Acta Eruditorum - II botanica insetti, 1742 – BEIC 13406600

Johann Ernst Hebenstreit (15 January 1703 – 5 December 1757) was a German physician and naturalist born in

Neustadt an der Orla Neustadt an der Orla is a town in Saale-Orla-Kreis district, in Thuringia. It is situated at the small river Orla (Saale), Orla, 17 km north of Schleiz, and 25 km southeast of Jena. The former municipality Stanau was merged into Neustadt ...

. He was a student at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

, where in 1728 he earned his philosophy degree, and one year later obtaining his medical doctorate with the dissertation "''De viribus minerarum et Mineralium medicamentosis''". In 1731 he became a member of the

German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (german: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founded ...

. In 1731 he was appointed by

Augustus II Augustus II; german: August der Starke; lt, Augustas II; in Saxony also known as Frederick Augustus I – Friedrich August I (12 May 16701 February 1733), most commonly known as Augustus the Strong, was Elector of Saxony from 1694 as well as Ki ...

to head an expedition to Africa to collect natural history specimens and to procure wild animals for the royal

menagerie A menagerie is a collection of captive animals, frequently exotic, kept for display; or the place where such a collection is kept, a precursor to the modern Zoo, zoological garden. The term was first used in 17th-century France, in reference to ...

. After Augustus' death in 1733, the mission was discontinued, with Hebenstreit returning to

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

as a professor of medicine. In 1737 he became a professor of

physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its ...

and

surgery Surgery ''cheirourgikē'' (composed of χείρ, "hand", and ἔργον, "work"), via la, chirurgiae, meaning "hand work". is a medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a person to investigate or treat a pat ...

, and in 1748 was appointed dean of the medical faculty.Archiv, Neustadtanderorla.de
Johann Ernst Hebenstreit and his research trip to North Africa During turmoil surrounding the

May Uprising in Dresden The May Uprising took place in Dresden, Kingdom of Saxony in 1849; it was one of the last of the series of events known as the Revolutions of 1848. Events leading to the May Uprising In the German states, revolutions began in March 1848, start ...

(1849), specimens collected from the African expedition were lost. Among Hebenstreits' numerous written works were an influential 1751 study of forensic medicine called "''Anthropologia Forensis sistens medici circa rempublicam''", and an illustrated catalogue involving the collection of minerals, fossils, and gems assembled by Leipzig banker Johann Christoph Richter (1689–1751) called "''Museum Richterianum continens fossilia animalia, vegetabilia marina''".

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

named the plant genus ''Hebenstreitia'' in honor of Hebenstreit.

References

* "Parts of this article are based on a translation of an equivalent article at the

German Wikipedia The German Wikipedia (german: Deutschsprachige Wikipedia) is the German-language edition of Wikipedia, a free and publicly editable online encyclopedia. Founded on March 16, 2001, it is the second-oldest Wikipedia (after the English Wikipedia), ...

".
The Mineralogical Record- Library
(biography)

External links

''Museum Richterianum''
(1743) -

Linda Hall Library The Linda Hall Library is a privately endowed American library of science, engineering and technology located in Kansas City, Missouri, sitting "majestically on a urban arboretum." It is the "largest independently funded public library of scien ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hebenstreit, Johann Ernst 1703 births 1757 deaths People from Neustadt an der Orla German naturalists 18th-century German botanists 18th-century German physicians Academic staff of Leipzig University