Valerius Cordus

Valerius Cordus (1515 to 1544) was a German physician, botanist and pharmacologist who wrote the first pharmacopoeia north of the Alps and one of the most celebrated herbals in history. He is widely credited with developing the sulfuric acid method of making ether, which he called oleum dulce vitrioli, and the plant genus Cordia is named for him. Born in or near Erfurt, the son of the physician Euricius Cordus, he enrolled at the University of Marburg at twelve, took a bachelor degree in 1531 and went on to Leipzig. In 1539 he moved to Wittenberg to lecture and study medicine, and his students notes were published after his death as Annotations on Dioscorides. In 1543 he presented his Dispensatorium to the Nuremberg council, which paid him 100 gold guilders. He died in Rome in 1544 after falling ill with what may have been malaria while collecting plants in Italy.