Martin Frobenius Ledermüller

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Mental and eye delight (Ledermüller)

Martin Frobenius Ledermüller (born August 20, 1719 in Nuremberg ; † May 16, 1769 there ) was a German lawyer and naturalist . He has enriched and developed microscopic morphology with a multitude of significant results.

Life

Martin Frobenius Ledermüller was a son of the Nuremberg rug writer Balthasar Ledermüller (1685–1748) and his wife Helena (1692–1776), née Burckhardt.

Ledermüller was taught by private tutors and attended the Latin school in Nuremberg. After three years of training in specialty and canvas stores in Frankfurt and Regensburg, he changed his subject and completed a three-and-a-half year training as a clerk at the notary and district secretary Christian Andreas Schütz in Nuremberg. In 1739 he began to study philosophy and law at the University of Jena , which he finished after a year at the insistence of his father. On the way home, he was persuaded by an Austrian officer in Coburg to travel with him to Frankfurt am Main , where he signed up as a Fourier for three years and initially served in Luxembourg. After he managed to find a substitute for himself, he was allowed to say goodbye, but was taken over with two other travel companions on the journey home via Diedenhofen , Metz , and Strasbourg by force in French military service in the regiment Royal Bavière in Metz, where he was last served as sergeant. After the regiment was moved to Strasbourg, he happened to meet Nuremberg merchants who informed his father of his situation. After much effort, his father managed to buy him out for the sum of 100 Reichstalers.

Back in Nuremberg he was constantly confronted with accusations by his father, so that he could no longer stand it and moved to a friend in Römhild . There he met Hermann Carl von Keyserlingk , who took him to Dresden as a secretary . Then he was in the service of Major General von Brühl, who took him to the field in Bohemia and used him to draw maps.

Since he was denied further promotions, Ledermüller returned to Nuremberg again, passed his notarial examination in 1744 and settled as a notary in Nuremberg. Ledermüller became legation secretary at the Swedish and Hessian court councilor von Heimenthal, who was sent as envoy for the Schmalkadian vote to the Franconian district convention held in Schweinfurt , worked in the administration of the last Herr von Vorteilel and as secretary to Prince Rudolph Kantakuzenus, who was in Würzburg .

In 1749 he was employed as a debtor at the Nuremberg mayor's office and in 1757 as a procurator at the city and marriage court. In addition, he worked as an assessor at the Imperial Liberated Forestry and Zeidel Court. With these activities ends the period of the storm and drang times and the unsteady life of Martin Frobenius Ledermüller. He comes to more inner calm and at the same time discovers his passion for science, which he will be completely absorbed in his research in the future.

In 1756 and 1758 two small writings appeared on observations on spermatozoa ("Saamenthiergen"), in which he defended their existence against the negative statement by Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon and which was probably therefore honored in 1759 by Moses Mendelssohn with a review essay were.

In 1759, Ledermüller had to give up his position at the city and marriage court in Nuremberg for health reasons and moved to Erlangen for a short time . Encouraged by the reception that supported him, he subsequently had his widely known, multiple published main work Microscopic Mind and Eye Delight ... appear in partial deliveries, which was completed with a follow-up ... in 1762 and which in 150 hand-colored copper plates a cross-section of the offers nature in the broadest sense accessible through microscopic examination.

Ledermüller dedicated this book, which was later translated into French and Dutch, to the Bayreuth Margrave Friedrich , who appointed him Justice Council in December 1760, and in 1761 assistant and later also inspector of the natural history cabinet under the direction of Privy Councilor Peter Christian Wagner (1703–1764) Bayreuth called.

Ledermüller returned to Nuremberg in May 1762 with the plan approved by the margrave to have the outstanding pieces in the cabinet engraved in copper. From the unfinished work with text by Peter Christian Wagner, a total of 16 panels were published afterwards.

After he was unable to continue his work in Bayreuth for health reasons, he devoted himself to further scientific studies and publications, whereby after his cancellation due to illness, he benefited from the conversion of the “Consistorialraths position” offered by the Mannheim Academy into a pension of 300 guilders .

Ledermüller became a member of the German Society in Altdorf in 1759 and on April 10, 1760 with the academic surname Conon II. Elected a member ( matriculation no. 633 ) of the Leopoldina .

Martin Frobenius Ledermüller was buried on May 21, 1769 in the Johannisfriedhof in Nuremberg.

He is considered a popularizer of the natural sciences. Ledermüller made the term infusion animal known, was in correspondence with his sponsor, the Nuremberg doctor and naturalist Christoph Jacob Trew, and initiated the natural research work of Wilhelm Friedrich von Gleichen-Rußwurm (1717–1783).

Martin Frobenius Ledermüller was in his first marriage since August 5, 1744 with Clara Susanna (1720–1749), née Schmidt, the daughter of the baker and councilor Georg Adam Schmidt and after the untimely death of his first wife in his second marriage since April 8, 1750 Susanna Barbara (1712–60), née Gramitzer, daughter of Altdorf city lawyer Daniel Gramitzer (1683–1722), married. His three children from his first marriage and also the three children from his second marriage died young.

Fonts

  • Differentia Quae Procuratores Iudic. Norimberg. Et Sollicitatores in Consulis Curia Norimberg . 1755 digitized
  • Observations by those of them, viewed through the very best magnifying glasses and the most convenient microscopes; and with an impartial investigation and opposition of their Buffonian and Leuwenhoeck experiments in a letter with the figures and coppers belonging to them communicated to a lover of nature-knowledge and truth . George Peter Monath., Nuremberg 1756 digitized
  • Attempt at a thorough defense of their Saamenthiergen, together with a brief description of their Leeuwenhoeck microscopy and a draft of a more complete history of the solar microscope, as the best justification for their Leeuwenhoeck observations . George Peter Monath, Nuremberg 1758 digitized
  • Microscopic amusement of mind and eyes: Consists of one hundred copper tablets drawn from nature and illuminated with colors, including their explanation . Christian de Launoy, Nuremberg 1761 digitized
  • Review of his microscopic mind and eye delight, consisting in ten finely illuminated copper plates, including their explanation: and a faithful instruction on how to use all kinds of microscopes skillfully, easily and useful . Christian de Launoy, Nuremberg 1762 digitized
  • Physico-microscopic dissection of the grain or rock; along with the observation of its growth . Winterschmidt, Nuremberg 1764 digitized
  • Try the enlargement tools for useful u. to apply pleasant pastime . Wirsing, Nuremberg 1764 digitized
  • Required defense, as an appendix to his microscopic mind and eye delight: Against some of the doubts and reproaches expressed in these two writings by the distinguished gentleman author of the latest from the realm of plants and the history of the housefly . Christian de Launoy, Nuremberg 1765 digitized
  • Last observations of his microscopic delights, which contain a non-common nest with the smallest species of parasitic wasps in flocked wool, together with the description and illustration of a new and complete universal microscope, as the conclusion of its third part, for the useful use of microscopes . Winterschmidt, Nuremberg 1776 digitized

literature

Web links

Commons : Augen Gemüths Erötzungen (Ledermüller)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Moses Mendelsohn: About Herr Ledermüller's treatises of the Saamenthierchen . Ledermüller, MF: Physical observations of the seedlings, viewed through the very best magnifying glasses. Nuremberg: Month 1756 .: Review. Ledermüller, MF: Attempt at a thorough defense of the seedlings. Nuremberg: Month 1758 .: Review. In: Letters Concerning the Latest Literature , Sixth and Twentieth, Seventh and Twentieth, and Eighth and Twentieth Letter. 1759 digitized
  2. ^ Johann Daniel Ferdinand Neigebaur : History of the Imperial Leopoldino-Carolinian German Academy of Natural Scientists during the second century of its existence. Friedrich Frommann, Jena 1860, p. 224 digitized
  3. ^ Willi Ule : History of the Imperial Leopoldine-Carolinian German Academy of Natural Scientists during the years 1852–1887 . With a look back at the earlier times of its existence. Commissioned by Wilhelm Engelmann in Leipzig, Halle 1889, supplements and additions to Neigebaur's history, p. 162 ( archive.org ).
personal data
SURNAME Ledermüller, Martin Frobenius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Conon II.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and natural scientist
DATE OF BIRTH August 20, 1719
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH May 16, 1769
Place of death Nuremberg