Leonhart Fuchs

Leonhart Fuchs, who lived from 1501 to 1566 and whose name is also spelled Leonhard Fuchs, was a German physician and botanist, remembered chiefly as the author of a large herbal on plants and their uses as medicines, first published in Latin in 1542. The book has about 500 accurate and detailed drawings of plants printed from woodcuts, and its high-quality illustrations were its most notable advance on earlier herbals. Born in Wemding in Bavaria as the youngest son of the town burgomaster, he studied in Erfurt and Ingolstadt, received his doctorate of medicine on 1 March 1524, practised in Munich and held the chair of medicine at Ingolstadt from 1526. His Lutheran views then took him to Ansbach as personal physician to the Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach. In 1533 he was called to Tübingen to help reform the university in the spirit of humanism, created its first medicinal garden in 1535 and spent the last thirty-one years of his life as professor of medicine there.