Johannes Scherbeck

Johannes (Jacobi) Scherbeck , also Danish Skierbeck , Latin Scerbecius, Sc [h] erbetius, Schirbecius , (* 1553 in Scherrebek (today: Skærbæk ); † June 27, 1633 in Lübeck ) was a doctor.

Live and act

Johannes Jacobi Scherbeck was a son of Scherrebeker pastor Jakob Lauritzen (Jacobus Laurentii), who died on March 12, 1598. He attended the Latin school in Ripen , where he learned the basics of grammar, rhetoric and logic. Then he attended the Artistic Faculty of the University of Copenhagen and probably got to know Niels Hemmingsen there. He probably originally planned to follow his father's example and become a pastor. Due to the increasing conflicts between Orthodox Lutherans and the Philippists , which could lead to professional bans and also influenced his family, he refrained from doing so. In his will he reported deep rifts. Sources mention at least one obvious conflict: his brother Andreas Jacobi studied theology at the Orthodox Lutheran University of Rostock , after a long study he became an adjunct in 1586 and his father's successor as pastor in 1598.

Johannes Scherbeck, on the other hand, showed himself to be a professed Philippist and was in contact with the Reformed theologian Theodor Beza . This is a family album can be seen, the Scherbeck 1579-1583 for his " peregrinatio academia led" and now in the Royal Library Copenhagen is located. The family record documents that Scherbeck met many leading Swiss Protestants on his journey via Pressburg to Italy and Switzerland in 1580, including Rudolph Gwalther , Petrus Boquinus and Johann Jakob Grynäus . On the return trip from Switzerland he met Justina Schwartzerdin, a niece of Philipp Melanchthon , who was the only woman to be found in Scherbeck's studbook. In June 1580 Scherbeck enrolled at the University of Wittenberg and finished his studies four months later as a master's degree. In 1581/82 he lived in his home country for a long time and met Niels Hemmingsen in Roskilde, who had been removed from office shortly before. In doing so, he must have recognized that Philippists would not be tolerated in Denmark and would have no future as theologians in his home country. Then he spoke to the medicine professor Anders Lemvig , who may have moved him to study medicine.

After completing his studies, Scherbeck worked as court master of the Barnekow family and was able to go on a grand tour in 1583 with the junker Christian Barnekow . Scherbeck and Barnekow first went to Switzerland, where Scherbeck enrolled at the University of Basel in 1583 . They then traveled on via France to London, where they arrived in 1584. After a stay in the Netherlands, they stayed in England, Scotland and Ireland for two years. In 1587/88 they traveled through Germany to Italy, where Scherbeck matriculated in Siena in 1588 . Then Scherbeck undertook an extremely expensive trip to the Mediterranean with Barnekow and the brothers Jacob and Mogens. In 1588/89 this led from Italy to Greece, Constantinople, Asia Minor, Jerusalem and Egypt. Scherbeck reported on this in detail in a letter to his friend and patron Grynäus. The letter, written in Padua on October 15, 1589 , is now in Basel. At the end of his trip, Scherbeck stayed for a long time in Padua and Venice. On March 16, 1591, he completed his medical studies with the acquisition of a doctorate in Basel. The Franconian poet Paulus Melissus wrote a poem of praise on this occasion, from which it emerges that Scherbeck was close to the Basel Paracelsists Theodor Zwinger and Leonhard Thurneisser , who can be found in his family book. These dealt in particular with Paracelsus' remedies teacher and tried to prove this by means of chemiatry .

Scherbeck exchanged ideas with a colleague in 1594 and wrote about his efforts to combat kidney stones with self-made " spritum salis nitri " ( saltpetergeist ). Contemporaries therefore gave him the title “Medicus et chymicus” or “Philosophus et chemiatros” . In his disputation of 1591 he dealt with several medical and philosophical topics and showed himself to be a complete Paracelsist. He wrote 38 theses in which he rejected all dogmatics, belief in authority and orthodoxy among philosophers and scientists.

In 1591 Scherbeck opened his own practice in Lübeck, which brought him respect and wealth. Among other things, he treated Sebastian Meier . He received visits from numerous travelers and scholars and inscribed in their family books. These included David von Mandelsloh in 1614 or Joachim Morsius in 1618 . City physician Johann Heinrich Meibom was one of his friends . In 1628 he wrote his will, in which he described life as a pilgrimage in the form of a theological treatise based on his own career. He used contemporary luggage such as clothing, allowance, bills of exchange, medication or travel licenses as examples and, using these as comparisons, described how they could help the pilgrim in a spiritual-theological sense to prepare himself for eternal life. No other works on his part are known.

After his death, an epitaph on the Jakobikirche in Lübeck reminded of Scherbeck until the early 20th century . Today only the text is known of this, which reported that Scherbeck "at the age of almost eighty, full of life and at the end of his earthly drama [...] was not reluctant to leave the stage of life". In the church of Scherrebeck there was a stone tablet from 1627 until the 1930s, from which it could be seen that Scherbeck had donated 500 marks. These should be used to "paint and stiffen the kercke derin he döfft inside".

Scherbeck's family book "Album amicorum" was rediscovered in the 1970s and used for family book research. As part of Paracelsus' birthday in 1994, appraisals of Scherbeck's life and work from the perspective of medical history were published. Since 2003 there has been a Johannes-Scherbeck-Straße in the university district in Lübeck's St. Jürgen district .

literature

• Peter Voswinckel: Scherbeck, Johannes . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , pages 329-331.
• Peter Voswinckel: An "Odysseus of the North": The Lübeck medicus Johannes Scherbeck. In: Der Wagen 1995/1996, pp. 202–216

Web links

• Publications by and about Johannes Scherbeck in VD 17 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Entry by Andreas Jacobi Haderslebiensis in the Rostock matriculation portal
2. ↑ Christian Gottlieb Jöcher : Allgemeine Gelehrten-Lexicon : DL, Sp. 1821f
3. ↑ Peter Voswinckel: Scherbeck, John . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , page 329.
4. ↑ Peter Voswinckel: Scherbeck, John . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , pages 329-330.
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Peter Voswinckel: Scherbeck, Johannes . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , page 330.
6. ↑ Peter Voswinckel: Scherbeck, John . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , pages 330-331.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Peter Voswinckel: Scherbeck, Johannes . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , page 331.