Göran (Georg) Rothman (30 November 1739, in Husebybruk, Småland, Sweden – 3 December 1778, in Stockholm), was a Swedish naturalist, physician and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus. His father, Johan Stensson Rothman, was a teacher of Logic and Physics at a grammar school in

Växjö Växjö ( ) is a city and the seat of Växjö Municipality, Kronoberg County, Sweden. It had 70,489 inhabitants (2019) out of a municipal population of 95,995 (2021). It is the administrative, cultural, and industrial centre of Kronoberg County ...

, the same school that

Carl von Linne Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, ...

attended. Their good relationship dated back to that period. Göran Rothman studied at

Uppsala University Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. The university rose to significance during ...

from 1757 and graduated under

. On 27 May 1763 he defended a dissertation on the disease ''Raphania'' ( ergotism), thought by Linnaeus to be caused by eating bread from freshly harvested grain and wrongly ascribed to the presence of seed of ''

Raphanus raphanistrum ''Raphanus raphanistrum'', also known as wild radish, white charlock or jointed charlock, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae. One of its subspecies, ''Raphanus raphanistrum'' subsp. ''sativus'', includes a diverse variety of cultiv ...

'' L., the common radish. In 1765 he carried out research in

Åland Åland ( fi, Ahvenanmaa: ; ; ) is an autonomous and demilitarised region of Finland since 1920 by a decision of the League of Nations. It is the smallest region of Finland by area and population, with a size of 1,580 km2, and a populat ...

and from 1773 to 1776 in

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...

and

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

. On his return he practised as physician in Stockholm. He was notable for his translations of

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—es ...

(1694–1778) and

Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...

(1688–1744) into Swedish. The plant genus ''

Rothmannia ''Rothmannia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae. It was described in 1776 and is named for Göran Rothman (1739–1778) by Thunberg – both were pupils of Linnaeus. Description Although Rubiaceae flowers are generally org ...

'' was named after him by his friend, the Swedish botanist Carl Peter Thunberg.

External links

Biography

Dissertation under Linnaeus

Apostles of Linnaeus

References

Swedish naturalists 18th-century Swedish botanists 1739 births 1778 deaths Botanists with author abbreviations Age of Liberty people {{Sweden-botanist-stub