Euricius Cordus

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Euricius Cordus (called Eberwein , actually Heinrich Ritze ; * 1486 in Simtshausen near Marburg , † December 24, 1535 in Bremen ) was a German humanist , poet, doctor, professor of medicine and botanist. Its official botanical author's abbreviation is " E. Cordus ".

Life

Cordus was born the youngest of 13 children to farmer Urban Solden. Therefore he chose his Latinized humanist name from Latin cordus "late-born".

He received his first lessons in Wetter and Frankenberg (Eder) , where he attended the same school as the chronicler Wigand Gerstenberg and the great neo-Latin poet Helius Eobanus Hessus . Then he went to the Latin school in Marburg . From 1505 he studied liberal arts at the University of Erfurt and was then rector in Kassel and rent clerk of the landgrave widow Anna in Felsberg (Hesse) . In 1508 he married Kunigunde Ralla, a pharmacist's daughter from Frankenberg. From this marriage there were eight children, including Valerius Cordus , born in 1515 . From 1513 Cordus studied again in Erfurt and received his master's degree in 1516. In Erfurt he joined a circle of friends with Eobanus Hessus , Mutianus Rufus and Joachim Camerarius the Elder .

Eyn Regiment, as one called / warden oneself before the Newen Plage / The English sweat / And if one is seized with it / should keep in it / By Euricium Cordum / The Artzney Doctorem and Professorem zuo Marpurg.

After a time as rector at the collegiate school St. Marien in Erfurt, he studied medicine from 1519. In 1521 he met Martin Luther in Worms and then traveled to Ferrara , where he received his doctorate in medicine. From 1523 he worked as a city doctor in Braunschweig. In a poem to Emperor Charles V , he also publicly professed his support for the Reformation . In 1527, this earned him the call of Landgrave Philip the Magnanimous to take over the chair of medicine at the newly founded, world's first Protestant university in Marburg. He was also elected rector twice there. Cordus was a follower of Luther and supported the efforts of the Hessian landgrave to bring about a compromise between Lutheran and Zwinglian theologians. In his argumentative manner, however, Cordus made so many enemies that he left Marburg after seven years, at Easter 1534. He became a city doctor and teacher at the illustrious grammar school in Bremen, where he - not yet 50 years old - died on December 24, 1535.

Satirical epigrams

Cordus was a well-known neo-Latin poet and is unmatched as an epigrammatist in the 16th century. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing processed many of the more than 1,200 epigrams in his own epigraphs. Cordus published the first epigrams in 1517 and 1520, at the end they had grown to 13 volumes. His fame as the best satirical poet of humanism is based on this , but he also created many enemies: In Braunschweig he had argued with opponents of the Reformation mainly for reasons of faith, in Marburg he targeted the weaknesses of his colleagues in biting epigrams. The arguments went so far that he was last expelled from the professors' meetings and lost his house, which he believed he would have been given as property.

Professor of Medicine

During his time as a medical professor , he broke out in an English sweat , a puzzling infectious disease that ended the Marburg Religious Discussion and is believed by some medical historians to be influenza . Cordus published the first medical print in the history of the University of Marburg: Regiment against the English sweat (1529). He also provided instructions for the preparation of the unadulterated Theriaks (1532), a kind of universal medicine of the Middle Ages and the early modern period from numerous ingredients. In 1535 he was followed by Johann Dryander (1500–1560), who in 1543 published Cordus' work on Harnschau .

The botanist

The doctor's Euricius Cordus from Simtshausen talk about plants.

Listen, doctor!
If you
want to get to know different herbs differently than you have been taught to this day
, this new little book contains
many of them.
If the preserving vessel is to
retain the first odor, only
six quadrants and one hour are lost.
If you'd rather
lose it with playing cards than with my [work], then give
something more learned of yourself first.

Cologne, at Johann Gymnicus in 1534.

At that time, botany was primarily an auxiliary science to medicine. In 1534 Cordus published his Botanologicon in Cologne , which can be translated as “conversation about plants”. Unlike many herbal books of its time, it does not contain any illustrations. The Botanologicon is held in the form of a dialogue between five people. The action begins with breakfast in Cordus' house at the Lahntor, after which the guests visit the garden. They later go on an excursion to a garden that Cordus created below the glass head and return home in the evening after discussing botany issues all day.

Following the Italian model, Cordus studied plants directly in nature and not just their traditional descriptions. Botanical hikes also seem to have been part of his teaching practice, making Cordus the first German university lecturer to go on excursions. At the university he was ridiculed for this: he was looking for new healing methods and did not respect the authority of ancient doctors. The accusation is justified, although Cordus was an admirer of Dioscurides , because it is precisely in the fact that he did not take over the traditional doctrines without being examined that his rank as a botanist proves. In the Botanologicon he repeatedly points out the contradictions and negligence of his predecessors. He openly discusses other opinions and also takes into account popular herbalism. His aim is not to provide a comprehensive representation of the entire plant world, but rather to propagate the empirical method .

Cordus describes this method as excursions to the country, “where I compare and look at those living plants that I had read about at home with the images imprinted on my memory, and now their names, now also their efficacy from old women who come across me, ask; then - after all have been compared with their description - I determine them either with mature judgment and as astutely as possible or make my assumptions. "

Reprints of the Botanilogicon have been recorded for Frankfurt (1549) and Paris (1551). His brief remark about a garden at the Glaskopf has been interpreted on various occasions as if Cordus had set up the first botanical garden in Germany in Marburg . Nothing else is known about its exact location and history, so that a botanical garden in Marburg can only be considered occupied in 1786.

His son Valerius Cordus (1515–1544) was a botanist, doctor, pharmacologist and naturalist. He wrote the first German pharmacopoeia - a list of medicinal products with regulations on their preparation, composition and use.

reception

Charles Plumier named Euricius and his son Valerius Cordus honor the genus Cordia of the plant family of Borage Family (Boraginaceae). Carl von Linné later took over this name.

The most important award of the Department of Medicine at Philipps University , the Euricius Cordus Medal , is named after Cordus .

Editions and translations

  • Armgard Müller (ed.): The Bucolicon of Euricius Cordus and the tradition of the genus. Text, translation, interpretation. Scientific publishing house Trier, Trier 1997, ISBN 3-88476-247-8
  • Ioanna Paschou (ed.): Euricius Cordus, Bucolicon. Critical and annotated edition. Lit, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-8258-33895

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans H. Lauer: Cordus, Euricius. 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 , pp. 271 f .; here: p. 271.
  2. ↑ Nicandri Theriaca et Alexipharmaca . 1532, translation of the two didactic poems of the same name by Nikander von Kolophon (2nd century BC)
  3. ↑ Peter Dilg: The Theriakbüchlein of Euricius Cordus. In: Specialized prose studies. Contributions to medieval science and intellectual history. Edited by Gundolf Keil with Peter Assion , Willem Frans Daems and Heinz-Ulrich Roehl, Berlin 1982, pp. 417–447.
  4. ↑ E. Cordus: De urinis. That is from right inspection of the urine and its abuse [...]. Frankfurt am Main.
  5. ↑ Translated from Peter Dilg: Das Botanologicon des Euricius Cordus. A contribution to the botanical literature of humanism . Natural science Diss. Marburg 1969, p. 122
  6. ↑ Quoted from: Schmitz: The natural sciences at the Philipps University of Marburg 1527-1977 . NG Elwert, Marburg 1978, ISBN 3-7708-0653-0 , pp. 79f.
  7. ↑ A translation can be found in Dilg, pp. 122–333.
  8. ^ Charles Plumier: Nova Plantarum Americanarum Genera . Leiden 1703, p. 13f.
  9. ^ Carl von Linné: Critica Botanica . Leiden 1737, p. 92
  10. ↑ Carl von Linné: Genera Plantarum . Leiden 1742, p. 520
personal data
SURNAME Cordus, Euricius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ritze, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German humanist, poet, doctor and botanist
DATE OF BIRTH 1486
PLACE OF BIRTH Simtshausen
DATE OF DEATH December 24, 1535
Place of death Bremen