Carolus Linnaeus: Encyclopedia II - Carolus Linnaeus - Biography

Carolus Linnaeus - Biography

Carl Linnaeus was born at a farm called Råshult in Älmhult Municipality, the province of Småland in southern Sweden. Like his father and maternal grandfather, Linnaeus was groomed as a youth to be a churchman, but he showed little enthusiasm for it. His interest in botany impressed a physician from his town and he was sent to study at Lund University, transferring to Uppsala University after one year.

During this time Linnaeus became convinced that in the stamens and pistils of flowers lay the basis for the classification of plants, and he wrote a short work on the subject that earned him the position of adjunct professor.

In 1732 the Academy of Sciences at Uppsala financed his expedition to explore Lapland, then virtually unknown. The result of this was the Flora Laponica published in 1737.

Thereafter Linnaeus moved to the continent. While in The Netherlands he met Jan Frederik Gronovius and showed him a draft of his work on taxonomy, the Systema Naturae which in its 10th edition, published in 1758, classified 4,400 species of animals and 7,700 species of plants.

In it, the unwieldy descriptions mostly used at the time, such as "physalis amno ramosissime ramis angulosis glabris foliis dentoserratis", were replaced by the concise and now familiar genus-species names in the form Physalis angulata. Higher taxa were constructed and arranged in a simple and orderly manner. Although the system, now known as binomial nomenclature, was developed by the Bauhin brothers (see Gaspard Bauhin and Johann Bauhin) almost 200 years earlier, Linnaeus may be said to have popularized it within the scientific community.

Linnaeus named taxa in ways that personally struck him as common-sensical; for example, human beings are Homo sapiens (see sapience). He also briefly described a second human species, Homo troglodytes ("cave-dwelling man"). This was however likely a confusion originating from exaggerated second- or third-hand accounts of the chimpanzee (currently most often placed in a different genus, as Pan troglodytes).

The group "mammalia" are named for their mammary glands because one of the defining characteristics of mammals is that they nurse their young. Of all the features distinguishing the mammals from other animals, Linnaeus may have picked this one because of his views on the importance of natural motherhood. He campaigned against the practice of wet nursing, declaring that even aristocratic women should be proud to nurse their own children.

In 1739 Linnaeus married Sara Morea, daughter of a physician. He ascended to the chair of medicine at Uppsala two years later, soon exchanging it for the chair of Botany. He continued to work on his classifications, extending them to the kingdom of animals and the kingdom of minerals. The last may seem somewhat odd, but the theory of evolution was still a long time away. Linnaeus was only attempting a convenient way of categorizing the elements of the natural world. Still, Linnaeus' research had begun to take science on a path that diverged from what had been taught by religious authorities; the local Lutheran Archbishop had accused him of "impiety." In a letter [1] to Johann Georg Gmelin dated February 25, 1747, Linnaeus wrote:

• Original Latin

Non placet, quod Hominem inter ant[h]ropomorpha collocaverim, sed homo noscit se ipsum. Removeamus vocabula. Mihi perinde erit, quo nomine utamur. Sed quaero a Te et Toto orbe differentiam genericam inter hominem et Simiam, quae ex principiis Historiae naturalis. Ego certissime nullam novi. Utinam aliquis mihi unicam diceret! Si vocassem hominem simiam vel vice versa omnes in me conjecissem theologos. Debuissem forte ex lege artis.

• English Translation

It is not pleasing to me that I must place humans among the primates, but man is intimately familiar with himself. Let's not quibble over words. It will be the same to me whatever name is applied. But I desperately seek from you and from the whole world a general difference between men and simians from the principles of Natural History. I certainly know of none. If only someone might tell me one! If I called man a simian or vice versa I would bring together all the theologians against me. Perhaps I ought to, in accordance with the law of the discipline [of Natural History].

The Swedish king, Adolf Fredrik, ennobled Linnaeus in 1757, and after the privy council had confirmed the ennoblement Linnaeus took the surname von Linné, later often signing just Carl Linné. His father, born Nils Ingemarsson, had adopted the Latin surname Linnaeus as more appropriate for a clergyman on his matriculation at Lund University; the name deriving from the lime [2] tree after which the family farm, Linnagård, took its name.

Declining in his later years, Linnaeus suffered from a series of strokes in 1774. He died four years later, in 1778.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Biography", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki