom Pedro I and the central state heralded the great Cabanagem uprising, which was also to bring great losses to Johann Natterer . Poeppig had little opportunity to collect. In April 1832 he arrived in Pará ( Belém ), left America on August 7, 1832 and landed in Antwerp in October, in the same month he was back in Leipzig.

Neither was Poeppig, as can sometimes be read, the third European after Francisco de Orellana (1542) and Charles Marie de la Condamine (1744), who sailed the entire length of the Amazon (as did numerous monks and soldiers, among others) the Portuguese Pedro Texeira, the Austrian Jesuit priest Samuel Fritz , the wife of the cartographer Jean Godin - Isabel Godin des Odonais - and many others), he refuted the Amazon myth (which had long since become obsolete in the 19th century).

Academic career, late years, death

Since returning from America, "Pöppig" only wrote "Poeppig", a visible sign of his change through the life-defining journey. In 1833 he became associate professor for zoology in Leipzig, Schwägrichen took over the chair for botany. In 1834 Poeppig married Isidora Hasse (1812–1864), the marriage had three daughters.

Poeppig founded the Zoological Museum of the University of Leipzig, which opened in 1837 (not preserved), and was its first custodian. He also encouraged further collecting trips (such as that of Wilhelm Gueinzius to South Africa), gave regular zoology lectures at the university (until 1868) and public lectures on America. With these lectures z. B. in Dresden and Leipzig in 1833 he satisfied the great interest of the German public in American subjects.

Poeppig's main activity, however, was the scientific preparation of the collections, the botanical part of which he worked on together with the Austrian botanist Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher . The resulting "Nova genera ac species plantarum" (1835–1845) were dedicated to the "fearless traveler" Alexander von Humboldt .

Poeppig's geographical and ethnographic work includes, in addition to the extensive America articles in Ansch & Gruber's " Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste ", above all the "Picturesque Atlas" (1838) with descriptions of predominantly Asian and African, but also American regions (Eastern Peru, Matanzas in Cuba). The items he collected from Amazonian tribes (hammocks, clubs, blowguns, blowpipe arrow quivers, calabashes, curare pots, bark trumpets) are a valuable counterpart to the ethnographic collections of Johann Natterer in Vienna and Johann Baptist von Spix and Carl , also because of their early collection date Friedrich Philipp von Martius in Munich.

Since 1834 Poeppig was a member of the Leopoldina and since 1846 a full professor of zoology and (founding) member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences .

From the 1850s onwards, Poeppig withdrew more and more from the academic public. The reasons for this are not entirely clear. Poeppig died in his house in Wahren (now Leipzig) at the beginning of September 1868. The cause of death is an "abdominal ulcer", possibly stomach cancer. The estate, the house where he died and the grave have not been preserved, and there is no scientific biography.

Scientific achievements, afterlife, meaning

Honor plaque for Eduard Friedrich Poeppig in the St. Augustin Grimma high school (in the passage of the main portal)

Poeppig's main achievement was his enormous collecting activity and the subsequent scientific processing. He collected 17,000 dried plants, provided 3,000 plant descriptions, sent hundreds of stuffed animals, produced 30 panels of executed landscape views as well as 70 large-format plant drawings (orchids, aroids) and sent plant seeds for cultivation and “a self-collected herbarium of more than four thousand species” Europe. He also introduced the araucaria in Europe, found again and described the giant water lily ( Victoria amazonica ) (already discovered by Thaddäus Haenke ).

Just a few years after his death, Poeppig was considered "half-forgotten". This has to do with Poeppig's character, the "modesty" and "inhibited" attested to him, but also with the increasing specialization of the scientific community.

His "Journey in Chile, Peru, and on the Amazon River", along with Humboldts and the travel works of Spix and Martius, is one of the most important travel descriptions of the 19th century. It was never translated into English or French (although Charles Darwin was one of its readers), which explains the poor reception of Poeppig in these countries, but it was translated into Spanish, Portuguese and (as a partial translation) into Russian. Significant ethnographic and historical sources include: a. his notes on mining in Cerro de Pasco , his description of Yurimaguas, and his notes on the Maynas mission .

In Chile in particular, Poeppig is still known and valued today because of his precise descriptions of the time of Chile's origins. In contrast, numerous shortened and edited versions of parts of his travelogue made Poeppig appear more as an adventure writer than as a scientist in Germany for a long time.

Eponyms

After Poeppig many plants and animals have been named especially from western South America, the plant genus Poeppigia Bertero ex Férussac from the family of the iron herb plants (Verbenaceae). The following species were named after Poeppig:

  • From the legume family (Fabaceae) the Latin American tree species Erythrina poeppigiana with a striking orange-red flower
  • Gustavia poeppigiana , a tree from the flower-morphologically interesting family of potted fruit trees (Lecythidaceae)
  • The cycad Zamia poeppigiana (which Poeppig had collected in Maynas alto in 1830)
  • The conspicuously blooming rainforest plant called "kissing lipps" Psychotria poeppigiana from the family of the ( red family )
  • Diospyros poeppigiana from the ebony family, endemic to Brazil
  • The western Amazonian silver woolly monkey ( Lagothrix poeppigii )
  • By Ludwig Georg Karl Pfeiffer , who himself had collected in Cuba, the cushion-forming, Chilean cactus was already in 1837 Maihuenia poeppigii (then Opuntia poeppigii ) named after Poeppig.
  • Johann Georg Wagler dedicated Pteroglossus poeppigii to him in 1832 , a name that is now synonymous with the Krauskopfarassari .

Works (selection)

A total of five books and about 80 essays and longer lexicon articles, including:

  • Communications (or reports) from Dr. Pöppig (each under different titles) In: Notes from the field of natural and medical science, Erfurt 1828–1832. (Brief reports by Poeppig, written during the trip)
  • Fragmentum synopseos plantarum phanerogamarum . Leipzig 1833 (Poeppig's short habilitation)
  • Journey in Chile, Peru, and on the Amazon River during the years 1827–1832 , 2 volumes, Leipzig 1834–1836 (reprint: 1960 and 2009) ( digitized volume 2 ) (Poeppig's extensive travel description)
  • Nova genera ac species plantarum quas in regno chilensi, peruviano et in terra amazonica. (together with Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher ). 3 vols. Leipzig 1835–1845, new edition 1968. (Poeppig's main botanical work)
  • Picturesque atlas and descriptive representations from the field of geography. Leipzig 1838. (The text is identical to: Landscape views and explanatory representations from the field of geography . Leipzig 1839)
  • Tropical vegetation and tropical people Two lectures by Eduard Poeppig on (1.) epiphytes and lianas ( About two of the most prominent features of tropical vegetation: the creepers and parasitic plants. And (2.) Indians ( About the character of the tropical inhabitants of South America ), edited by Carlos Keller. (= Ostwald's Classic of Exact Sciences No. 249). Leipzig 1965 (with portrait, short biography and bibliography)
  • Illustrated natural history of the animal kingdom
  • Across the Andes to the Amazon
  • Illustrated natural history of the animal kingdom , 1851
  • Near the eternal snow

literature

  • Robert Zander : Zander concise dictionary of plant names. Edited by Fritz Encke , Günther Buchheim, Siegmund Seybold . 13th, revised and expanded edition. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-8001-5042-5 .
  • Friedrich Ratzel : From Eduard Pöppig's estate with a biographical introduction. In: Communications from the Geography Association in Leipzig . Year 1887 (1888), pp. 3–96. (basic with source material)
  • Friedrich Ratzel:  Poeppig, Eduard . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 26, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1888, pp. 421-427.
  • Ignaz Urban : Eduard Poeppig (1798–1868). Botanical Yearbooks for Systematics, Plant History and Plant Geography Vol. 21 (1896) Book 4 (Supplement No. 53), pp. 1–27 (With excerpts from Poeppig's letters)
  • I. Brunken: Medical and pharmaceutical in E. Poeppig's "Journey in Chile, Peru and on the Amazon River" 1827–1832. Dissertation Düsseldorf 1977
  • K.-P. Kästner: Western Amazonian clubs . From the Poeppig collection of the Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde Dresden. Ethnographisch-Archäologische Zeitschrift, Vol. 20 (1979) 2, pp. 295-313
  • B. Schröter: Alexander von Humboldt and the "successors" - Eduard Friedrich Poeppig. In: Zeuske, Michael; Schröter, Bernd (eds.), Alexander von Humboldt and the new historical image of Latin America , Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 1992, pp. 92–98
  • K.-P. Kästner: Weapons from the western Amazon region (from the Poeppig collection of the State Museum of Ethnology in Dresden). Treatises and reports of the Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde Dresden 38 (1980), pp. 86–121. (Processing of the ethnographica, cf. also K.-P. Kästner: Amazonien. Indianer der Regenwälder und Savannen . Dresden 2009)
  • Wilfried Morawetz , M. Röser (Ed.): Eduard Friedrich Poeppig 1798–1868. Scholar and naturalist in South America . Leipzig 1998. (only monograph on Poeppig, with a botanical focus)
  • Lutz Mohr : Alone over the Andes and on the Amazon. In memory of the geographic achievements of the Saxon humanist and South American researcher Prof. Dr. Eduard Friedrich Poeppig (1798–1868 ). In: Sächsische Heimatblätter Dresden , Vol. 27, Issue 4/1981, pp. 172–178
  • C. Sanhueza Cerda (Ed.): Chilenos en Alemania y Alemanes en Chile: viaje y nación en el siglo XIX . Santiago de Chile 2006 (with Poeppig chapter)
  • Th. Jewelry: Eduard Friedrich Poeppig (1798–1868) as a botanist and collector in South America . In: I. Kästner, J. Kiefer (ed.): Botanical gardens and botanical research trips . Aachen 2011, pp. 301–333 (review with archive material)
  • Gottfried Zirnstein:  Poeppig, Eduard Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 572 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Johann Georg Wagler: New clans and genera of the mammals and birds . In: Isis von Oken . tape 25 , no. 11 , 1832, p. 1218-1235 ( biodiversitylibrary.org ).

Web links

Commons : Eduard Friedrich Poeppig  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eduard Friedrich Poeppig: Journey in Chile, Peru, and on the Amazon River during the years 1827–1832 , Volume 1. Leipzig 1834 (preface).
  2. ^ Two lectures on "Tropical Vegetation" and "Tropical Humans" by Carlos Keller in 1965 were reprinted.
  3. ↑ Poeppig's botanical drawings in Vienna still bear witness to this collaboration today (PDF; 1.6 MB)
  4. ↑ On the meaning of the Nova Genera cf. [1]
  5. ↑ Prof. Dr. med. Eduard Friedrich Pöppig in the professorial catalog of the University of Leipzig
  6. ^ So the geographer Friedrich Ratzel
  7. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .
  8. ^ Johann Georg Wagler (1832), p. 1230.
personal data
SURNAME Poeppig, Eduard Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German zoologist, botanist and explorer
DATE OF BIRTH July 16, 1798
PLACE OF BIRTH Plauen
DATE OF DEATH September 4, 1868
Place of death True to Leipzig