Background
Lonicer was born on October 10, 1528, in Marburg, Germany, the son of Johann Lonitzer, a philologist and professor at Marburg.
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Lonicer studied at Marburg and the University of Mainz, and received his baccalaureate in 1540 and his master’s degree in 1545.
Lonicer was born on October 10, 1528, in Marburg, Germany, the son of Johann Lonitzer, a philologist and professor at Marburg.
Lonicer studied at Marburg and the University of Mainz, and received his baccalaureate in 1540 and his master’s degree in 1545.
In 1545 Lonicer began teaching at the Gymnasium in Frankfurt, but he returned to Marburg of disorders caused by war. He studied medicine there and later in Mainz, where he was a private tutor in the home of a Dr. Osterod. In 1553 Lonicer became professor of mathematics at Marburg. In 1554, following the death of Graff, the municipal physician of Frankfurt, he was appointed to the post. Lonicer worked as a proofreader in the printing shop of his father-in-law, who specialized in the revision of old herbals (for example, those of Eucharius Röslin and Dioscorides).
Lonicer wrote extensively in many fields, including botany, arithmetic, history of medicine, and medicine, particularly public health books such as regulations for controlling the plague (1572) and regulations for midwives (1573). His herbals were so influential that in 1783 at Augsburg - almost 250 years after the first edition was still published. In addition, Linnaeus immortalized his name in the genus Lonicera.
Lonicer based the first, Latin edition of his herbal on Röslin’s revision of the Onus sanitatis (1551), which contained many illustrations, most of them borrowed from Bock. The popularity of Lonicer’s herbal is shown by the many, steadily enlarged editions he brought out. Although the provision of plant names in German, Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and Spanish lends the herbal a scientific air, the inclusion of fabulous stories betrays its late medieval character. The herbal also lists animal and metallic medicaments and contains one of the earliest descriptions of local flora. In addition, the book distinguishes the deciduous trees from the conifers; the group composed of the yew, the cypress, the juniper, and the savin is contrasted with that containing the spruce and the fir. Lonicer’s son Johann Adam (b. 1557) edited his father’s writings.
In 1554 Lonicer married the daughter of the Frankfurt printer Egenolff, Magdalena Egenolff.