Arend Friedrich Wiegmann

Arend Joachim Friedrich Wiegmann ( born March 30, 1770 in Haderslev, † March 12, 1853 in Braunschweig ) was a German chemist, botanist and agricultural scientist.

Journey

Wiegmann graduated in 1784 trained as a pharmacist with his uncle in Braunschweig. In 1788 he moved to Blankenburg and then worked until 1794 in several pharmacies in Germany and in Switzerland. When his uncle died in 1796, he inherited the Imperial Pharmacy in Brunswick. Because he loved science more than his learned profession, he sold his pharmacy and devoted himself as self-taught scientific studies.

In 1820, Wiegmann worked as a lecturer in science at the Collegium Carolinum in Brunswick. Since 1821 he was a member of the Leopoldina in Halle. The Medical Faculty of the University of Marburg in 1832 awarded him an honorary doctorate. In the same year he was appointed at the Collegium Carolinum professor. His last years he spent in solitude and poverty. His son Arend Friedrich August Wiegmann (1802-1841) was a famous zoologist.

Research services

In several areas of the natural and agricultural sciences Wiegmann Outstanding has done. His main field of work was initially botany. With keen observation, he described the vegetation of regional landscapes. To him, the genus Wiegmannia Meyen from the plant family Rubiaceae ( Rubiaceae ) was named in honor. After 1830 his main interest was in the diseases of crops. In the improper cultivation techniques of many crops he saw the main reason for the wide spread of plant diseases. He earned a permanent place in the early history of Phytomedicine with his 1839 published the manual " The diseases and pathological abnormalities of the plants ...", a book written for the practice of agricultural and forestry work with instructions for recognizing, preventing, and controlling plant diseases.

Best known in the history of science of agricultural chemistry was Wiegmanns name in connection with the doctrine of the mineral nutrition of plants. In reply to a in 1838 provided by the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen price question Wiegmann was in 1840, together with Ludwig Polstorff, the administrator of the Imperial Pharmacy in Brunswick, provide experimental evidence that the plants absorb minerals through their roots and normal only grow, when a minimum amount of these minerals is present in the soil. The full results of their experiments, the exact description of the method and its proper conclusion that these minerals are vital for the growth of plants, they have " ... Over the inorganic constituents of plants" published in 1842 in a winning prize essay under the title.

Major works

• Concerning the production of hybrids in the vegetable kingdom. One of the Royal. Academy of Sciences in Berlin winning prize essay. Brunswick 1828th
• The diseases and pathological abnormalities in plants, with an indication of the causes and cure or prevent the same, so how about some of the plants harmful animals and their extermination. A handbook for agriculturists, gardeners, garden lovers and foresters. Verlag Friedrich Vieweg and Son Braunschweig 1839.
• About the inorganic constituents of the plant, or to answer the question: are the inorganic elements which are found in the ashes of plants, essential constituents of the vegetable organism, this it requires for its complete training, and they are presented to the plants from the outside? A winning in Göttingen in 1842 prize essay, together with an appendix on the question of assimilation Humusextractes (together with Ludwig Polstorff ). Verlag Friedrich Vieweg and Son Braunschweig 1842.