Linnaeus

Name: Carolus Linnaeus

Nickname/Alias: born: Carl Linne

Achievements: Plant, animal and mineral classification

Born: May 23, 1707; Rashut, Smaland, Sweden

Died: January 10, 1778; Uppsala, Sweden (Aged 71)

Field & Discipline: Science; Botany; Botanist

Language: Swedish

Father: Nils Ingemarsson Linne

Mother: Christina Brodersonia

Siblings: Samuel; 3 sisters

Spouse: Sara Moraea

Children: Carl; Elisabeth; Louisa; Sara; Sophie

Education: Grammar school, Vaxjo; University of Lund; University of Uppsala

Major Work:

"Systema Naturae" (1735)

Species Plantarum" (1753)

Life & Times:

At Uppsala, Linnaeus was encouraged by the uncle of the astronomer [knew family of] Celsius*. In return, Linnaeus assisted him Celsius with a compilation of the flora of Uppland. He later named the genus "Celsia" in Olaf's honor.

In 1732 the Swedish Society of Science sent him on an expedition to Lapland and two years later he went on to an expedition to central Sweden. Linnaeus was rigorous in ordering his material and it was at this time that he began to work out a new system of botanical classification.

[superseded system of] Ray* in England had emphasised the importance of species in classification and [superseded system of] Tournefort* in France had produced a plant system based on petal formation but there were now so many new plants arriving in Europe from other parts of the world that a new system was urgently needed.

Linnaeus went to Harderwijk  to receive his doctorate and then on to study at Leyden where he became friendly with the famous doctor and botanist, [a pal of] Boerhaave*. Two of Linnaeus's friends financed the first publication of his "Systema Naturae" (1735) in which he set out his system of classification for animals, plants and minerals.

He divided plants into classes according to the number and position of their reproductive parts ­ the stamens and pistils. This was the so-called "sexual system" of Linnaeus and it has remained the most practical method of classification. He organised plants into 24 classes according to the number and order of their stamens,  then subdivided them  into various categories, mostly according to the number of their pistils.  All a botanist had to do was to look at a plant's reproductive organs and classify them accordingly.

Linnaeus was still struggling financially,  and luckily for him, he was taken up by George Clifford (the very wealthy Anglo-Dutch Director of the Dutch East India Company) and accepted a job as superintendent of Clifford's botanical garden at Hartekampe near Haarlem.   Over the next two years he was able to publish more of his work, including "Hortus Cliffortianus" (a record of the plants in Clifford's garden) "Fundamenta Botanica" (his method of systematic botany), and "Critica botanica" (rules for botanical names).

His second major work was "Genera plantarum" in which he gave a description of all the 935 plant types known. He visited London where he met the British gardener [collaborated with] Philip Miller* who gave him some plants for Clifford, and on his way back to Sweden in 1738 went to Paris and became friendly with the botanist [a pal of] Bernard de Jussieu*.

The Swiss naturalist and scholar, [offered job by] Haller*, had written to Linnaeus, with the offer of a professorship at Gottingen,  but the letter took eighteen months to reach Sweden and meanwhile Linnaeus had to fall back on his medical degree and set up his own practice in Stockholm.

He was not doing very well until he wrote to one of his foreign correspondents, [corresponded with] Boissier de Sauvages*, a young doctor at Montpellier, France, to ask him how he treated venereal disease. Sauvages sent him details about mercury ointment. He was lucky again when one of his patients passed on his recommendation concerning cough lozenges to the Queen,  and  Linnaeus became known at court.

He was appointed Physician to the Admiralty in 1739 and two years later, got a professorship of medicine at Uppsala. Within a short time had managed to exchange this for the chair of botany, dietetics and materia medica.

His first concern was the botanical Garden at Uppsala which had been one of the most important in Europe but had now fallen into decay.  During his tenure at Uppsala Linnaeus redesigned the garden and imported plants from all over the world. He was a brilliant and popular lecturer and used to take his students on botanical expeditions in the countryside around Uppsala.

His main focus and his most important contribution was in the continued development of his system of classification.  Most important, he introduced binomial system: one name for the genus and one for the species.

In  1753 he published   "Species Plantarum", now regarded as the basis of botanic names, in which he described around 8,000 plant species His classification of animals grouped them according to a specific organ: mammals were organised according to the teeth,  fish according to fins,  and insects according to their wings. He was the first to recognise whales as mammals and he linked man with the apes.  In mineral classification, Linnaeus's emphasis of the importance of crystal structure makes him one of the pioneers of crytallography.

His love of classification embraced his medical work and in "Genera morborum" (1763) he grouped diseases into classes, orders and genera according to their symptoms,  building on the seventeenth century work of [built on work of] Sydenham.*   Linnaeus was also a pioneer of systematic nosology (classifying by symptom),  ahead of [anticipated] Cullen*.

Extra Connections: He knew the work of  [knew work of] William Chambers*

He was influenced by [influenced by] Gesner*

His system was superseded by [superseded by] Asa Gray* and [superceded by] AL de Jussieu*

He visited [visited] Sloane*

[theory questioned by] W. Smellie* questioned his theory.

His system was rejected by [system rejected by] Lamarck*

Assessment: Linnaeus was the first to set down principles for defining the genera and

species of organisms and he created the first unified system of nomenclature for plants and animals.

Oneliner: Linnaeus,  famous for systematizing nature

Bibliography:

• Blunt, Wilfrid, The Compleat Naturalist, Collins, London, 1971.
• Dictionary of Scientific Biography.