Early Life
Thunberg was born in Jönköping, and became a pupil of Carolus Linnaeus at Uppsala University. There he studied natural philosophy and medicine, and took his degree in 1767. In 1770, he left Sweden for Paris, to continue his studies in medicine and natural history.
In 1771, during a stay in Amsterdam and Leiden, he studied their botanical gardens and musea. He was commissioned by Johannes Burman and his son Nicolaas to visit the Dutch colonies and Japan to collect specimens for Dutch botanical gardens. He left in December 1771, as the ship's surgeon in the Dutch East India Company. After his arrival at Cape Town, Cape Colony, he stayed there for three years in order to learn the Dutch language and to be able to pass himself off as a Dutchman, as Japan at that time was only open to Protestant Dutch merchants. In September 1772, in the company of Johan Andreas Auge, the superintendent of the Company garden, he set out north to Saldanha Bay, east along the Breede Valley through the Langkloof as far as the Gamtoos River and returning by way of the Little Karoo. Shortly after returning he met Francis Masson, a Scots gardener come to the Cape to collect plants for the Royal Gardens at Kew. They were immediately drawn together by their shared interests. On one of their trips they were joined by Robert Jacob Gordon, on leave from his regiment in the Netherlands. During his three expeditions in the interior, Thunberg collected a significant number of specimens of both flora and fauna. He also became a doctor of medicine.
Thunberg then sailed to Java in March 1775. He stayed in Batavia for two months.
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