Johann Matthäus Faber

Johann Matthäus Faber (born February 24, 1626 in Augsburg ; † September 25, 1702 in Heilbronn ) was the personal physician of the dukes of Württemberg-Neuenstadt from 1660 to 1670 and then city ​​physician of Heilbronn. He has written numerous writings, including the Historiae Heilbrunnenses , an early history of the city of Heilbronn.

family

Johann Heinrich Faber (1592–1661)

Faber came from an old family of rope makers from Weinsberg . He was born the son of Johann Heinrich Faber (born 1592 in Weinsberg; died 1661 in Augsburg), who studied theology in Tübingen and changed his family name Schmidt to the Latin form Faber. The father had embarked on a church career and was a pastor at the Barfüßerkirche in Augsburg .

Life

Johann Matthäus Faber attended the Anna-Gymnasium in Augsburg before he began studying medicine in Tübingen in 1646 , which he continued in Strasbourg and Padua and graduated in 1653 with a medical doctorate. In 1654 he became city physician in Wimpfen , but quickly moved to Esslingen and, due to an even more lucrative offer, finally in 1660 as court and personal physician of the House of Württemberg-Neuenstadt in Neuenstadt am Kocher . In 1670 Faber moved to Heilbronn as a city physician . He held this position until his death in 1702.

Already in Neuenstadt he made contact with the French doctor and scholar Charles Patin , to whom Faber's admission to the Leopoldina in 1683 should go back. Faber was nicknamed Plato I there and published scientific articles on various topics in the Academy publications. He corresponded with the Leopoldina member Salomon Reisel (1625–1701). A total of 53 letters from this correspondence have been preserved. Faber was already researching antiquities in Neuenstadt and later in Heilbronn. He had several finds from Roman times excavated and brought to his apartment, where he tried to decipher the inscriptions.

plant

Faber's work includes numerous scientific essays for the Academy of Natural Scientists, including a pamphlet about sea ​​balls ( Pilae marinae ), a pamphlet about alleged natural wonders in the fields near Heilbronn after the devastation by the French in 1689, and the astrological font Vindicae astrologiae . A fragmentary manuscript treatise on the knocking of persons buried alive did not get to the press. His main medical work Strychnomania - Explicans Strychni manici antiquorum, vel Solani furiosi recentiorum, historiae monumentum, indolis nocumentum, Antidoti documentum. Quam, occasione stragis, qua crebritate, qua celeritate, qua gravitate mirabiliter noxifera, in Ducali Würtemberg. sede, quae est Neostadii ad Cocharum, obortae, Anno 1667 prid. Cal. Septembris Styl. Jul ... deals with the effects of the poisoning by belladonna , which had overtaken 13 people in 1667 in Neuenstadt, and also describes the medicinal effects of various nightshade plants . In 1669 his book Bethesda Roeghemiana appeared , which examined the healing spring discovered in Roigheim in 1668 .

His work in Heilbronn includes the elaboration of the Heilbronn medical regulations and the creation of the Historiae Heilbrunnenses , an early city history. Faber was also talented in drawing, so that he was commissioned several times by the City Council of Heilbronn to depict the cityscape. He also worked as an expert in the planning for the reconstruction of the port market tower, which was destroyed in 1688 .

Illustration of the Heilbronn Neckar Bridge destroyed in 1691 from Faber's chronicle

The Historiae Heilbrunnenses were only handwritten by Faber and were divided into the two parts Topographica (brief historical outline, description of the city and its surroundings and description of the community) and Chronologica (chronological record of historical events). He took some of the historical events from the older chronicles by Johann Georg Dürr (around 1600) and Sebastian Hornmold the Elder . J. (early 17th century) as well as from the Heilbronner Weinbüchlein. Faber only used the actual documents and files of the city to a very limited extent, so that the historical descriptions in his chronicle are of little scientific value. Faber continued to write the chronicle until shortly before his death. Around three quarters of the Chronologica are therefore dedicated to the years it was created from 1688 to 1702. This part of the chronicle is a sober description of the events of that time, including in particular the description of the French occupation of the city, and is of greater city-historical value. The handwritten chronicle came into private hands in the 19th century and thus escaped the destruction of a large part of the city's archives in the air raid on Heilbronn in December 1944.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Place of death after entry on Johann Matthäus Faber in the personal database of the state bibliography of Baden-Württemberg
2. ^ Ralf Bröer: Salomon Reisel (1625-1701). Baroque natural research by a personal physician under the spell of mechanistic philosophy. Dissertation University of Münster, also in: Christoph J. Scriba (Ed.): Acta Historica Leopoldina, No. 23, Halle 1996, pp. 50 + 119.

Web links

Commons : Johann Matthäus Faber  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

literature

• Karl Weingärtner : The Heilbronn doctor and chronicler Johann M. Faber . In: Swabia and Franconia. Local history supplement of the Heilbronn voice . 3rd year, no. 7 . Heilbronner Voice publishing house, May 25, 1957, ZDB ID 128017-X (continued in No. 8 of June 29, 1957.).
• Karl Weingärtner: The Heilbronner Chronicle of Johann Mattheus Faber . In: Swabia and Franconia. Local history supplement of the Heilbronn voice . 4th year, no. 1 . Heilbronner Voice publishing house, February 1, 1958, ZDB -ID 128017-X .