Johann Georg Gmelin

Johann Georg Gmelin (Russian Иоганн Георг Гмелин; * August 10, 1709 in Tübingen, † May 20, 1755 ) was a German Siberia researchers and authors of the Flora sibirica. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " JGGmel. ".

Life

Johann Georg Gmelin came from a famous family of researchers Württemberg; he was a son of the pharmacist Johann Georg Gmelin the Elder (1674-1728) and his wife Barbara Haas ( 1687-1760 ). The chemical laboratory of his father should give him for his later career as a researcher some suggestions. At age 13, he became a student of the University of Tübingen, later finished his studies in medicine and the natural sciences with honors and received his doctorate 1728.

As a young scholar, it drove him previously to Saint Petersburg, where he was awarded at the Russian Academy of Sciences, founded in 1724 a scholarship. At 22 he received in 1731 the title of Professor of Chemistry and Natural History. 1732 he applied for participation in the " Great Northern Expedition" ( 1733-1743 ) and was selected together with the German Gerhard Friedrich Müller, professor and historian at the St. Petersburg Academy, of the Empress Anna Ivanovna. 1733, Gmelin went with Muller and the French astronomer Louis De l' Isle on the expedition. In addition to the three expedition leaders also were six students, two painters, two hunters, two climbers, four surveyors, an officer, twelve soldiers, a drummer and a Pallas- owl in a pine trunk road.

It was a long and arduous, but impressive journey in the Asian part of the Russian Empire. Gmelin's route took over the stations Yaroslavl, Kazan, Tobolsk, Semipalatinsk, Ust- Kamenogorsk, Tomsk, Irkutsk and Yenisejsk to Yakutsk. A fire in winter 1736/37 destroyed most of the records and collections. A meeting with Vitus Bering proved to be unworkable. Later Gmelin returned via Irkutsk, Tomsk, Verkhoturye and Veliky Ustjug and Schlüsselburg to St. Petersburg back. With the ten -year expedition he laid the foundation for the work " Flora sibirica sive Historia plantarum sibiriae ". Volume 3 and 4 were published posthumously by his nephew Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin.

In 1747 he took a trip to Tübingen and was named after the sudden death of a university professor to his successor in the field of medicine, botany and chemistry. There he married in 1749 Barbara Fromman and had with her three sons; including Eberhard Gmelin. His great- nephew was the chemist Leopold Gmelin.

Gmelin died in 1755 at the age of only 45 years, possibly in the aftermath of his busy travel Siberia.

The Dahurian larch Larix gmelinii carries its scientific name by Johann Georg Gmelin.

Works

• Voyage au Kamchatka par la Sibérie, Amsterdam 1779
• Joannis Georgii gmelini Reliquias quae super sunt commercii epistolici cum Carolo Linnaeo, Alberto Hallero, Guilielmo Stellero et al., Floram gmelini sibiricam ejusque Iter sibiricum Potissimum concernentis. Guil .. curavit. Henr. Theodor Plieninger. Addita Autographa lapide impressa, Stuttgartiae 1861
• D. Johann Georg Gmelin's journey through Siberia, from the year 1733 to 1743, 4 vols, Göttingen from 1751 to 1752. Re: Johann Georg Gmelin: Expedition into the unknown Siberia. January Thorbecke Verlag, Stuttgart 1999
• Life Mr Georg Wilhelm Steller: gewesnen Adiuncti the Kayserl, Frankfurt 1748
• Flora sibirica: Historia plantarum immersive Sibiriae. 4 vols, St Petersburg 1747-1749

Note: these books are available online at http://frontiers.loc.gov/, to the search function on the website must be used because Deep Links are not allowed there and blocked