Wilhelm Heinrich Reichenbach

Ludovike Simanowiz : Portrait Wilhelm Heinrich Reichenbach

Reichenbach's signature

Wilhelm Heinrich Reichenbach (born December 13, 1763 in Ludwigsburg , † December 18, 1843 in Eßlingen ) was the Duke of Württemberg's personal and regimental medic.

Life

Wilhelm Heinrich Reichenbach came from a long-established family of surgeons in Cannstatt . His father was Jeremias Friedrich Reichenbach (1725-1810), "chirurgus major" (sworn surgeon) in Cannstatt, married to Susanne Sophie Schwegler. The grandfather Jakob Friedrich was also a "surgeon major" in Cannstatt. A brother of Jeremias Friedrich Reichenbach was Johann Friedrich Reichenbach (1726–1790), who rose to the position of 2nd personal surgeon, Duke Carl Eugen von Württemberg , and was able to accumulate a considerable fortune. While Johann Friedrich only had one daughter, Charlotte, who died at the age of 24, Jeremias Friedrich could look back on an impressive number of children.

Wilhelm Heinrich Reichenbach had at least five siblings who reached adulthood: the eldest son Friedrich Carl Ludwig (born 1755) became a pastor in Erdmannhausen near Marbach. The second son Carl Ludwig (1757–1837) became a ducal Württemberg librarian and archivist; his son Karl Ludwig Friedrich (1788–1869) became a natural scientist and industrialist and was raised to the baron class. The oldest sister was the painter Ludovike Simanowiz . The younger brother Carl August studied at the Hohe Carlsschule in 1790 and later became a military man. The youngest sister Johanne married the pastor Schmidlin.

Wilhelm Heinrich Reichenbach attended the Carlsschule and studied medicine there since 1774. On October 10, 1784 he was released there with a certificate that he had studied medical science.

When Friedrich Eugen von Württemberg , the brother of the ruling Duke Carl Eugen , took office in the Württemberg exclave Mömpelgard and needed a personal doctor, Wilhelm Heinrich Reichenbach was chosen. In Montbéliard Reichenbach married Margarete Susanne Parrot on April 10, 1787, a daughter of the Mömpelgardian court surgeon Johann Jakob Parrot. Three children were born in the marriage. The first, Friedrich Eugen (born December 2, 1788), died at the age of two. The second son, Johann Georg Friedrich, was born on June 22, 1791. The third child, Heinrich (born November 23, 1796 in Hohenheim), also died at the age of two.

After Duke Ludwig Eugen, the successor of Carl Eugen, died in 1795, his brother Friedrich Eugen had to take up the regiment in Stuttgart. He kept his personal physician Reichenbach. Duke Friedrich Eugen died on December 23, 1797, after which his personal physician Wilhelm Heinrich Reichenbach was retired in 1798.

But Wilhelm Heinrich Reichenbach was not forgotten. On December 14, 1798, he was employed as a doctor and valet for Crown Prince Wilhelm , but he was dismissed from his service in 1801. Instead, he was employed in the same position by Crown Prince Paul (1785-1852), but on June 11, 1802 he was retired for 400 guilders a year for an unnamed reason.

His wife Margarete Susanne died in 1833, he himself was 80 years old on December 18, 1843 in Eßlingen.

The only remaining child, Johann Georg Friedrich Reichenbach (1791–1873), completed a commercial apprenticeship in Basel, then spent around 20 years in France and ran a textile factory in St. Quentin . In 1832, after the death of his wife, he returned to Württemberg in search of a new business opportunity, and acquired the former Benedictine convent of Urspring in order to set up a cotton factory there. In 1833 he married Adelheid, the daughter of the camera administrator Teichmann in Blaubeuren.

literature

• Ernst Raithelhuber: Wilhelm Heinrich Reichenbach: Duke of Württemberg body and regimental medicine 1763-1843 . In: Robert Uhland (Ed.): Life pictures from Swabia and Franconia , vol. 16. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1986, pp. 108–121

Individual evidence

1. ^ Raithelhuber 1986: 120.