Johannes Hegetschweiler (4 December 1789,

Rifferswil Rifferswil is a village in the district of Affoltern in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland. Geography Rifferswil has an area of . Of this area, 66.4% is used for agricultural purposes, 22.7% is forested, 9% is settled (buildings or roads) a ...

– 9 September 1839,

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

) was a Swiss physician and

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

. He is remembered for his investigations of

Alpine vegetation Alpine plants are plants that grow in an alpine climate, which occurs at high elevation and above the tree line. There are many different plant species and taxa that grow as a plant community in these alpine tundra. These include perennial grasses ...

Biography

In 1809 he studied medicine at the medical-surgical institute in Zürich, followed by medical studies at the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (; ), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The University of Tübingen is one of eleven German Excellenc ...

as a pupil of Johann Heinrich Ferdinand von Autenrieth. While at Tübingen, he also attended lectures in

natural sciences Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...

given by

Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer (22 October 1765 – 14 August 1844) was a German biologist and naturalist born in Bebenhausen, today part of the city of Tübingen. He was a pioneer of '' Naturphilosophie'', helped to establish organic chemistry (''Pfl ...

.Hegetschweiler, Johannes
at Deutsche Biographie Later on, he worked as a physician at the

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposu ...

hospital in Rheinau, and from 1814 to 1831, he served as a doctor in the town of Stafa.Hegetschweiler, Johannes
Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz From 1831 to 1839 he held various posts with the cantonal government in Zürich. During the so-called

Züriputsch The Züriputsch of 6 September 1839 was a putsch of the rural conservative population against the liberal rule of the city of Zurich on the eve of the formation of the Swiss federal state. The reason for the putsch was the appointment of the ...

of September 6, 1839, as a mediator between government militia and insurrectionists, he was wounded in the head from a bullet fired by the insurgents, and died three days later on September 9. The botanical genus ''Hegetschweilera'' Heer, Regel (1842) commemorates his name, as does taxa with the specific epithet of ''hegetschweileri''.

Published works

Among his better written efforts was an enumeration of Swiss plants, titled ''Beyträge zur einer kritischent aufzählung der Schweizer pflanzen'' (1831), and a new edition of

Johann Rudolf Suter Johann Rudolf Suter (29 March 1766, Zofingen – 24 February 1827, Bern) was a Swiss physician, botanist and philologist. Life He studied natural history at the University of Göttingen, obtaining his PhD in 1787. From 1791 to 1793, he studied ...

's ''Flora Helvetica'' (1822). After his death,

Oswald Heer Oswald Heer (or Oswald von Heer) (31 August 1809 – 27 September 1883), Swiss geologist and naturalist, was born at Niederuzwil in Canton of St. Gallen and died in Lausanne. Biography Oswald Heer was educated as a clergyman at Halle and t ...

edited and published Hegetschweiler's ''Flora der Schweiz'' (1840).Flora der Schweiz
- Titre - ETH-Bibliothek Zürich (NEBIS)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hegetschweiler, Johannes 1789 births 1839 deaths 19th-century Swiss botanists University of Tübingen alumni People from Affoltern District