Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin

Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin ( born July 4, 1744 in Tübingen, † July 27, 1774 in Achmedkent ( Dagestan ) ) was a German physician, botanist and naturalist. He was a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " SGGmel. ".

Life

Gmelin was a son of Johann Conrad Gmelin (1707-1759) and his wife Maria Veronika Erhardt (1713-1797); the later pharmacist Gmelin Christian Gottlob (1749-1809) was his younger brother.

At the University of Tübingen Gmelin studied medicine and was able to study this in 1763 with his Doctorate in " Dr. med " to complete successfully. He then went to the University of Leiden; there he concluded, inter alia, Friendship with Peter Simon Pallas. After a further period of study at the Sorbonne in Paris with Michel Adanson, he returned to his hometown.

In 1767 he was appointed professor of botany to Saint Petersburg. The following year he accepted a call to Tübingen and wanted this take office immediately after his expedition. At the request of Empress Catherine II Gmelin undertook an expedition on the Valdai Hills, Moscow and Tula to Voronezh. From there we went in the spring of 1769 and continue through Cherkassk Tsaritsyn to Astrakhan.

From there started Gmelin in 1770 his first expedition with Peter Simon Pallas to Persia; The trip took about Derbent, Baku Sallian, Enzeli, Rescht, Gilan and sari. In the Moravian settlement Sarepta (today district of Volgograd ) he wintered there in 1770 and married Anna ( 1744-1828 ), a daughter of the Tsarist Fleet Captain Jacob de Chappuzeau.

Along with Johann Anton von Güldenstädt (1745-1781) and Ivan Ivanovich Lepechin (1740-1802) undertook Gmelin a scientific journey through Russia. He visited in particular the regions west of the Don, Baku and the Persian provinces on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea and the eastern side of the Caspian Sea.

On his return from his second voyage he had Persie Kizlyar not yet been reached, when he was captured by the Kaitagen Khan Amir Hamza on February 5, 1774. During the negotiations for his release ( ransom ), he died at the age of 30 years on 27 July of the same year in Achmedkent in the Caucasus at the Ruhr.

Works

His main works are Historia fucorum (Petersburg 1768) and travel through Russia (Petersburg 1770-84, 4 volumes). He gave Volume 3 and 4 of the Flora sibirica by Johann Georg Gmelin, his uncle, who also traveled to Siberia ( 1733-1743 ), out.