John Gerard
John Gerard or Gerarde (* 1545 in Nantwich, † February 1612 in London ) was an English surgeon and botanist. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " J.Gerard ".
Life
After an education in Wisterson John Gerard in 1562 went to London to learn the trade of barber. Seven years later he was able to open his own practice. In 1607 he became a master in the Guild of London, the " Barber- Surgeon's company". 1598, he had to decide on the admission of apprentices in the craft.
During his studies, Gerard began to be interested in plants, and laid near his house in his garden at Holborn. There, he collected and cultivated rare plants. He had contacts with Walter Raleigh and Francis Drake, of which he acquired the potato among other things, he called for better differentiation of the sweet potato - potato Virginia.
To expand his knowledge of plants, he worked for a time as a ship's doctor and so came to Denmark, Latvia, Poland, Moscow and Sweden.
From 1577 he was a gardener for William Cecil, an adviser to Queen Elizabeth. 1588 he proposed to apply to the University of Cambridge a botanical garden.
Tabor assumes that Shakespeare was possibly acquainted with Gerard and perhaps even knew his garden from his own experience. He lived 1598-1604 at the corner of Mugwell Street ( today's Monkswell Street) and Silver Street in Cripplegate, so very close by Gerard. The Guild of the Bader was also located in the vicinity of Shakespeare's property.
Works
In 1596 he published a list of the plants in his garden, the first of its kind in England. In the enlarged and revised edition, which appeared in 1599, he shortened the long descriptions of plants from as far as possible. 17% consisted of only a single word, so the name of the plant. 57% came long before Linnaeus, two words from.
His major work, The Generall History of Plantes Herball or appeared 1597th It was dedicated to Lord Cecil. Although he describes it in the preface as "the first fruits of his own labor ", the text is based largely on the 1583 published work Stirpium historiae pemptades of Rembert Dodoens, but Gerard changed the order of the plants along the lines of Stirpium Adversaria Nova by Matthias de L' Obel ( 1570). The woodcuts he took largely to the 1590 published work Icones stirpium of Tabernaemontanus. A few pictures he created himself, for example, the first picture of a potato plant. In the preface he emphasizes the aesthetic effect of the gardens ( " Greater ... what delight is there than to beholde the earth apparelled with plants, as with a robe of imbroidered worke, set on with orient perles and garnished with great diuersitie of great and costly iewels? "), but also useful and medicinal plants that are grown here.
Among the gardeners who are known from written tradition, it leads to Salomon ( " ... hey what able to set out the nature of all plantes, from hightest cedar to the lowest Mosse " ), as well as Mithridates the Great of Pontus, known from the medieval tradition Euax of Arabia and the Roman Emperor Diocletian. At present, the knowledge of plants is being neglected, however, apart from a few notable exceptions like Lord Cecil. The work consists of three books:
- Book 1 deals with grasses, tubers and bulbs
- Book 2 spices plants, medicinal herbs and fragrant herbs
- Book 3 trees, shrubs and bushes, and fruit-bearing shrubs, roses, heather, resins, mosses, fungi and coral.
Each plant is listed with their English and Latin names and the external names ( " barbarous names" ). In addition, Gerard promises the reader a description of their varieties, characteristics and benefits as well as the occurrence.
Afterlife
The London Guild of Barbers and barber-surgeon put 1987 in addition to their guild hall in Wood Street ( EC2 ) in a bastion of the London city walls a garden that contains many plants from John Gerard's book of plants. Supposedly he is at the point of John Gerard's Herbal Garden.
Ehrentaxon
Charles Plumier named in his honor the plant genus in the family Gerardia the figwort family ( Scrophulariaceae ). Linnaeus later took the name.
Writings (selection )
- The Generall History of Plantes or Herball. John Norton, London 1597 (online).
- Catalogus arborum, fruticum ac plantarum tam indigenarum, quam exoticarum. London 1599 (online).