Gallus Emmenius

Gallus Emmen (* 1541 in Jüterbog , † 1599 in Zittau ) was the city ​​physician of the city of Zittau. Since his studies he called himself Emmenius .

Gallus Emmen was born in Jüterbog in 1541 as the mayor's son. When the plague broke out in Zittau in 1599 , Gallus Emmen was also among the victims. His tombstone is in the Church of the Holy Cross and has been preserved to this day.

Career

Gallus Emmen attended grammar school in Freiberg, Saxony , from 1560–1562 and studied at the University of Wittenberg around 1563–1569. Later he was a guest of the local rector Johannes Major and from 1569 teacher and later rector at the new council school in Bautzen . In 1580 he took over the city physics in Zittau.

As a city physician, he formulated the scope of hygiene regulations that were not yet correctly assessed: at times of increased risk of infection, pots for preparing food should be cleaned with salt and the water required for food and drinks should be boiled before use. He wrote 20 works of medical, astrological-astronomical, meteorological and lyrical content.

Private life

Emmen was married twice. His first wife was Maria Montagia, who died in 1573 after two and a half years of marriage. His second wife was named Elisabeth, came from a respected Bautzner family and was the daughter of Nikolaus Krottenschmied and Juliane, née Schönborn.

Four out of eight children died early. The daughter Anna married the theologian Esaias Silberschlag from Erfurt and died there in 1627 after her husband had died in 1606. The son Sigismund, born in 1587, became a pharmacist, emigrated to Austria and then returned to Zittau as an exile. He was only 43 years old. The son Johannes can be traced back to the Zittau house owner and miller at the Stegemühle in Mittelherwigsdorf . He died in 1646 and was 64 years old.

Finally there was the son Andreas, who studied medicine at the University of Leipzig and even became the rector of this educational institution in 1608. After his return to Zittau, he succeeded his father after the incumbent city physicist Martin Holzhäuser had died in 1609. It is thanks to him that his father's estate came to the Zittau Ratsbibliothek, today's Christian-Weise library. With 62 publications he was also a very successful doctor and writer in Zittau. He died of the plague in 1632 and was probably around 59 years old. His grave is in the cemetery of the Church of the Holy Cross. The tomb in which he and his wife Margarethe, b. Meurer and the tomb of his daughter Theodora are still there and the inscriptions are still legible.

literature

In memory of the Zittau doctor and city physician Dr. Gallus Emmenius , library journal of the Christian-Weise-Bibliothek Zittau, 1999, issue 8, pp. 51–52.