Иоганн Фридрих Гмелин: Жизнь и научная деятельность

German naturalist, botanist, entomologist, herpetologist, and malacologist

Johann Friedrich Gmelin (8 August 1748 – 1 November 1804) was a German naturalist, chemist, botanist, entomologist, herpetologist, and malacologist.

Johann Friedrich Gmelin was born as the eldest son of Philipp Friedrich Gmelin in 1748 in Tübingen. He studied medicine under his father at University of Tübingen and graduated with a Master's degree in 1768, with a thesis entitled: Irritabilitatem vegetabilium, in singulis plantarum partibus exploratam ulterioribusque experimentis confirmatam, defended under the presidency of Ferdinand Christoph Oetinger, whom he thanks with the words Patrono et praeceptore in aeternum pie devenerando, pro summis in medicina obtinendis honoribus.

In 1769, Gmelin became an adjunct professor of medicine at University of Tübingen. In 1773, he became professor of philosophy and adjunct professor of medicine at University of Göttingen. He was promoted to full professor of medicine and professor of chemistry, botany, and mineralogy in 1778. He died in 1804 in Göttingen and is buried there in the Albani cemetery with his wife Rosine Louise Gmelin (1755–1828, née Schott). Johann Friedrich Gmelin when young became an "apostle" of Carl Linnaeus, probably when Linnaeus was working in the Netherlands, and undertook a plant collecting expedition to "Persia" on his behalf. Later in life he published several textbooks in the fields of chemistry, pharmaceutical science, mineralogy, and botany. He also edited and published the posthumous 13th edition of Systema Naturae by Carl Linnaeus from 1788 to 1793. This contained descriptions and scientific names of many new species, including birds that had earlier been catalogued without a scientific name by John Latham in his A General Synopsis of Birds. Gmelin's publication is cited as the authority for over 290 bird species and also a number of butterfly species.

Among his students were Georg Friedrich Hildebrandt, Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer, Friedrich Stromeyer, and Wilhelm August Lampadius. He was the father of Leopold Gmelin. He described the redfin pickerel in 1789. In the scientific field of herpetology, he described many new species of amphibians and reptiles. In the field of malacology, he described and named many species of gastropods. The plant genus Gmelina was named after J. F. Gmelin (or possibly J. G. Gmelin) by Linnaeus. The abbreviation "Gmel." is also found.