Georg Christian Oeder

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Noble v. Oeder (1728–91)
From the Flora Danica ; hand-colored copper engraving, folio format
Gravestone at the Gertrudenfriedhof in Oldenburg

Georg Christian (Elder) Oeder , from 1789 Georg Christian (Elder) von Oeder , also from Oldenburg , (born February 3, 1728 in Ansbach , † January 28, 1791 in Oldenburg ) was a German botanist , doctor and social reformer. He was particularly well known as the editor of Flora Danica . Its official botanical author's abbreviation is " Oeder ".

Live and act

Early years

Oeder was the son of the Ansbach rector and later pastor in Feuchtwangen Georg Ludwig Oeder (1694–1760) and Margarete Sibylle nee. Hänlein. He came from well-known Franconian theologian families on both his mother's and father's side. His siblings were Georg Wilhelm Oeder (1721–1751), librarian and pedagogue , Johann Ludwig Oeder (1722–1776), councilor and professor at the Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig and the councilor Johann Friedrich Oeder (1729–1772).

From April 16, 1746, he studied medicine at the University of Göttingen and heard, among other things, lectures by the Swiss polymath Albrecht von Haller . After completing his doctorate on October 11, 1749, also in Göttingen , Oeder first settled as a doctor in Schleswig , the royal seat of the Danish-ruled Duchy of Schleswig .

Entry into Danish services as a botanist

At the age of 23 he was appointed to Copenhagen by Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff to enter the Danish civil service. A position at the university failed due to the resistance of the professors, as Oeder adhered to his modern scientific-experimental training in his disputation on February 9, 1752, while the University of Copenhagen followed the scholastic tradition. Furthermore, his German origins can be assumed as the reason for the rejection and Oeder's lack of knowledge of Latin was also blamed on him. Oeder initially received a royal professorship and, from 1752, headed the new botanical garden , which he created with funds from the royal special fund , in which useful and medicinal plants were to be grown, including for the pharmacy of the Frederik Hospital.

Furthermore, Oeder was commissioned to research the natural riches of the country together with other scientists in the sense of mercantilism , which came late to Denmark .

In 1752 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

In 1753 he began the Flora Danica project , a monumental botanical atlas of the flora of Denmark, Norway and Iceland , which he began to publish in 1761. The model was the Flora Suecica published by Carl von Linné in 1745 . The motivation and purpose of this work was to emphasize and emphasize the importance of the botanical garden he created . Financed with high subsidies, the work appeared in the form of successive booklets in Danish, German and Latin and also contained engravings of the flora of Denmark-Norway , the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein and the counties of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst .

On May 6, 1754, Oeder received the title of Royal Professor Botanices and was thus officially the same as the university professors. In this respect, his botanical garden can also be seen as an alternative to the university garden. The scientific knowledge he gained there should be accessible to all interested parties and should also contribute to increasing the economic power of the country. In the following years Oeder traveled through Germany, France, England and the Netherlands to do studies for the new botanical garden and to buy plants. He then visited the Danish provinces and Norway . In 1759 he received the order for a global botanical garden, combined with public lectures for a broader audience with accompanying excursions. He should also set up a generally accessible botanical and scientific library.

Further activity in Denmark

Oeder had initially limited his research to promote the prosperity of the state on the botany, he turned in the late sixties and other topics to which he political economy explored aspects. His first such publication was published in 1756 with proposals to promote the sea transport of agricultural products.

In this respect, Oeder was not only active as a botanist. His social reform work: Concerns about the question: How can freedom and property be given to the peasant class in countries where they lack both? from 1769 became a milestone in the liberation of the peasants . The work not only caused a sensation in Denmark, but while it received a special commendation from King Christian VII , Oeder's proposals for smaller farms that could be managed without compulsory labor were rejected by the large landowners.

In 1770 the royal botanical garden was handed over to the university and Oeder kept the editorship of Flora Danica with the same payments . In the following years he was entrusted with a number of special tasks, such as carrying out vaccination tests against rinderpest , evaluating the first Danish census of 1769, participating in an agricultural reform commission and planning a widow's fund. On January 4, 1771, he was appointed finance councilor.

In the meantime, political leadership in Denmark had gradually passed from the mentally unstable Christian VII to his German royal personal physician and secret cabinet minister Johann Friedrich Struensee . He wanted to change the country in the spirit of the Enlightenment through liberalization and humanization of society and he often got advice from Oeder, for example with the restructuring of the rent chamber, with some social reforms and with a draft for university reform. However, the Struensee era ended abruptly on January 17, 1772, when he was accused of sneaking power and adultery with Queen Caroline Mathilde and was executed. Struensee's employees and confidants were also arrested or forced out of their offices, and so Oeder also lost his position as finance advisor in July 1772. Instead, he was offered the position of bailiff in Bergen . He refused this and finally accepted the position of Trondheim mayor , but learned from a newspaper notice that this position had already been filled before he took office. In September 1773 he was offered the modest position of bailiff in the Oldenburg county. Since jurisprudence was alien to him, he wanted to refuse the position that was tantamount to a position as a judge of a lower court, but reluctantly settled in Oldenburg. His Flora Danica was continued by other editors.

In the service of Oldenburg

When Oeder arrived in Oldenburg in autumn 1773, the Treaty of Tsarskoe Selo had already come into force and the county left the Danish state by constitution of the entire Danish state. Oeder was taken over by Duke Friedrich August in the service of the new Duchy of Oldenburg . To accomplish his tasks in jurisprudence, Oeder often consulted Gerhard Anton von Halem , who became his close friend. At the same time, Oeder also took up topics that were known to him from his time in Copenhagen, such as vaccinations, census and widow care. With his actuarial calculations for the establishment of the Oldenburg widows' fund, he broke new scientific ground. He published his results in scientific articles but he also tried to sell them. In Hamburg a general pension institution was planning to Oeders 1778 founded (with a "Ersparungskasse") and Oldenburg he took over in 1779 when he furnished widow Checkout a directorship. Oeder's ideas may also have influenced the founding of the "Ersparungscasse im Herzogthum Oldenburg", which was created in 1786 based on the Hamburg model and has been operating as the Landessparkasse zu Oldenburg since 1913 . Today it is considered the oldest still existing savings bank in the world. Due to the knowledge he had already acquired in Copenhagen about the astronomical-trigonometric method for national surveying, Oeder suggested the re-measurement of the Duchy of Oldenburg, which was then carried out between 1782 and 1785 by Caspar Wessel , who was called from Copenhagen, under his direction.

In his later life, Oeder's interests covered a wide range of topics. Among other things, he dealt with the question of a canal between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea , which was already discussed at the time, the monetary policy problem of the introduction of paper money, and the relationship between the military and the state. He continued to have good relations with Denmark and was also consulted on political issues from there, for example in 1788, when the future Minister of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, Christian Detlev von Reventlow Oeder, asked for comments on a draft regulation to abolish compulsory labor.

Two years before his death he acquired by Emperor Joseph II. A patent of nobility . Oeder's tomb at the Gertrudenfriedhof in Oldenburg summarizes his areas of activity:

“Danien's flowers and herbs are collected and woven into a permanent wreath.
The widows thank him for safe care.
The Danish farmer blesses him, for whom his bold call was the first messenger of freedom. "

family

In 1755 he married Charlotte Hedwig Ericius (1728–1776), a daughter of the royal Danish and high prince Glücksburgischen Justice Council Mauritius Christian Ericius (1700–1753) and his wife Anna Magdalena Jonas (1699–1734) . The marriage remained childless. After her death in 1776, he married Catharina Gertrud Matthiesen (1755-1807) in the same year , she was the daughter of the merchant and Danish judicial councilor Conrad Matthiesen (1723-1799) and his wife Agneta Gertrud Fleischer (1728-1795). The couple had two sons and a daughter. The later Oldenburg bailiff Conrad Johann von Oeder (1779–1836) was his son.

Dedication names

The plant genus Oedera L. from the sunflower family (Asteraceae) was named after him. Furthermore, several plant species were named after him: In his honor, the colorful lice herb was given the scientific name Pedicularis oederi by Martin Vahl . Carex oederi is a yellow sedge species, Bartramia oederi is a species of the Bartramiaceae moss family and Plagiopus oederi is a crooked foot moss .

Works (selection)

  • News of the edition of a work called Flora Danica with a sample plate from the plant: Rubus Chamæmorus. Philibert, Copenhagen 1761.
  • Elementa botanicae. / Introduction to herbal knowledge. Two volumes in one volume. Philibert, Copenhagen 1764-66. With 14 copper plates.
  • Nomenclator botanicus for use with the Flora Danica. Heineck and Faber, Copenhagen 1769.
  • Directory belonging to the Flora Danica, in the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, in the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, and in the counties of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst wild herbs. Copenhagen 1770.
  • Concerns about the question: How can freedom and property be provided to the peasant class in countries where both are lacking? Leipzig and Frankfurt 1769.

to:

  • Concerns and additions; reissued together with allowances. Altona 1786.
  • Raisonnemens about widow casses. Stein, Copenhagen 1771.
  • Answer to JC Fabricius intrusiveness in his paper on popular increase in Denmark. 1781.
  • Appeal to the Danish public. Oct. 1786. 1786.

Remarks

  1. ↑ It was the second of four botanical gardens at the University of Copenhagen in a row to date, north of Frederik Hospital and divided by Amaliegade Street. The first botanical garden in Copenhagen dates back to 1600.

literature

Web links

Commons : Georg Christian Oeder  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 181.
  2. ↑ website Botanisk Have the history of the garden (English)
  3. ↑ Georg Christian Oeder: Concerns about the question: How freedom and property can be provided to the peasant class in countries where both are lacking? , Frankfurt and Leipzig 1769 ( digitized version ); for implementation in the Duchy of Schleswig : Hieronymus Kamphövener : Description of the already completed resignations Königl. Domain goods in the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein , Copenhagen 1787
  4. ^ Researchers, inventors and scholars in the Oldenburger Land , accessed on November 17, 2016
  5. ↑ quoted from ADB 24, p. 149.
  6. ↑ Mauritius Ericius: Family news from the Ericius family from 1672-1858 . In: Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesbibliothek (Ed.): Chronicle . Kiel.
  7. ^ The Danish National Archives, Hadersleben Amt, Aastrup Sogn Hovedministerialbog 1574-2003, mixed book 1675-1726, page 272
  8. ↑ 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 .
  9. ↑ Robert Zander : Zander hand 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 .
personal data
SURNAME Oeder, Georg Christian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Oeder, Georg Christian von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Danish botanist, doctor and social reformer
DATE OF BIRTH February 3, 1728
PLACE OF BIRTH Ansbach
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 1791
Place of death Oldenburg (Oldb)