Johann Christian Kerstens

Johann Christian Kerstens (born December 17, 1713 in Stade ; † June 5, 1801 in Kiel ) was a German chemist , physicist , natural scientist, alchemist and doctor who worked for a long time in Moscow and then in Kiel.

Kerstens studied in Halle and was awarded a Dr. phil. PhD and in 1757 Dr. med. Kerstens was professor of chemistry and metallurgy in Moscow from 1757/58 to 1770 and a doctor at a hospital there. He was the founder of the Medical Faculty at Moscow University and was the first professor of medicine there. However, real medical lectures did not begin until 1764 with Johann Friedrich Erasmus from Strasbourg (died 1777), who gave anatomy lectures and demonstrated this on dissected corpses (in 1767 he published anatomical drawings in Moscow for his students). Another important figure in the teaching of medicine in Moscow at that time was Semion G. Zybelin (1735–1802). From 1764 Kerstens also gave lectures (planned as early as 1755) on pharmacy (Materia Medica and Simplizien -kunde), natural history and physics. The lectures were given in Latin and German. From 1770 he was a medical professor at the University of Kiel.

In Moscow he had the reputation of an alchemist in occult Freemason circles - for example with the founder of an occult Masonic lodge Peter Melissino or Melisino (1726–1797) and the French ambassador Corberon - at a time when people in higher circles were very into alchemy interested.

In 1773 he became a member of the Leopoldina .

In 1777 he published a translation from the French of a book by Samuel Auguste Tissot about masturbation in Hamburg . He also published other writings by Tissot in German translations. In 1780 the botanist Friedrich Heinrich Wiggers received his doctorate from him.

Web links

Kiel list of scholars
Member entry of Johann Christian Kerstens at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on January 1, 2017.

Individual evidence

^ Gundolf Keil : Review by Elena Roussanova: German influences on the development of pharmacy in the Russian Empire. A handbook (= Relationes, series of publications from the project “Scientific relations in the 19th century between Germany and Russia in the fields of chemistry, pharmacy and medicine” at the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig. Volume 19). Shaker, Aachen 2016, ISBN 978-3-8440-4419-5 . In: Medical historical messages. Volume 35, 2016 (2018), pp. 295–299, here: p. 297.
^ Robert Collis: The Petersburg Crucible - Alchemy and the Russian Nobility in Catherine the Great's Russia. Ritman Library, 2012.
↑ JDF Neigebaur : History of the Imperial Leopoldino-Carolinian German Academy of Natural Scientists during the second century of its existence. Friedrich Frommann, Jena 1860, p. 231. (digitized version)

personal data
SURNAME	Kerstens, Johann Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German chemist, physicist, naturalist, alchemist and physician
DATE OF BIRTH	December 17, 1713
PLACE OF BIRTH	Stade
DATE OF DEATH	June 5, 1801
Place of death	Kiel

[1] Gundolf Keil : Review by Elena Roussanova: German influences on the development of pharmacy in the Russian Empire. A handbook (= Relationes, series of publications from the project “Scientific relations in the 19th century between Germany and Russia in the fields of chemistry, pharmacy and medicine” at the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig. Volume 19). Shaker, Aachen 2016, ISBN 978-3-8440-4419-5 . In: Medical historical messages. Volume 35, 2016 (2018), pp. 295–299, here: p. 297.

[2] Robert Collis: The Petersburg Crucible - Alchemy and the Russian Nobility in Catherine the Great's Russia. Ritman Library, 2012.

[3] JDF Neigebaur : History of the Imperial Leopoldino-Carolinian German Academy of Natural Scientists during the second century of its existence. Friedrich Frommann, Jena 1860, p. 231. (digitized version)