Background
Gmelin was born at Tübingen in a well known family of naturalists. His father was Johann Conrad Gmelin, an apothecary and surgeon. His uncle was Johann Georg Gmelin. Samuel earned his medical degree in 1763 from the University of Leiden at the young age of 18 (Silva et al., 1996). While living in the Dutch Republic, Gmelin developed a keen interest in marine algae. In 1766 he was appointed professor of botany at St Petersburg. In the following year he was sent on an expedition to study the natural history of the Russian Empire. He explored the rivers Don and Volga, and the western and eastern coasts of the Caspian Sea. Whilst travelling in the Caucasus he was taken hostage by Usmey Khan of Khaïtakes and died of ill treatment in captivity in Derbent. He was only 29 years of age.
Gmelin was the author of Historia Fucorum (1768), the first work dedicated to marine biology, dealing exclusively with algae and the first using the binomial system of nomenclature. It includes elaborate illustrations of seaweed and marine algae on folded leaves. However, algal specimens used by Gmelin in the Historia fucorum are thought to no longer exist (Dixon & Irvine, 1970). The results of his travels were published in Reise durch Russland zur untersuchung der drey natur-reiche (Trip through Russia to study the three natural provinces) (1770-1784, 4 vols.). The final volume was to be completed by Guldenstadt but was ultimately edited by Peter Simon Pallas after Guldenstadt's death.
Read more about this topic: Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)