Johann Friedrich Gmelin

Career

In 1769, Gmelin became an adjunct professor of medicine at University of Tübingen. In 1773, he became professor of philosophy and adjunct professor of medicine at University of Göttingen. He was promoted to full professor of medicine and professor of chemistry, botany, and mineralogy in 1778. He died in 1804 in Göttingen and is buried there in the Albani cemetery with his wife Rosine Louise Gmelin (1755–1828, née Schott).

Johann Friedrich Gmelin when young became a respected colleague of Carl Linnaeus and collected plants in Persia on his behalf. Later in life he published several textbooks in the fields of chemistry, pharmaceutical science, mineralogy, and botany. He also edited and published the posthumous 13th edition of Systema Naturae by Carl Linnaeus from 1788 to 1793. This contained descriptions and scientific names of many new species, including birds that had earlier been catalogued without a scientific name by John Latham in his A General Synopsis of Birds. Gmelin's publication is cited as the authority for over 290 bird speciesand also a number of butterfly species.

Legacy

Among his students were Georg Friedrich Hildebrandt, Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer, Friedrich Stromeyer, and Wilhelm August Lampadius. He was the father of Leopold Gmelin.

He described the redfin pickerel in 1789. In the scientific field of herpetology, he described many new species of amphibians and reptiles. In the field of malacology, he described and named many species of gastropods.

The plant genus Gmelina was named after J.F. Gmelin (or possibly J.G. Gmelin, or both) by Linnaeus.

The abbreviation "Gmel." is also found.