Karl Nicolaus Lange

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Karl Nicolaus Lange (born February 18, 1670 in Lucerne ; † May 2, 1741 ibid) was a Swiss doctor and naturalist .

Life

Karl Nicolaus Lange was born in Lucerne in 1670. After completing high school in Lucerne, Lange began studying philosophy and liberal arts in Freiburg im Breisgau , from which he graduated in 1687 with a baccalaureate . This was followed by medical studies in Bologna and Rome , where he received his doctorate in 1692. After further study stays with a theological focus in Freiburg im Breisgau, Augsburg and Paris , he practiced from 1698 as a military doctor in the western Austrian forest cities . On July 16, 1699 he was appointed city ​​physician of Waldshut . Beginning with Augustinus Fink the abbot of St. Blasien from January 1701, private medical treatment of high-ranking Austrian officials followed. In 1708, Lange moved to the vacated position of city physician in his hometown of Lucerne. In 1712 Lange was elected to the city council. From 1715 to 1717 he held the office of Bailiff of Knutwil . He held his offices in Lucerne until his death in 1741.

In addition to his medical work, Lange dealt with minerals and fossils , which were called petrefacts at the time . Lange put on an extensive collection of petrefacts and is the founder of the Lucernense Langianum Museum . A first treatise on fossils with 53 plates appeared as early as 1705, and an appendix was added in 1735 . In 1709 the treatise on the origin of shaped stones followed, in which Lange took the view that fossils were caused by dust-like germs that penetrated the soil. With this erroneous view, Lange influenced Voltaire , who in 1768 in his treatise Des Singularités de la Nature wanted to present the "Petrification" not as evidence of the Flood , but - with reference to Lange - as an artificial phenomenon.

Lange was accepted into the Academia Physico-Criticorum Senensis of Siena in 1703 . On November 16, 1705, she was accepted into the Leopoldina Carolina under the academic name " Archibius " . Membership in the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin followed on May 24, 1709, and in 1739 membership in the Academia Scientiarum Bononiensis in Bologna . In addition to his mineralogical writings, Lange published two medical treatises on rinderpest and ergotism due to the ergot infestation of grain . His natural history was taken over by the uncle and godfather of Johann Paul Carl von Moll , Bernard Paul von Moll, Legation Councilor of the Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg-Wolffenbüttel in Vienna.

Fonts

  • Idea Historiae naturalis Lapidum figuratorum Helvetiae , Lucerne, 1705
  • Historia Lapidum figuratorum Helvetiae , Lucerne, 1708
  • Tractatus de origine lapidum figuratorum , Lucerne, 1709.
  • Description of the Viech-Prestens , Lucerne, 1714.
  • Description of the consumption of corn cones in the Brodt , Lucerne, 1717, which we had never heard of and which at times was quite harmful .
  • Methodus nova et facilis, testacea marina etc. in classes, genera et species distribuendi , Lucerne, 1722.
  • Appendix ad Historiam Lapidum , Lucerne, 1735.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Der Geschichtsfreund: Announcements of the historical association of the five places Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden ob and nid the forest and Zug, volumes 51–52, commission publishing house J. von Matt, 1896, p. 171
personal data
SURNAME Lange, Karl Nicolaus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Langius, Carolus Nicolaus; Lang, Karl Niklaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss doctor and mineralogist
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1670
PLACE OF BIRTH Lucerne
DATE OF DEATH May 2, 1741
Place of death Lucerne