Alexander von Frantzius

Alexander von Frantzius ( born June 10, 1821 in Gdansk, † July 18, 1877 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German explorer and physician.

Frantzius studied medicine in Heidelberg in 1842, Erlangen, Halle and Berlin, where he received his doctorate on 5 September 1846. Even before completing his studies, he participated in his hometown of Gdansk to the zoological researches of gynecologists EKJ von Siebold. In 1847 he had taken several months of zoological study trip to Trieste with von Siebold and Ecker. Together with his friend Rudolf Virchow, he was actively involved in the revolution of 1848 in Berlin. In the summer of 1848 Frantzius ill with typhoid fever. Due to the post-revolutionary events he had to leave Berlin and qualified as a lecturer in 1851 in Breslau. When visiting Vienna 1849/50 the first signs of a chronic lung condition that never more should his life completely heal showed. For health reasons and because their career prospects at German universities were bad, he went in 1853 to Costa Rica to look at the local mild climate cure. He settled as a physician first settled in Alajuela and later in San José, Costa Rica. He remained there for 15 years and collected in this period, numerous ethnological objects and made ethnographic studies. His major works were, however, zoological, anthropological and geographical nature. From its natural history finds he sent many to Jean Cabanis at the Berlin Museum of Natural History. In San Jose, he led a pharmacy in which he hired José Castula Zeledon. In 1868 he returned to Germany and Virchow won his old friend as an employee for his anthropological and prehistoric aspirations. Between 1871 and 1874 took over Frantzius the Office of the Secretary General of the German Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory. However, his lung disease worsened rapidly, so that Frantzius 1874 had to give the Secretariat again and moved for health reasons to Freiburg im Breisgau, where he soon died of his suffering.

His name is associated with many animal species, including Semnornis frantzii, Pteroglossus frantzii, Elaenia frantzii and Catharus frantzii.

Publications

  • Contributions to the knowledge of volcanoes in Costa Rica. 1861
  • The right bank of the San Juan River. 1862
  • The southeastern part of Costa Rica. 1869
  • San Salvador and Honduras in 1576. 1873
Gdańsk Wrocław Fiery-billed Aracari Julius Victor Carus Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie Integrated Authority File
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