Carl Linnaeus photography. Carl Linnaeus: biography and contribution to science, interesting facts

early years

Carl Linnaeus was born on May 23, 1707 in Southern Sweden - in the village of Roshult in the province of Småland. His father is Nils Ingemarsson Linnaeus (Swedish Nicolaus (Nils) Ingemarsson Linnaeus, 1674-1748), a village priest; mother - Christina Linnaea (Brodersonia) (Swedish Christina Linnaea (Brodersonia), 1688-1733), daughter of a village priest.

In 1709 the family moved to Stenbrohult, a couple of kilometers from Roshult. There, Niels Linneus planted a small garden near his house, which he lovingly looked after. From early childhood, Karl also showed interest in plants.

In 1716-1727, Karl Linnaeus studied in the city of Växjö: first at the lower grammar school (1716-1724), then at the gymnasium (1724-1727). Since Växjö was about fifty kilometers from Stenbrohult, Karl was at home only on vacation. His parents wanted him to study as a pastor and in the future, as the eldest son, take the place of his father, but Karl studied very poorly, especially in the basic subjects - theology and ancient languages. He was only interested in botany and mathematics; often he even skipped classes, instead of going to school, going to nature to study plants.

Dr. Johan Rotman (1684-1763), a district doctor who taught logic and medicine at Linnaeus's school, persuaded Niels Linneus to send his son to study as a doctor and began to study medicine, physiology and botany with Karl individually.

Studying in Lund and Uppsala

In 1727, Linnaeus passed the exams and was enrolled at Lund University - Lund (Swed. Lund) was the closest city to Växjö, which had a higher educational institution. Of greatest interest to Linnaeus were the lectures of Professor Kilian Stobeus (1690-1742), with the help of which Karl largely put in order the information that he gathered from books and his own observations.

In August 1728, Linnaeus, on the advice of Johan Rothmann, transferred to Uppsala University, where there were more opportunities to study medicine. The level of teaching at both universities was not very high, and most of the time Linnaeus was engaged in self-education.

In Uppsala, Linnaeus met his peer, student Peter Artedi (1705-1735), together with whom they began work on a critical revision of the natural history classifications that existed at that time. Linnaeus mainly dealt with plants in general, Artedi with fish and umbrella plants.

In 1729 Linnaeus met Olof Celsius (sv) (1670-1756), a professor of theology who was an enthusiastic botanist. This meeting turned out to be very important for Linnaeus: he soon settled in the house of Celsius and gained access to his extensive library. In the same year, Linnaeus wrote a short work "Introduction to the Sexual Life of Plants" (lat. Praeludia sponsaliorum plantarum), which outlined the main ideas of his future classification of plants based on sexual characteristics. This work aroused great interest in Uppsala academic circles.

Since 1730, Linnaeus began teaching as a demonstrator in the botanical garden of the university under the guidance of Professor Olof Rudbeck Jr. Linnaeus's lectures were a great success. In the same year, Linnaeus moved into the house of Olof Rudbeck Jr.

On May 12, 1732, Linnaeus set off on a journey to Lapland, from where he returned only in the autumn, on October 10, with collections and records. In 1732, Florula lapponica (“Short Flora of Lapland”) was published, in which the so-called sexual system of plants from 24 classes, based on the structure of stamens and pistils, appears for the first time in print. The universities in Sweden during this period did not issue doctoral degrees, and Linnaeus, without a doctoral degree, could no longer teach in Uppsala.

In 1733, Linnaeus was actively engaged in mineralogy and wrote a textbook on this subject. Around Christmas 1733, he moved to Falun, where he began teaching assaying and mineralogy.

In 1734, Linnaeus made a botanical journey to the province of Dalarna.

Dutch period

In the spring of 1735, Linnaeus went to Holland for his doctorate, accompanying one of his students. Before arriving in Holland, Linnaeus visited Hamburg. On 23 June he received his MD from the University of Harderwijk for a dissertation on the causes of intermittent fever (malaria). From Harderwijk, Linnaeus went to Leiden, where he published a short work Systema naturae, which opened the way for him to the circle of learned doctors, naturalists and collectors of Holland, who turned around Professor Hermann Boerhaave of Leiden University, who enjoyed European fame.

In August 1735, under the patronage of friends, Linnaeus received the position of keeper of the collections and the botanical garden of the burgomaster of Amsterdam and director of the Dutch East India Company, George Clifford (en) (1685-1760). The garden was near the city of Haarlem; it contained many exotic plants from all over the world - and Linnaeus was engaged in their description and classification.

On September 27, 1735, Linnaeus's close friend Peter Artedi drowned in a canal in Amsterdam, where he worked to put in order the collections of the traveler, zoologist, and pharmacist Albert Seb (1665-1736). Later, Linnaeus published Artedi's work on ichthyology and used his proposals for the classification of fish and umbrellas in his work.

In the summer of 1736, Linnaeus lived for several months in England, where he met with the famous botanists of the time, Hans Sloan (1660-1753) and Johan Jacob Dillenius (de) (1687-1747).

Three years spent by Linnaeus in Holland is one of the most productive periods of his scientific biography. During this time, his main works came out: in addition to the first edition of Systema naturae (System of Nature), Linnaeus managed to publish Bibliotheca Botanica (a systematic catalog of literature on botany), Fundamenta Botanica (a collection of aphorisms about the principles of description and classification of plants), Musa Cliffortiana (Description of a banana, growing in Clifford's garden, in which Linnaeus publishes one of the first sketches of the natural plant system), Hortus Cliffortianus (description of Clifford's garden), Flora Lapponica (Lapland flora), Genera plantarum (characteristics of plant genera), Classes plantarum (comparison of all known at that time systems of plants with the system of Linnaeus himself and the first publication of the natural system of plants of Linnaeus in full), Critica botanica (a set of rules for the formation of names of plant genera). Some of these books came out with wonderful illustrations by the artist George Ehret (en) (1708-1770).

In 1738, Linnaeus went back to Sweden, visiting Paris along the way, where he met with the botanists, the Jussieu brothers.

Linnaeus family

In 1734, at Christmas, Linnaeus met his future wife: her name was Sara Lisa Morea (Swed. Sara Elisabeth (Elisabet, Lisa) Moraea (Mor?a), 1716-1806), she was the daughter of Johan Hansson Moreus (Swed. Johan Hansson Moraeus (Mor?us), 1672-1742), city physician in Falun. Two weeks after they met, Linnaeus proposed to her. In the spring of 1735, shortly before leaving for Europe, Linnaeus and Sarah became engaged (without a formal ceremony). Linnaeus partially received money for the trip from his future father-in-law.

In 1738, after returning from Europe, Linnaeus and Sarah became officially engaged, and in September 1739, a wedding took place in the Moreus family farm.

Their first child (later known as Carl Linnaeus Jr.) was born in 1741. They had seven children in total (two boys and five girls), of whom two (a boy and a girl) died in infancy.

The genus of flowering South African perennials from the Iris family (Iridaceae) was named by Linnaeus Moraea (Morea) - in honor of his wife and her father.

Returning to his homeland, Linnaeus opened a medical practice in Stockholm (1738). Having cured several ladies-in-waiting from coughs with a decoction of fresh yarrow leaves, he soon became a court physician and one of the most fashionable doctors in the capital. It is known that in his medical work, Linnaeus actively used strawberries - both for the treatment of gout, and for purifying the blood, improving complexion, and reducing weight.

In addition to medical practice, Linnaeus taught in Stockholm at the mining school.

In 1739, Linnaeus took part in the formation of the Royal Academy of Sciences (which was a private society in its early years) and became its first chairman.

In October 1741, Linnaeus took up the position of professor of medicine at Uppsala University and moved to the professorial house, located in the University Botanical Garden (now the Linnaeus Garden). The position of professor allowed him to concentrate on writing books and dissertations on natural history. Linnaeus worked at Uppsala University until the end of his life.

On behalf of the Swedish Parliament, Linnaeus participated in scientific expeditions - in 1741 to Öland and Gotland, the Swedish islands in the Baltic Sea, in 1746 - to the province of Västergötland (sv) (Western Sweden), and in 1749 - to the province of Skåne (South Sweden ).

In 1750, Carl Linnaeus was appointed rector of Uppsala University.

The most significant publications of the 1750s:

• Philosophia botanica ("Philosophy of Botany", 1751) is a textbook on botany translated into many European languages ​​and remained a model for other textbooks until the beginning of the 19th century.
• Species plantarum ("Plant Species"). The date of publication of the work - May 1, 1753 - is taken as the starting point for botanical nomenclature.
• 10th edition of Systema naturae ("The System of Nature"). The date of publication of this edition - January 1, 1758 - is taken as the starting point for zoological nomenclature.
• Amoenitates academicae ("Academic leisure", 1751-1790). A collection of dissertations written by Linnaeus for his students and partly by the students themselves.

In 1758, Linnaeus acquired the farm of Hammarby (Swed. Hammarby) about ten kilometers southeast of Uppsala (now Linnaeus Hammarby). The country house in Hammarby became his summer estate.

In 1757, Linnaeus was presented to the nobility, which, after several years of consideration of this issue, was awarded to him in 1761. Linnaeus then changed his name to the French manner - Carl von Linne - and came up with a coat of arms depicting an egg and symbols of the three kingdoms of nature.

In 1774, Linnaeus suffered the first stroke (a cerebral hemorrhage), as a result of which he was partially paralyzed. In the winter of 1776-1777 there was a second blow. On December 30, 1777, Linnaeus became much worse, and on January 10, 1778, he died at his home in Uppsala.

As one of the prominent citizens of Uppsala, Linnaeus was buried in Uppsala Cathedral.

Linnaeus Collection

Carl Linnaeus left a huge collection, which included two herbaria, a collection of shells, a collection of insects and a collection of minerals, as well as a large library. "This is the greatest collection the world has ever seen," he wrote to his wife in a letter that he bequeathed to be made public after his death.

After long family disputes and against the instructions of Carl Linnaeus, the entire collection went to his son, Carl von Linne the younger (Swedish: Carl von Linne d.y., 1741-1783), who moved it from the Hammarby Museum to his home in Uppsala and worked extremely diligently to preserve the objects included in it (herbaria and collection of insects had already suffered from pests and dampness by that time). The English naturalist Sir Joseph Banks (eng. Joseph Banks, 1743-1820) offered him to sell the collection, but he refused.

But shortly after the sudden death of Carl Linnaeus Jr. from a stroke in late 1783, his mother (the widow of Carl Linnaeus) wrote to Banks that she was ready to sell him the collection. He did not buy it himself, but convinced the young English naturalist James Edward Smith (1759-1828) to do so. Potential buyers were also a student of Carl Linnaeus, Baron Claes Alstromer (Swedish Clas Alstromer, 1736-1894), the Russian Empress Catherine the Great, the English botanist John Sibthorp (eng. John Sibthorp, 1758-1796) and others, but Smith was quicker: he quickly approved sent him an inventory, he approved the deal. Scientists and students of Uppsala University demanded that the authorities do everything to leave the legacy of Linnaeus at home, but government officials replied that they could not resolve this issue without the intervention of the king, and King Gustav III was in Italy at that time ...

In September 1784, the collection left Stockholm on an English brig and was soon safely delivered to England. The legend according to which the Swedes sent their warship to intercept the English brig that was taking out the Linnaeus collection has no scientific basis, although it is depicted in an engraving from R. Thornton's book "A New Illustration of the Linnaeus System".

The collection received by Smith included 19 thousand herbarium sheets, more than three thousand specimens of insects, more than one and a half thousand shells, over seven hundred coral specimens, two and a half thousand specimens of minerals; the library consisted of two and a half thousand books, over three thousand letters, as well as manuscripts of Carl Linnaeus, his son and other scientists.

In 1788, Smith founded the Linnean Society of London in London, the purpose of which was declared to be "the development of science in all its manifestations", including the preservation and development of the teachings of Linnaeus. Today this society is one of the most authoritative scientific centers, especially in the field of biological systematics. A significant part of the Linnaeus collection is still kept in a special repository of the society (and is available for researchers to work with).

Contribution to science

Linnaeus divided the natural world into three kingdoms: mineral, vegetable and animal, using four levels (ranks): classes, orders, genera and species.

The method of forming a scientific name introduced by Linnaeus for each of the species is still used (the previously used long names, consisting of a large number of words, gave a description of the species, but were not strictly formalized). The use of the Latin name of two words - the name of the genus, then the specific name - made it possible to separate the nomenclature from the taxonomy. This species naming convention is called "binomial nomenclature".

(1707-1778) Swedish biologist

Carl Linnaeus was born on May 23, 1707 in the small Swedish village of Roskhult into the family of a village priest.

The father tried to give his son a good education in the hope that Charles would also become a clergyman. But the boy was most attracted to wildlife. He graduated from elementary school, and in the gymnasium he was not given Latin and Greek. Teachers considered him an incapable child, although the boy showed an extraordinary interest in all kinds of plants.

The city doctor Rothman took Linnaeus into his house, studied with him a lot and even weakened his aversion to Latin by reading the works of Pliny the Elder on natural science. Rothman was a good teacher. He got down to business so skillfully that Karl did not notice how he fell in love with the very Latin that he did not want to hear about before.

After graduating from high school, Carl Linnaeus studied medicine and biology at the universities of the Swedish cities of Lund and Uppsala. The father could only send a small amount of money to his son. But despite the hardships, the young man still collected a herbarium and sought to understand the whole variety of flowers, the number and arrangement of their stamens and pistils. Karl was only 23 years old when the famous professor Rudbeck took him on as his assistant. Carl Linnaeus becomes his assistant, and sometimes even lectures for him. In the spring of 1732, the leadership of the Uppsala University invited him to go on a trip to northern Scandinavia - Lapland, to explore its nature. Very little money was allocated for the expedition, but this did not bother the naturalist. Linnaeus traveled almost the entire north of Scandinavia, observed nature, studied it, and wrote it down. Upon his return from the expedition, he published his first book, Flora of Lapland.

After graduating from the university, Carl Linnaeus was going to stay here as a teacher, but this required a scientific degree, and Carl went to Holland.

The Dutch period of Linnaeus's life was both happy and fruitful. It was here that he received a doctorate degree, conducted scientific work for about a year in one of the best botanical gardens in the country.

In Holland, in 1735, the Swedish scientist published his most famous work, The System of Nature. Despite the small volume - only 12 pages, his work was of epochal significance. In it, Carl Linnaeus proposed a binary nomenclature - a system for the scientific naming of plants and animals. In his opinion, each name should have consisted of two words - a generic and a specific designation. A species consists of many similar individuals that produce fertile offspring. The scientist was convinced that species are eternal and cannot change. But already in his later works, he noted some examples of the variability of organisms and the emergence of new species from old ones. Linnaeus gave names to species in Latin, the same one that was poorly given to him in his school years. At that time, Latin was the international language of science. Thus, Linnaeus solved a difficult problem: after all, if the names were given in different languages, then the same species could be described under many names.

Characterizing any plant, Carl Linnaeus used a double name - generic and specific. The genus name is common to all species belonging to it; the species name refers to plants of that species. For example, the name of the genus is currant, the species are red, black, white, and the full names are red currant, etc. He based the classification of plants on the structure of the flower. Plants were divided by Karl Linn into 24 classes, the first 13 being determined simply by the number of stamens in a flower, the next 7 classes were determined by their location and length. Mushrooms, lichens, algae - in general, all devoid of flowers, were, according to his classification, in the 24th class ("mystery"). The ease of determining belonging to a particular class and the brevity of the system are the captivating advantages of Linnaeus's classification. Of course, he understood the primitiveness and inaccuracy of the division he proposed: cereals were distributed among different classes, trees were adjacent to wildflowers. Nevertheless, the merit of the Swedish scientist was great, because he introduced clear and unified rules for describing plants.

And in the classification of animals, Carl Linnaeus applied a clear system (class - detachment - genus - variety), which, with some additions, is used in our time. The division of the animal world into classes by Linnaeus is based on the features of the circulatory system. He singled out only 6 classes: mammals, birds, amphibians, fish, insects and worms. Almost all invertebrates fell into the class of worms. Linnaeus correctly placed man and the great apes in the same order on the basis of similarities in their structure, although such thoughts were then considered criminal. Of course, Linnaeus understood the artificiality of his system. “An artificial system,” he said, “serves only until a natural one is found; the first teaches only to recognize plants, the second teaches on the very nature of plants.

A few years later, Carl Linnaeus returned to his homeland not only as a doctor, but also as a botanist with a European name, although at first life in his homeland turned out to be difficult. The young doctor did not yet have patients, and the fame of a naturalist did not bring money. Linnaeus was even going to leave for Holland: in the country of flower growers, he could get a good job as a botanist. And suddenly he was lucky: he managed to cure the patient, who was considered hopeless. Suddenly, medical fame also came, and with it a large number of patients. But the young scientist wanted to do scientific work. In 1741 he became a professor at his native Uppsala University, and soon after became the first president of the Swedish Academy of Sciences. Carl Linnaeus was awarded the title of nobility. He could justly be proud of himself, for everything he became famous for was achieved by his own will and his own work.

By this time, Linnaeus was known to the entire scientific world. Among his students were Russians. He carried on extensive correspondence with many St. Petersburg botanists, received herbariums from Russia with descriptions of plants growing in different parts of the country, and in 1754 he was elected an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Linnaeus was an exceptionally efficient and industrious person. Avaricious, stubborn in achieving his goal, he had an enterprising and lively character. A brilliant lecturer, he was popular with the students.

All his life he supplemented and republished his works, which gradually turned from a small book into a multi-volume edition.

After his death, old books and herbariums of Carl Linnaeus are kept in the British Museum.

Carl Linnaeus

(1707-1778)

Carl Linnaeus, the famous Swedish naturalist, was born in Sweden on May 13, 1707. He was of an humble family, his ancestors were simple peasants; father was a poor country priest. The next year after the birth of his son, he received a more profitable parish in Stenbroghult, the year and the whole childhood of Carl Linnaeus passed until the age of ten.

My father was a great lover of flowers and gardening; in the picturesque Stenbroghult he planted a garden, which soon became the first in the whole province. This garden and his father's studies, of course, played a significant role in the spiritual development of the future founder of scientific botany. The boy was given a special corner in the garden, several beds, where he was considered a complete master; they were called so - "Karl's garden"

When the boy was 10 years old, he was sent to an elementary school in the city of Vexie. The gifted child's schoolwork was going badly; he continued to engage in botany with enthusiasm, and the preparation of lessons was tiring for him. The father was going to take the young man from the gymnasium, but the case pushed him into contact with the local doctor Rotman. At Rotman, the classes of the “underachieving” gymnasium went better. The doctor began to gradually introduce him to medicine and even - contrary to the teachers' reviews - made him fall in love with Latin.

After graduating from high school, Karl enters Lund University, but soon moves from there to one of the most prestigious universities in Sweden - Uppsala. Linnaeus was only 23 years old when the professor of botany Oluas Celzki took him as his assistant, after which, while still a student, Karl began teaching at the university. The journey through Lapland became very important for the young scientist. Linnaeus walked almost 700 kilometers, collected significant collections, and as a result published his first book, Flora of Lapland.

In the spring of 1735, Linnaeus arrived in Holland, in Amsterdam. In the small university town of Gardquick, he passed the exam and on June 24 he defended his dissertation on a medical topic - about fever. The immediate goal of his journey was reached, but Charles remained. He remained, fortunately for himself and for science: the rich and highly cultured Holland served as the cradle for his ardent creative activity and his resounding fame.

One of his new friends, Dr. Gronov, suggested that he publish some work; then Linnaeus compiled and printed the first draft of his famous work, which laid the foundation for systematic zoology and botany in the modern sense. This was the first edition of his "Systema naturae", containing only 14 huge pages for the time being, on which brief descriptions of minerals, plants and animals were grouped in the form of tables. With this edition, a series of rapid scientific successes of Linnaeus begins.

In his new works, published in 1736-1737, his main and most fruitful ideas were already contained in a more or less finished form: a system of generic and specific names, improved terminology, an artificial system of the plant kingdom.

At this time, he received a brilliant offer to become the personal physician of George Cliffort with a salary of 1000 guilders and a full allowance.

Despite the successes that surrounded Linnaeus in Holland, little by little he began to pull home. In 1738, he returns to his homeland and encounters unexpected problems. He, accustomed for three years of living abroad to universal respect, friendship and signs of attention of the most prominent and famous people, at home, in his homeland, was just a doctor without a job, without practice and without money, and no one cared about his scholarship . So Linnaeus the botanist gave way to Linnaeus the doctor, and his favorite activities were stopped for a while.

However, already in 1739, the Swedish Diet assigned him one hundred lukats of annual maintenance with the obligation to teach botany and mineralogy.

Finally, he found an opportunity to marry, and on June 26, 1739, a five-year-delayed wedding took place. Alas, as is often the case, his wife was the exact opposite of her husband. An ill-mannered, rude and quarrelsome woman, without intellectual interests, who was only interested in the financial aspects of her husband. Linnaeus had one son and several daughters; the mother loved her daughters, and they grew up under her influence as uneducated and petty girls of a bourgeois family. To her son, a gifted boy, the mother had a strange antipathy, pursued him in every possible way and tried to turn her father against him. But Linnaeus loved his son and passionately developed in him those inclinations for which he himself suffered so much in childhood.

In 1742, Linnaeus's dream came true and he became a professor of botany at his native university. The rest of his life was spent in this city almost without a break. He occupied the department for more than thirty years and left it only shortly before his death.

Now Linnaeus ceased to engage in medical practice, was engaged only in scientific research. He described all medicinal plants known at that time and studied the effect of medicines made from them.

During this time, he invented the thermometer using the Celsius temperature scale.

But the main business of his life, Linnaeus still considered the systematization of plants. The main work "The System of Plants" took 25 years, and only in 1753 did he publish his main work.

The scientist decided to systematize the entire plant world of the Earth. At the time when Liney began his career, zoology was in a period of exceptional predominance of taxonomy. The task that she then set herself was simply to get acquainted with all the breeds of animals living on the globe, without regard to their internal structure and to the connection of individual forms with each other; the subject of zoological writings of that time was a simple enumeration and description of all known animals.

Thus, zoology and botany of that time were mainly concerned with the study and description of species, but boundless confusion reigned in their recognition. The descriptions that the author gave of new animals or plants were inconsistent and inaccurate. The second main shortcoming of the then science was the lack of a more or less basic and precise classification.

These basic shortcomings of systematic zoology and botany were corrected by the genius of Linnaeus. Remaining on the same ground of the study of nature, on which his predecessors and contemporaries stood, he was a powerful reformer of science. Its merit is purely methodical. He did not discover new areas of knowledge and hitherto unknown laws of nature, but he created a new method, clear, logical. And with the help of it, he brought light and order to where chaos and confusion reigned before him, which gave a huge impetus to science, paving the way for further research in a powerful way. This was a necessary step in science, without which further progress would not have been possible.

The scientist proposed a binary nomenclature - a system of scientific naming of plants and animals. Based on the structural features, he divided all plants into 24 classes, also highlighting separate genera and species. Each name, in his opinion, should have consisted of two words - generic and specific designations.

Despite the fact that the principle applied by him was rather artificial, it turned out to be very convenient and became generally pleasant in scientific classification, retaining its significance in our time. But in order for the new nomenclature to be fruitful, it was necessary for the new nomenclature to be fruitful, it was necessary that the species that received the conditional name, at the same time, be so accurately and in detail described that they could not be confused with other species of the same kind. Linnaeus did just that: he was the first to introduce a strictly defined, precise language and a precise definition of features into science.

In his essay "Fundamental Botany", published in Amsterdam during his life with Cliffort and which was the result of seven years of work, the foundations of the botanical terminology that he used to describe plants are outlined.

The zoological system of Linnaeus did not play such a major role in science as the botanical one, although in some respects it was higher than it, as less artificial, but it did not represent its main advantages - convenience in determining. Linnaeus had little knowledge of anatomy.

Linnaeus' work gave a huge impetus to systematic botany and zoology. The developed terminology and convenient nomenclature made it easier to cope with a huge amount of material that had previously been so difficult to understand. Soon all classes of the plant and animal kingdom were systematically studied, and the number of described species increased from hour to hour.

Linnaeus later applied his principle to the classification of all nature, in particular minerals and rocks. He also became the first scientist to classify humans and apes as the same group of animals, primates. As a result of his observations, the naturalist compiled another book - "The System of Nature". He worked on it all his life, from time to time republishing his work. In total, the scientist prepared 12 editions of this work, which gradually turned from a small book into a voluminous multi-volume publication.

The last years of Linnaeus's life were overshadowed by senility and illness. He died on January 10, 1778, at the age of seventy-one.

After his death, the chair of botany at Uppsala University was given to his son, who zealously set about continuing his father's work. But in 1783 he suddenly fell ill and died at the age of forty-two. The son was not married, and with his death, the lineage of Linnaeus in the male generation ceased.

Karl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish naturalist who created a classification system for flora and fauna.

Born May 23, 1707 in the city of Roshuld (Sweden) in the family of a pastor. From his father, young Karl inherited a passion for botany.

Having studied the natural and medical sciences at Lund (1727) and Uppsala (since 1728) universities, in 1732 Linnaeus traveled to Lapland (a natural region in the north of Sweden, Norway, Finland and in the west of the Kola Peninsula). The result was the Flora of Lapland (1732; complete edition 1737).

In 1735, the scientist moved to the city of Hartekamp (Netherlands), where he received the post of head of the botanical garden; defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic "A new hypothesis of intermittent fevers."

Since 1738 he was engaged in medical practice in Stockholm; in 1739 he headed the naval hospital, won the right to open corpses in order to determine the cause of death. Participated in the creation of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and became its first president (1739).

Since 1741, he headed the department at Uppsala University, where he taught medicine and natural science.

Linnaeus's most significant work is The System of Nature. The book was first published in 1735 and went through 12 editions during the author's lifetime. It was in this work that Linnaeus applied and introduced the so-called binary nomenclature, according to which each species is designated by two Latin names - generic and specific.

The scientist defined the concept of a species using both morphological (similarity within the offspring of one family) and physiological (presence of fertile offspring) criteria.

He established a clear gradation of systematic categories: class, order, genus, species, variation. Linnaeus based the classification of plants on the number, size and arrangement of the stamens and pistils of the flower, as well as the sign of one-, two- or polyecious plants. He believed that the reproductive organs are the most essential and permanent parts of the body in plants. Based on this principle, the scientist divided all plants into 24 classes.

Linnaeus discovered and described about 1500 plant species. The classification of the animal world proposed by him subsequently underwent significant changes due to new discoveries in the field of biology, but was revolutionary for its time. Its distinguishing feature is that man is included in the system of the animal kingdom and belongs to the class of mammals, a detachment of primates. The dual nomenclature system proposed by Linnaeus is still in use today.

Life and work of Carl Linnaeus.

Linnaeus (Linne, Linnaeus) Karl (May 23, 1707, Roshuld - January 10, 1778, Uppsala), Swedish naturalist, member of the Paris Academy of Sciences (1762). He gained worldwide fame thanks to the system of flora and fauna he created. Born in the family of a village pastor. Studied natural and medical sciences at Lund (1727) and Uppsala (since 1728) universities. In 1732 he made a trip to Lapland, which resulted in the work "Flora of Lapland" (1732, complete edition in 1737). In 1735 he moved to the city of Hartekamp (Holland), where he was in charge of the botanical garden; defended his doctoral dissertation "A new hypothesis of intermittent fevers." In the same year he published the book "The System of Nature" (published during his lifetime in 12 editions). From 1738 he was engaged in medical practice in Stockholm; in 1739 he headed the naval hospital, won the right to dissect corpses in order to determine the cause of death. Participated in the creation of the Swedish Academy of Sciences and became its first president (1739). Since 1741, the head of the department at Uppsala University, where he taught medicine and natural sciences.

The system of flora and fauna created by Linnaeus completed the enormous work of botanists and zoologists of the 1st half of the 18th century. One of the main merits of Linnaeus is that in the "System of Nature" he applied and introduced the so-called binary nomenclature, according to which each species is designated by two Latin names - generic and species. Linnaeus defined the concept of "species" using both morphological (similarity within the offspring of one family) and physiological (presence of fertile offspring) criteria, and established a clear subordination between systematic categories: class, order, genus, species, variation.

Linnaeus based the classification of plants on the number, size and arrangement of the stamens and pistils of a flower, as well as the sign of one-, two- or multi-homogeneity of the plant, since he believed that the reproductive organs are the most essential and permanent parts of the body in plants. Based on this principle, he divided all plants into 24 classes. Due to the simplicity of the nomenclature he used, descriptive work was greatly facilitated, the species received clear characteristics and names. Linnaeus himself discovered and described about 1,500 plant species.

Linnaeus divided all animals into 6 classes:

1. Mammals 4. Fish

2. Birds 5. Worms

3. Amphibians 6. Insects

The class of amphibians included amphibians and reptiles, and he included all forms of invertebrates known in his time, except for insects, to the class of worms. One of the advantages of this classification is that man was included in the system of the animal kingdom and assigned to the class of mammals, to the order of primates. The classifications of plants and animals proposed by Linnaeus are artificial from a modern point of view, since they are based on a small number of arbitrarily taken signs and do not reflect the actual relationship between different forms. So, on the basis of only one common feature - the structure of the beak - Linnaeus tried to build a "natural" system based on the totality of many features, but did not reach the goal.

Linnaeus was opposed to the idea of ​​a true development of the organic world; he believed that the number of species remains constant, with the time of their "creation" they did not change, and therefore the task of systematics is to reveal the order in nature established by the "creator". However, the vast experience accumulated by Linnaeus, his acquaintance with plants from various localities, could not but shake his metaphysical ideas. In his last writings, Linnaeus, in a very cautious manner, suggested that all species of the same genus were originally one species, and allowed the possibility of the emergence of new species formed as a result of crossings between already existing species.

Linnaeus also classified soils and minerals, human races, diseases (according to symptoms); discovered the poisonous and healing properties of many plants. Linnaeus is the author of a number of works, mainly in botany and zoology, as well as in the field of theoretical and practical medicine (“Medicinal Substances”, “Generations of Diseases”, “Key to Medicine”).

The libraries, manuscripts and collections of Linnaeus were sold by his widow to the English botanist Smith, who founded (1788) in London the Linnean Society, which still exists today as one of the largest scientific centers.