Nathanael Matthaeus von Wolf, Nathanael Matthäus von Wolf, pl, Nataniel Mateusz Wolf (28 January 1724 in

Konitz Unterwellenborn is a municipality in the district Saalfeld-Rudolstadt, in Thuringia, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe af ...

– 15 December 1784 in

Gdańsk Gdańsk ( , also ; ; csb, Gduńsk;Stefan Ramułt, ''Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego'', Kraków 1893, Gdańsk 2003, ISBN 83-87408-64-6. , Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, ''Orbis latinus oder Verzeichniss der lateinischen Benen ...

) was a German

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

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 ...

, and

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...

. Wolf was born in

Chojnice Chojnice (; , or ''Chòjnice''; german: Konitz or ''Conitz'') is a town in northern Poland with 39,423 inhabitants as of December 2021, near the Tuchola Forest. It is the capital of the Chojnice County in the Pomeranian Voivodeship. History Pias ...

(

) in

Royal Prussia Royal Prussia ( pl, Prusy Królewskie; german: Königlich-Preußen or , csb, Królewsczé Prësë) or Polish PrussiaAnton Friedrich Büsching, Patrick Murdoch. ''A New System of Geography'', London 1762p. 588/ref> (Polish: ; German: ) was a ...

Crown of the Kingdom of Poland The Crown of the Kingdom of Poland ( pl, Korona Królestwa Polskiego; Latin: ''Corona Regni Poloniae''), known also as the Polish Crown, is the common name for the historic Late Middle Ages territorial possessions of the King of Poland, includ ...

. He went to study

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 pract ...

at the

University of Erfurt The University of Erfurt (german: Universität Erfurt) is a public university located in Erfurt, the capital city of the German state of Thuringia. It was founded in 1379, and closed in 1816. It was re-established in 1994, three years after Germ ...

and received his degree of M.D. in 1748. He became the personal physician of

Teodor Kazimierz Czartoryski Teodor Kazimierz Czartoryski (1704 – 1 March 1768 in Dolsk) was a bishop of Poznań and a member of the magnate family of Czartoryski in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. While he took good care of his ecclesiastical estates, he was m ...

, the Prince-bishop of

Poznań Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John ...

, until the bishop's death in 1768. The next year he opened a private office at

Tczew Tczew (, csb, Dërszewò; formerly ) is a city on the Vistula River in Pomerelia, Eastern Pomerania, Kociewie, northern Poland with 59,111 inhabitants (December 2021). The city is known for its Old Town and the Vistula Bridge, or Bridge of Tczew ...

and then following the First Partition of Poland in 1772 moved his practise to Danzig (

) which remained part of Poland. He went on to spend most of his adult life in Danzig. He was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 1777. As an astronomer, Wolf also taught the

Corps of Cadets A corps of cadets, also called cadet corps, was originally a kind of military school for boys. Initially such schools admitted only sons of the nobility or gentry, but in time many of the schools were opened also to members of other social classes. ...

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

. He was a member of the

Danzig Research Society The Naturforschende Gesellschaft in Danzig (translated Danzig Research Society, la, Societas Physicae Experimentalis, pl, Gdańskie Towarzystwo Przyrodnicze) was a scientific organization, founded in 1743 in Danzig ( Gdańsk), Poland, which cont ...

(''Naturforschende Gesellschaft Danzig'') and left his scientific collections to them. He greatly supported the building of a planetarium. On 10 May 1785, a few months after Wolf's death, the Danzig physician Philipp Adolph Lampe presented a memorial at the Danzig Research Society.

Notes

Works

**Genera Plantarum, Vocabulis characteristicis definita S.l. 1776 **Genera et Species Plantarum vocabulis characteristicis definita. Marienwerder, Typis Joan. Jac. Kanteri, 1781 **Concordantia Botanica. Dantisci, Muller, 1780

References

* J.C. Poggendorff (1863). ''Biographisch-Literarisches Handwörterbuch zur geschichte der exacten wissenschaften.'' Verlag von Johann Ambrosius Barth. (Leipzig). * Edmund Cieślak "Historia Gdańska", t. III, /1:1655-1793,

1993 * Kazimierz Kubik & Lech Mokrzecki "Trzy wieki nauki gdańskiej", Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich,

1976 (s. 125-126) * "Mieszczaństwo gdańskie", Gdańskie Towarzystwo Naukowe,

1997 1724 births 1782 deaths 18th-century Prussian people 18th-century German physicians 18th-century German astronomers 18th-century German botanists Fellows of the Royal Society Prussian nobility People from Chojnice {{Poland-scientist-stub