Martin Hinrich Carl Lichtenstein (10 January 1780 – 2 September 1857) was a German

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

explorer Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...

, botanist and

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and d ...

Biography

Born in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

, Lichtenstein was the son of

Anton August Heinrich Lichtenstein Anton August Heinrich Lichtenstein (25 August 1753, Helmstedt – 17 February 1816, Helmstedt) was a German zoologist. He was the father of Martin Hinrich Carl Lichtenstein (1780-1857). He studied theology, philosophy, natural history and Orien ...

. 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 ...

Jena Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a po ...

and Helmstedt. Between 1802 and 1806 he travelled in southern

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, becoming the personal physician of the Governor of the Cape of Good Hope. In 1811 he published ''Reisen im südlichen Afrika : in den Jahren 1803, 1804, 1805, und 1806''; as a result, he was appointed professor of zoology at the

University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative ...

in 1811, and appointed director of the Berlin Zoological Museum in 1813. In 1829, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He died after he had a stroke at sea travelling aboard a steamer from

Korsør Korsør is a town on Zealand, Denmark. It is located in Slagelse Municipality. Until 2007 Korsør was the seat of Korsør Municipality. The town is located west of Slagelse, north-west of Skælskør and connects to Nyborg through the Great Bel ...

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland ...

Legacy

Lichtenstein was responsible for the creation of

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 ...

's Zoological Gardens in 1841, when he persuaded King Frederick William IV of Prussia to donate the grounds of his pheasantry. He also published

Johann Reinhold Forster Johann Reinhold Forster (22 October 1729 – 9 December 1798) was a German Reformed (Calvinist) pastor and naturalist of partially Scottish descent who made contributions to the early ornithology of Europe and North America. He is best known ...

's manuscripts for ''Descriptiones animalium'' in 1844. In the field of herpetology he described many new

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of amphibians and reptiles. Among species named by Lichtenstein are included the

Australian king parrot The Australian king parrot (''Alisterus scapularis'') is a species of parrot endemic to eastern Australia ranging from Cooktown in Queensland to Port Campbell in Victoria. Found in humid and heavily forested upland regions of the eastern portion ...

(''Alisterus scapularis''), the crowned sandgrouse (''Pterocles coronatus''), and the Cape night adder (''

Causus rhombeatus ''Causus rhombeatus'', commonly known as the rhombic night adder, is a viper species endemic to subsaharan Africa. No subspecies are currently recognized. Like all other vipers, it is venomous. Description With an average total length (body + ...

''). In 1826, botanists Cham. & Schltdl. published a genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s from South Africa, belonging to the family

Apiaceae Apiaceae or Umbelliferae is a family of mostly aromatic flowering plants named after the type genus '' Apium'' and commonly known as the celery, carrot or parsley family, or simply as umbellifers. It is the 16th-largest family of flowering plan ...

as '' Lichtensteinia'' in his honour. In 1856 Johann Jakob Kaup named the seahorse '' Hippocampus lichtensteinii'' after him. Then in 1859 Italian

herpetologist Herpetology (from Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians ( gymnophiona)) and rep ...

, Giorgio Jan, named the forest night adder ('' Causus lichtensteinii'') in his honor of Hinrich Lichtenstein, as did the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck with Lichtenstein's sandgrouse ('' Pterocles lichtensteinii'' ).

Writings

Lichtenstein's ''Reisen im südlichen Afrika in den Jahren 1803, 1804, 1805 und 1806'' was translated into English, and published in 1812 as "Travels in Southern Africa in the years 1803, 1804, 1805 and 1806".IDREF.fr
(bibliography) * ''Reisen im südlichen Afrika. 1803–1806''. Mit einer Einführung von Wahrhold Drascher. 1811. 2 Bände (Neudruck: Brockhaus Antiquarium, Stuttgart 1967). * ''Nachrichten von Teneriffa. Ein Fragment aus dem Tagebuche des Hrn. Dr. Lichtenstein auf der Reise von Amsterdam nach dem Vorgebirge der guten Hofnung 1802''. Industrie-Comptoirs, Weimar 1806 * ''Über die Beetjuanas. Als Nachtrag und Berichtigung zu Barrows Auszug aus Trüters Tagebuch einer Reise zu den Buschwanas. Vom Hrn. Dr. Hinrich Lichtenstein''. Industrie-Comptoirs, Weimar 1807 * ''Darstellung neuer oder wenig bekannter Säugethiere in Abbildungen und Beschreibungen von 65 Arten auf 50 colorirten Steindrucktafeln'', nach den Originalen des Zoologischen Museums der Universität Berlin. Lüderitz, Berlin 1827/34. * ''Zur Geschichte der Sing-Akademie in Berlin. Nebst einer Nachricht über das Fest am funfzigsten Jahrestage Ihrer Stiftung und einem alphabetischen Verzeichniss aller Personen, die ihr als Mitglieder angehört haben.'' Verlag Trautwein, Berlin 1843.

Literature

* Ernst Rudorff (Hrsg.): ''Briefe von Carl Maria von Weber an Hinrich Lichtenstein''. Mit drei Porträts, drei Abbildungen und sechs Faksimiles. George Westermann, Braunschweig 1900. VIII Seiten, 252 Seiten, mit Abb. * Wilhelm Bölsche (Hrsg.): ''Neue Welten. Die Eroberung der Erde in Darstellungen großer Naturforscher''. Anthologie mit Texten von

Georg Forster Johann George Adam Forster, also known as Georg Forster (, 27 November 1754 – 10 January 1794), was a German naturalist, ethnologist, travel writer, journalist and revolutionary. At an early age, he accompanied his father, Johann Reinhold ...

, Hinrich Lichtenstein,

Karl von den Steinen Karl von den Steinen (born March 7, 1855 in Mülheim, died November 4, 1929 in Kronberg im Taunus) was a German physician (with emphasis in psychiatry), ethnologist, explorer, and author of important anthropological work, which is particularly ...

, Ferdinand Hochstetter, Alfred Russel Wallace,

Adelbert von Chamisso Adelbert von Chamisso (; 30 January 178121 August 1838) was a German poet and botanist, author of ''Peter Schlemihl'', a famous story about a man who sold his shadow. He was commonly known in French as Adelbert de Chamisso (or Chamissot) de Bonc ...

Alexander von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 17696 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, ...

und

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

– jeweils mit Einleitung von Wilhelm Bölsche. EA. Deutsche Bibliothek, Berlin 1917. XXIV, 644 S., 1 Bl. Mit 24 Tafeln. *F.D. Steinheimer, 2008 Martin Hinrich Carl Lichtenstein and his ornithological purchases at the auction of William Bullock's museum in 1819 ''Archives of Natural History'', Volume 35 Issue 1, Page 88–99, ISSN 0260-9541

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lichtenstein, Martin German taxonomists 1780 births 1857 deaths 19th-century German botanists German entomologists German ornithologists Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Humboldt University of Berlin faculty University of Helmstedt alumni University of Jena alumni Physicians from Hamburg 19th-century German zoologists