Johannes Jacob Hegetschweiler

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Johannes Jacob Hegetschweiler.

Johannes Jacob Hegetschweiler (born December 14, 1789 in Rifferswil , † September 9, 1839 in Zurich ) was a Swiss physician , botanist and politician. Its official botanical author's abbreviation is “ Hegetschw. “He is the father-in-law of the landscape architect Leopold Karl Theodor Fröbel .

Live and act

Hegetschweiler grew up as the son of a surgeon and farmer in Rifferswil near Zurich. As a teenager he attended the canton school in Aarau , first studied medicine in Zurich and then from 1809 to 1812 at the University of Tübingen . There he also attended lectures in the natural sciences, with the anatomist, zoologist and physiologist Carl Friedrich von Kielmeyer in particular having a great influence on him. In Tübingen he was awarded a doctorate in 1812 with a thesis on the spice lilies ( Scitamineae ). med. PhD.

In 1813 he was employed as a senior physician at a military hospital that the Austrians had set up in Rheinau when they were marching through Switzerland , fell ill with typhus and, after his recovery, worked as a doctor in Stäfa on Lake Zurich from 1814 to 1831 .

In his free time he collected and observed plants in the wild and cultivated critical species (plant species that appeared in different modifications) in his garden under different site conditions. He was particularly interested in the alpine vegetation, which he explored on numerous mountain tours, including in the area of ​​the Tödi , which he tried to climb in 1819, 1829 and 1822.

Although he failed the first ascent of Tödi, he brought back precise topographical recordings, height measurements, observations over the snow line and glaciers as well as descriptions of the nival flora from his tours. Above all, he turned his gaze to difficult plant taxa (especially the genera Veronica , Gentiana , Salix and Hieracium ), of which he described a number of subspecies and forms. In his opinion, the differences are due to a "concentration of the influences of the outside world ... mostly effects of more or less light, shade, moisture and dryness, fat and poor soil etc." evoked. Depending on the strength of the environmental influences, according to his opinion, "Deflexes form; with fewer traces of the impression - varieties ; with deeper, lasting - varieties ; and in the highest degree even half-species , if a factor contrary to the original form acts permanently, such as Shadows on an original form of light. "

In 1822 he added a new edition of "Flora helvetica" by Johann Rudolph Suter (1766–1827) a plant-geographical overview as well as a number of new species and sites. In 1825 a summary of the observations he had made in the Tödi area was published. From 1838 he published his large Flora of Switzerland, which was completed by Oswald Heer after his death . It comprises 2,889 plants, including subspecies.

In addition to his passion for botany, Hegetschweiler went down in Swiss history as a politician. Elected by his fellow citizens, he sat on the Grand Council from 1830 to 1839 and on the Government Council of the Canton of Zurich from 1831 to 1839, where he did a lot for the creation of the new botanical garden on the Bulwark zur Katz.

As a moderate liberal, he refused the appointment of the free-spirited Swabian theologian David Friedrich Strauss to the University of Zurich in 1839 . When the armed Landsturm appeared in Zurich on September 6, 1839 and there was street fighting, the “ Züriputsch ”, Hegetschweiler wanted to mediate, was shot in the head and died a few days later from the consequences of this injury.

Fonts

Dedication names

In his honor Oswald Heer named the highland pasture Salix hegetschweileri . A type of lichen, Bacidia hegetschweileri (Hepp) Vainio , was named after him. In his honor, a plant genus Hegetschweilera Heer & Regel from the legume family (Fabaceae) was named.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names . Extended Edition. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Free University Berlin Berlin 2018. [1]

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hegetschweiler, Johannes Jacob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss physicians, botanists and politicians
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1789
PLACE OF BIRTH Rifferswil , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH September 9, 1839
Place of death Zurich