Urban Hjärne

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Urban Hjärne, lithograph (1849) by Otto Henrik Wallgren
Urban Hjärne, copperplate engraving by the miniature painter Elias Brenner
Bust of Urban Hjärne, monument from 1878 in the Medevi fountain spa park

Urban Hjärne (born December 20, 1641 in Skworitz near Nyenschanz , † March 10, 1724 , buried in Bromma ) was a Swedish doctor, alchemist , geologist, writer and naturalist.

Life

Urban Hjärne was the son of the Lutheran pastor Erland Jonsson ( Erlandus jonae ) Hiärne and Christina Schmidt. At the age of 16 he went to Stockholm where he could not stay because of the prevailing plague. So he visited the of Gustav Adolf founded Regium Gustavianum school Strengnese i Rogge Borgen today Thomas High School in Strängnäs , where the rector him Johann Tranäus recorded, and then studied at the University of Tartu (approved in 1655). From there he fled to Sweden in 1657 because of the Second Nordic War , where he studied medicine at Uppsala University as a student of Olof Rudbeck the Elder and Petrus Hoffvenius , which he supported in Cartesianism . He then became a personal physician in Riga for Count Clas Tott . He toured Germany and Holland in 1667 and was elected to the Royal Society . In 1670 he was appointed doctor of medicine at the University of Angers with his thesis Obstructione lacteorum Vasorum et Glandularum Mesenterii . He then spent two years in Paris for study purposes and only returned to Sweden in 1674 as a general practitioner. In 1678 he discovered in the water from the well Medevi north of Motala a long time spilled mineral source, a ferrous mineral spring , again. The place became a popular spa. He was a doctor there until 1682 and also examined other mineral springs in Sweden. From 1683 he was an assessor at the Bergkollegium. He visited the salt springs in Lüneburg and mines in the Harz Mountains, in Bohemia and Norway.

As a writer

In Sweden, Hjärne is considered to be the founder of the bucolic style. His autobiographical novel Stratonike connects the story of Stratonike I and Gabriel Gustafsson Oxenstierna from the Oxenstierna family and his first wife Märta Bielke from the Bielke family . It was written between 1666 and 1668 and is considered the first novel in the Swedish language. Hjärne also wrote poems and tragedies, so Rosimunda , who in Uppsala in 1665 before Charles XI. was first performed. Rosimunda is a substance that goes back to the life and the resulting legend of the Lombard queen Rosimunda . She was the daughter of the Gepid King Kunimund and the second wife of the Longobard King Alboin , whom she had murdered on June 28, 572 or 573.

Magic

As a member of an investigative commission to investigate sorcery in 1676, he recognized the reasons and consequences of the mass hysteria due to the persecution of witches and the torture and burning of Malin Matdotter and turned against denunciations and prejudices. Nevertheless he was convinced that the devil could do evil to people.

Scientific activities

In 1684 he set up a laboratory and a botanical garden on the Kungsholmen peninsula . In the same year he became Charles XI's first personal physician . and in the following year the king's widow Hedvig Eleonora von Holstein-Gottorp . In 1698 he became president of the Collegium Medicum and in 1713 vice-president of the Bergkollegium. He reorganized the medical system in Sweden and abolished grievances. He inspected mines in the northern provinces of Sweden and suggested improvements here too.

He developed secret recipes in his chemical laboratory on Kungsholmen, and in 1692 he received permission to sell his Elexir amarum Hjärneri in pharmacies. It is considered to be an original recipe for Swedish herbs . He was a follower of the teachings of Paracelsus and Pythagoras , studied Kabbalah and magic. He was convinced that plants choose their habitat according to the conditions of the soil and was thus a pioneer in ecology , but nevertheless represented the Bible according to the reading of the time. Its library contained more than 3500 volumes. A list of his books: Catalogus librorum meorum from 1692 is in the Uppsala University Library . On January 3, 1689 he received the accolade . His last work on spelling led to disputes with Jesper Swedberg so that censors felt compelled to intervene. In 1720 he resigned from his offices and was awarded the title of governor. Magnus von Bromell was his successor.

He is considered the founder of chemistry studies in Sweden and taught students in his public laboratory.

He is considered to be one of the discoverers of formic acid , the first acid discovered in the animal kingdom.

family

He was married three times. The first wife was Maria Svahn († 1690). After two years as a widower, he married Baroness Catharina Elisabeth Bergenhielm in 1692 and after her at the age of 62 in 1703 Elisabeth Cederström Carlsdotter. With these women he had 26 children. He is buried with his wives in the church in Bromma . His last wife survived him and died in 1759, 118 years after his birth. His son Kristian Henrick Hjaerne (died 1794) was a well-known doctor in Stockholm and court medic.

Literature (German)

Fonts

  • Prodomus defensionis Paracelsicae, Stockholm 1709 (Defense of Paracelsus )
  • Acta et tentamina chimica in laboratorio Stockholmensi elaborata, 1712
  • En kort anledning till atskilliga malm- och bergarters efterspörjande och angifvande, Stockholm 1702, 1706

Literature (Swedish)

  • Litteraturens historia i Sverige , Bernt Olsson och Ingemar Algulin, Norstedts förlag Stockholm 1991
  • Sten Lindroth , article i Svenskt biografiskt lexikon 91, Stockholm 1971
  • Sven Stolpe, Svenska folkets litteraturhistoria: Vasatid och stormaktstid , Askild & Kärnekull 1973
  • Pehr Henrik Törngren , article i Svenska Män och Kvinnor 3 GH , Albert Bonniers förlag 1946
  • Den otidsenlige Urban Hiärne. Föredrag från det internationella Hiärne-Symposiet i Saadjärve, 31 August - 4 September 2005 , red. Stig Örjan Ohlsson & Siiri Tomingas-Joandi, Greif, Tartu 2008

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Anders Fryxell (author), life story of Karl the Twelfth, King of Sweden , translated from the Swedish by GF von Jenssen-Tusch, Volume 4, 1861 p. 264
  2. ^ Bernhard Fabian: Handbook of German historical book collections - Denmark and Sweden , (p. 256)
  3. ↑ Pötsch u. a., Lexicon of important chemists, p. 206
  4. ↑ Pötsch u. a., Lexicon of important chemists, p. 206, also Hirsch (Ed.), Biographical Lexicon of Outstanding Doctors of All Times and Nations, Volume 3, p. 224
personal data
SURNAME Hjärne, Urban
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hjiärne, Urban; Hiärne, Urban; Hierne, Urbanus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish doctor and naturalist
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1641
PLACE OF BIRTH Skworitz near Nyenschanz
DATE OF DEATH March 10, 1724
Place of death uncertain: Stockholm