Johann Rudolf Schneider

Johann Rudolf Schneider ( born October 23, 1804 in Meienried; † January 14, 1880 ) was a Swiss physician and the leading political initiator of the Jura waters correction.

Life

Johann Rudolf Schneider studied medicine in Bern and Berlin. In 1828 he settled in Nidau, where he opened a medical practice. As a member of the Society for the Protection he was involved in the reclamation of Seeland. Already in 1834 John Paul Lelewel, who was previously an engineer officer, was entrusted with a project for the Jura water correction. The plans are not convincing, however, the cantons involved can not agree. In 1835, his book was published discussions about the floods in lakeland. A year later he was appointed to the Grand Council of the Canton of Bern, where he effected in 1837, that the design and execution of the Jura waters correction of a private organization to be transferred. In 1840 he founded the " Jurassic waters Correction preparatory society", which commissioned the Grisons Canton engineer Richard La Nicca to develop a project. In the political turmoil of the 1840s, the project was not pursued further. It was only after the establishment of the state and as a result of large floods in the 1850s, the Jura water correction was again ripe for decision. The project, which was also the engineer Gustave Bridel was involved, was finally begun in 1868 with the construction of Nidau- Buren - channel.

Schneider was a philanthropist and a champion of the liberal movement. In the 30s he supported the political exiles such as Giuseppe Mazzini, Serious students, Karl Mathy and Jan Pawel Lelewel, which lived in the region Biel in exile. Schneider acquired specially a printing company that he put the emigrants to the pressure of her political writings available. He himself moved for 10 years under the title of a popular library for a chunk of an enlightened periodicals. The printing press was later continued by his political comrades August Weingart. Schneider was from 1838 to 1850 member of the Berne government. In this role, he led in 1847, together with Ulrich Ochsenbein and Jakob Stämpfli the memorable Diet in Bern, which decided the Sonderbundskrieg and thus laid the foundation of the modern federal state. In 1848, Schneider became a member of the National Assembly, where he served until 1862. He belonged to the radical wing of the Liberals. When it came in the canton of Bern in the elections in 1850, in a change, Schneider resigned from the government. He was appointed in the autumn of 1850 as a physician at the University Hospital. He died in 1880 and was buried at the cemetery Bremgarten in Bern. After 1918 his grave was canceled, you buried his remains at the memorial in Nidau ​​.

Works

• Schneider, Johann Rudolf: The Seeland in western Switzerland and the corrections of its waters. A memorandum. , Bern 1881