Eschscholtz, Johann Friedrich

(b. Dorpat, Russia [now Tartu, Estonian S.S.R.], 1 November 1793; d. Dorpat, 7 May 1831)

medicine, zoology.

Eschscholtz received a medical education at Dorpat University. He took part, as a physician and naturalist, in voyages around the world on the brig Rurik from 1815 to 1818, under the command of Captain O. Kotzebue. His collections, which he made together with A. Chamisso, were given to Dorpat University and the Moscow Society of Naturalists. From 1819 he was extraordinary professor of medicine and dissector at Dorpat University, where from 1822 he was director of the zoological cabinet and, from 1828, ordinary professor of anatomy. He was a member of the Moscow Society of Naturalists, the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina and the Swiss Society of Natural Science. A bay in Alaska, an atoll in the Marshall Islands, a genus of plants of the family Papaveraceae, and a genus of ctenophora are named in honor of Eschscholtz.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Eschscholtz’ writings include Ideen zur Aneinanderreihung der rückgratigen Thiere auf vergleichenden Anatomie begründet (Dorpat, 1819); Beschreibung des inneren Skelets einiger Insekten (Gryllotalpa) (Dorpat, 1820); Species insectorum novae descriptae (Carabicini) (Moscow,1823); Entomographien (Berlin, 1824); “Dissertatio de coleopterorum genere Passalus,” in Nouveaux Mémoires de la Société Impériale des Naturalistes de Moscou, 1 (1829), 13–28; Zoologisches Atlas enthaltend Abbildungen und Beschreibungen neuer Thierarten, während des Flottenkapitains von Kotzebue zweiter Reise um die Welt in den Jahren 1823–1826 beobachtet (Berlin, 1829–1833); “Übersicht der zoologischen Ausbeute,” in Reise um die Welt in den Jahren 1823–1826 (Weimar, 1830); and Beschreibung der Anchinia, einer neuen Gattung der Mollusken (St. Petersburg, 1835).

II. Secondary Literature. On Eschscholtz and his work, see J. F. Recke and C. E. Napiersky, Allgemeine Schriftsteller- und Gelehrten-Lexicon der Provinzen Livland, Esthland und Kurland (Mitau, 1827), p. 523; and T. Beise and C. E. Napiersky, Nachträge und Fortsetzungen (1859), p. 173.

L. J. Blacher