Johann Friedrich von Brandt

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Johann Friedrich von Brandt
Memorial plaque at the Kirchplatz house in Lutherstadt Wittenberg

Johann Friedrich von Brandt (born May 25, 1802 in Jüterbog , Electorate of Saxony ; † July 15, 1879 in Merreküll , Estonia Governorate , Russian Empire ) was a German naturalist , doctor , zoologist and botanist . His botanical author abbreviation is " Brandt ".

His daughter was Marie Amalie Fjodorovna, the wife of Gustav Radde , and his granddaughter was Olga Gustawowna Radde (1873–1963), the wife of Alexander Wassiljewitsch Fomin .

Life

Johann Friedrich came from a family of doctors. He attended high school in his hometown and that in Wittenberg until 1820 and studied at the Medical Faculty of the University of Berlin in 1821 . He expanded his studies at the philosophical faculty, and during the summer holidays he traveled to the Harz Mountains and the Giant Mountains. Martin Lichtenstein in particular encouraged him to study zoology. In 1826 Brandt had passed his medical state examination and was licensed as a doctor, surgeon and obstetrician. After he had already defended his inaugural dissertation Observations anatomicae de mammalium quorundam vocis instrumenta on January 24, 1826 , he became a doctor of medicine. In Berlin he got an assistant position and was an assistant at the anatomical museum. In the same year he began to publish the Medicinische Zoologie (first issue 1827) with Ratzeburg and wrote several articles in the Encyclopaedic Lexicon .

In 1828 Brandt completed his habilitation as a private lecturer at the university. From 1829 on, his lectures related to “Medicinal Botany” and “Vegetable Warranty and Pharmacology”. In 1829 the first volume of medical zoology was finished with Ratzeburg and some booklets of the plants of the Prussian Pharmacopoeia and the German poison plants were published. In addition, he wrote some articles for the Medicinische Encyklopädie etc. The year 1830 was filled with such works, which related partly to the second volume of the Medicinische Zoologie and the continuation of the medicinal and poisonous plants, partly with some monographs of mammals, which the text zu Bürde's images of strange mammals . He also began his monographic studies on land lice (Onisciden) and millipedes (Myriapods).

Since three of his hopes of being able to establish an early existence as a natural scientist in Berlin or Germany at all had failed, so he followed a call mediated by Alexander von Humboldt and Rudolph to the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg and left the Berlin University in 1831 as associate professor. In St. Petersburg he was appointed adjunct director of the zoological department at the Academy of Sciences . Here he published his research results in Russian, became an associate professor in 1832 and a full professor in 1833. Over time, he was promoted to State Councilor and in 1869 to Privy Councilor.

He began building a collection of specimens from domestic animals, many of which were not previously available in museums . Many of these specimens were brought back from expeditions by Nikolai Alexejewitsch Severzow , Nikolai M. Prschewalski , Alexander Theodor von Middendorff , Leopold von Schrenck and Gustav Radde .

He also described a number of birds that had been brought from the Pacific coast of America by Russian researchers . Among them were various seagulls , ducks and cormorants . He also wrote monographs of the cliff badger, about the Steller manatee , which was already extinct at that time, in the seas of Kamchatka , about the spread of the tiger , about mammoth finds in Siberia , about the dinotherium , about the fossil elent animals and whales . More than 318 scientific articles are known from him, and over a dozen animals that he discovered received his Latin name component.

His marriage to Auguste Weichart († 1866) in 1830 resulted in three daughters and four sons.

Honors

Thanks to his unique research, Johann Friedrich von Brandt became famous among the scientists of the time. He became a member of the Paris Academy and on admission knocked out the no less famous researcher Charles Darwin . From 1833 he belonged to the Leopoldina . Ennobled by the tsarist government, there was probably no scientific association in which he was not represented in Europe. Showered with honors, medals and titles, he celebrated his 50th anniversary as a doctor in St. Petersburg in January 1876. A special medal with his portrait was struck for him by the state. The German embassy in Petersburg congratulated him and there were honorary degrees from many sides. The universities of Moscow and Dorpat (Tartu) made him an honorary member and his hometown Jüterbog made him an honorary citizen of Moscow. The Natural Research Society of Emden made him an honorary member. In Lutherstadt Wittenberg there is a memorial plaque on the building of the former grammar school in Jüdenstraße, on the church square of the town church . When La Société Cuvierienne was founded in 1838 , he was one of the 140 founding members of the society.

A genus Brandtia Kunth from the sweet grass family (Poaceae) is named after Brandt .

Fonts

Botanical writings:

  • Flora berolinensis . (1824, 1825).
  • with P. Phoebus and JTC Ratzeburg : Illustration and description of the poisonous plants growing wild in Germany . (1828-1838, 2nd edition 1838).
  • Illustration and description of the poisonous plants growing wild in Germany and perennial in outdoor gardens explained according to natural families . Volume 1. Hirschwald, Berlin 1834. 2 volumes, urn : nbn: de: hbz: 061: 2-2387
  • Illustration and description of the poisonous plants growing wild in Germany and perennial in outdoor gardens explained according to natural families. Volume 2, with P. Phoebus and Ratzeburg , Berlin 1838, urn : nbn: de: hbz: 061: 2-2274
  • Germany's phanerogamic poisonous plants in illustrations and descriptions. Hirschwald in Comm., Berlin, 1834 ( digitized )

In addition, Johann Friedrich von Brandt arranged for the continuation of the work Faithful representation and description of the plants used in medicine by Friedrich Gottlob Hayne .

Other writings (with Julius Theodor Christian Ratzeburg ):

  • Medical Zoology, or Faithful Representation and Description of Animals Considered in Pharmaceutical Science, Volume 1 . Berlin, 1829. ( digitized version )
  • Medical Zoology, or Faithful Representation and Description of Animals Contemplated in Pharmaceutical Science, Volume 2 . Berlin, 1833. ( digitized version )

literature

  • Heinrich Kühne, Heinz Motel: Famous personalities and their connection to Wittenberg . Verlag Göttinger Tageblatt, 1990, ISBN 3-924781-17-6 .
  • Heinrich Kühne tells Wittenberg stories . Part 3, published in the Michelmann printing house, 1994.
  • HB Geinitz: Johann Friedrich Brandt . In: CH Knoblauch: Leopoldina - Official organ of the Imperial Leopoldino-Carolinian German Academy of Natural Scientists. Booklet XVI - No. 3–4, February 1880, Halle (Saale), p. 20.
  • Ludwig Stieda :  Brandt, Johann Friedrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 47, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1903, pp. 182-184.
  • Société Cuvierienne: List of the Premiers Fondateurs de La Société Cuvierienne, Association universelle pour l'avancement de la Zoologie, de L'Anatomie comparée et de la Palaeontologie . In: Revue Zoologique par La Société Cuvierienne . tape 1 , 1838, p. 189-192 ( biodiversitylibrary.org ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Walter Nestmeier: Two botanists: Prof. AW Fomin, his wife Prof. Olga Radde-Fomin and the reference to feet. Historical Association Säuling, annual publication 08, 2018, Miroslav W. Schewera (Kiev / Ukraine): The forgotten Ukrainian botanist Olga Gustavivna Radde-Fomina (on her 140th birthday). German translation from: Ukrainisches Botanisches Journal, Volume 73, Issue 4, 2016, pp. 409–414, History of Science. Published on September 19, 2016, (PDF) .
  2. ^ Société Cuvierienne, p. 189.
  3. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names . Extended Edition. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Free University Berlin Berlin 2018. [1]
personal data
SURNAME Brandt, Johann Friedrich von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German naturalist, doctor, zoologist and botanist
DATE OF BIRTH May 25, 1802
PLACE OF BIRTH Jueterbog , Electorate of Saxony
DATE OF DEATH July 15, 1879
Place of death Merreküll , Estonia Governorate , Russian Empire