Johann Georg Krünitz (20 March 1728 – 20 December 1796) was a German

encyclopedist An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...

who started the 242-volume Oekonomische Encyklopädie and during his lifetime managed to complete its first 72 volumes.

Life

Krünitz was born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

as the son of merchant Georg Christoph Krünitz. From 1747, he studied

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...

and the natural sciences in Halle (Saale),

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and Frankfurt (Oder). After achieving his doctorate with a dissertation called ''De matrimonio multorum morborum remedio'' in 1749, he started to practice as a physician in Frankfurt. Krünitz married Anna Sophie Lehmann in 1752 and moved to Berlin in 1759, where he continued to practice medicine until 1776. After Anna's death in 1780, he married Charlotte Wilhelmine Halle, the daughter of economist Johann Samuel Halle. Krünitz died in Berlin in 1795 while working on volume 73 of his ''Enzyklopädie''. The preface to this posthumously published volume contained the following macabre fact:

References

* Annette Fröhner, ''Technologie und Enzyklopädismus im Übergang vom 18. zum 19. Jahrhundert''. Mannheim 1994.

External links

Electronic version of the encyclopedia
a work in progress by the University of Trier. As of August 2007, ''Aah!'' - ''Zythos'' have been digitized. 1728 births 1796 deaths Writers from Berlin German encyclopedists People from the Margraviate of Brandenburg University of Halle alumni University of Göttingen alumni German male non-fiction writers {{Germany-scientist-stub