Anton Schneeberger

Anton Schneeberger (1530 to 1581) was a Swiss botanist and doctor who worked in Poland. Born in Zurich, he began his studies at Basel under the naturalist and doctor Conrad Gessner, arrived at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow in 1553, and three years later left for France, where he studied at Montpellier and Paris and earned the title of doctor of medicine and philosophy. He returned to Poland in 1559, travelled to Lithuania and spent time at the university in Konigsberg, and settled again in Krakow in 1561, where he established himself among the local doctors and scholars and counted Copernicus's student Georg Joachim Rheticus and the book collector Matthias Stoius among his friends. He was himself a book collector. His Catalogus stirpium of 1557 was one of the first works on the flora of the Krakow region, and he also wrote on simple medicaments against plague, on the many uses of salt, on keeping soldiers in good health, and on remedies for joint pains. He married twice, and his son Anton also became a doctor.