Joachim Camerarius the Younger was a German physician, botanist, zoologist and humanist scholar.
Background
He was born in Nuremberg, the son of the famed humanist Joachim Camerarius the elder (1500–1574). The younger Camerarius’s association with the luminaries of later sixteenth-century German intelligentsia was secured by his father’s network of influential friends—including Philip Melanchthon and Johannes Crato von Krafftheim.
Career
After his early studies at Wittenberg and Leipzig, Camerarius turned to medical pursuits under the tutelage of Crato. Following in Crato’s footsteps, he pursued medical studies at the University of Padua before taking his doctorate at the University of Bologna in 1562. He returned to Nuremberg where he established his medical practice.
In 1592 the Nuremberg city council established the Collegium Medicum.
Camerarius served as dean of the medical college until his death. He corresponded with such notables as Gaspard Bauhin, Carolus Clusius, Thomas Erastus, and Konrad Gessner.