Karl Linney Biology. The importance of the work of Linnaeus for the development of natural science
Karl Linney was born on May 23, 1707 in the village of Roshult in Sweden in the family of a priest. Two years later, he moved to Stenbrohult with his family. Interest in plants in the biography of Karl Linnaeus manifested itself in childhood. He received his primary education at a school in the city of Veksjo, and after graduation he entered the gymnasium. Linnaeus' parents wanted the boy to continue his family business and become a pastor. But Karl’s theology was of little interest. He devoted much time to the study of plants.
Thanks to the insistence of the school teacher Johan Rothman, parents let Karl go to study medical sciences. Then the university stage began. Karl began to study at the University of Lund. And in order to become more familiar with medicine, a year later he moved to Uppsald University. In addition, he continued to engage in self-education. Together with a student at the same university, Peter Arthady Linnaeus, began revising and criticizing the principles of natural science.
In 1729, an acquaintance with W. Celsius took place, which played an important role in the formation of Linnaeus as a botanist. Then Karl moved to the house of Professor Celsius, began to get acquainted with his huge library. The basic ideas of Linnaeus on the classification of plants were presented in his first work, "Introduction to the sexual life of plants."
A year later, Linnaeus had already begun to teach and lecture in the botanical garden of Uppsald University.
The period from May to October 1732 he spent in Lapland. After fruitful work during the trip, his book “Brief Flora of Lapland” was published. It was in this work that the reproductive system in the plant world was described in detail. The following year, Linnaeus became interested in mineralogy, even published a textbook. Then, in 1734, in order to study plants, he went to the province of Dalarna.
He received his doctorate in medical sciences in June 1735 at Harderwijk University. Linney’s next work, The System of Nature, marked a new stage in his career and, as a whole, in the life of Linnaeus. Thanks to new connections and friends, he received the position of superintendent of one of the largest botanical gardens in Holland, in which plants from around the world were collected. So Karl continued the classification of plants. And after the death of his friend Peter Artedi published his work, later used his ideas for classifying fish. While living in Holland, the works of Linnaeus were published: Fundamenta Botanica, Musa Cliffortiana, Hortus Cliffortianus, Critica botanica, Genera plantarum and others.
The scientist returned to his homeland in 1773. There, in Stockholm, he engaged in medical practice, applying his knowledge of plants to treat people. He also taught, was chairman of the Royal Academy of Sciences, professor at Uppsala University (retained his post until his death).
Then Carly Linney, in his biography, went on an expedition to the islands of the Baltic Sea, visited western and southern Sweden. And in 1750 he became the rector of the university, where he had previously taught. In 1761 he received the status of a nobleman. And on January 10, 1778, Linnaeus died.
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Karl Linney (1707-1778) - Swedish naturalist, naturalist, nerd, doctor, founder of modern biological systematics, creator of the flora and fauna system, first president of the Swedish Academy of Sciences (since 1739), foreign honorary member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1754). For the first time he consistently applied binary nomenclature and built the most successful artificial classification of plants and animals, described about 1,500 species of plants. Karl Linnaeus advocated the constancy of species and creationism. Author of the "System of Nature" (1735), "Philosophy of Botany" (1751), etc.
In natural science, principles must be corroborated by observation.
Linnaeus Carl
Carl Linney was born May 23, 1707, in Roshult. Linnaeus was the firstborn in the family of the rural pastor and florist Niels Linneus. Linnaeus father replaced his surname Ingemarson with the Latinized surname “Linneus” after a giant linden tree (in Swedish Lind), which grew near the ancestral home. Moving from Roshult to nearby Stenbrohult (Smoland province in southern Sweden), Niels planted a beautiful garden, about which Linnaeus said: "This garden inflamed my mind with an unquenchable love for plants."
Passion for plants distracted Carl Linnaeus from homework. Parents hoped that teaching in the nearby town of Vekshe would cool Karl’s passionate passion. However, in elementary school (since 1716), and then in the gymnasium (since 1724), the boy studied poorly. He neglected theology and was considered the worst student in ancient languages. Only the need to read Pliny's Natural History and the works of modern botanists made him study Latin, the universal language of science at that time. Dr. Rothman introduced Karl to these works. Encouraging interest in the botany of a gifted young man, he prepared him for admission to the university.
Nature through art sometimes works wonders.
Linnaeus Carl
In August 1727, twenty-year-old Karl Linney became a student at Lund University. Acquaintance with the herbarium collections of Professor Stobeus’s natural office prompted Linnaeus to thoroughly study the flora of the surroundings of Lund, and by December 1728 he had compiled a catalog of rare plants, Catalogus Plantarum Rariorum Scaniae et Smolandiae.
In the same year, Karl Linney continued his study of medicine at Uppsala University, where friendly communication with a student Peter Artedi (later a famous ichthyologist) brightened up the dryness of the course of lectures on natural history. Joint excursions with professor-theologian O. Celsius, who helped financially destitute Linnaeus, and classes in his library expanded Linnea’s botanical horizons, and he was obliged to the benevolent professor O. Rudbeck Jr., not only the beginning of his teaching career, but also the purpose of his trip to Lapland (May September 1732).
The purpose of this expedition was to study all three kingdoms of nature - minerals, plants and animals - the vast and poorly studied area of \u200b\u200bFennoscandia, as well as the life and customs of Laplanders (Sami). The results of the four-month journey were first outlined by Linnaeus in a short paper in 1732; the complete Flora lapponica, one of Linnaeus' most famous works, was published in 1737.
In 1734 Carl Linney made a trip to Swedish Dalecarlia province at the expense of the governor of this province, and later, having settled in Falun, he was engaged in mineralogy and assay business. Here he first engaged in medical practice, and also found a bride. The engagement of Linnaeus with the daughter of the doctor Moreus took place on the eve of the groom’s departure to Holland, where Linnaeus went as a doctor of medicine diploma to be able to support his family (requirement of the future father-in-law).
Having successfully defended his thesis on intermittent fever (paint brushes) at the University of Gardeweik on June 24, 1735, C. Linnaeus plunged into the study of Amsterdam's richest natural-science classrooms. Then he went to Leiden, where he published one of his most important works - Systema naturae (System of Nature, 1735). It was a compendium of the kingdoms of minerals, plants and animals, set out in tables of only 14 pages, however, in sheet format. Linnaeus distributed the plants into 24 classes, based on the classification of the number, size and location of stamens and pistils.
The new system turned out to be practical and made it possible to identify plants even for amateurs, especially since Linnaeus ordered the terms of descriptive morphology and introduced binary (binomial) nomenclature to designate species, which simplified the search and identification of plants and animals. Later Karl Linney supplemented his work, and the last lifetime (12th) edition consisted of 4 books and 2335 pages. Linnaeus himself recognized himself as the chosen one, who was called upon to interpret the plan of the Creator, but only the recognition of the famous Dutch doctor and naturalist Herman Burgava opened the way to glory for him.
After Leiden, Karl Linney lived in Amsterdam with the director of the Botanical Garden, studying plants and creating scientific papers. Soon, on the recommendation of Burgava, he got a place as a family doctor and head of a botanical garden with the director of the East India Company and the burgomaster of Amsterdam G. Clifffort. During the two years (1736-1737) spent in Hartekamp (near Haarlem), where the rich and plant lover Clifffort created an extensive collection of plants from around the world, Linnaeus published a number of works that brought him European fame and unquestioned authority among botanists. In a small book Fundamente Botanicc (Fundamentals of Botany), composed of 365 aphorisms (by the number of days in a year), Linnaeus outlined those principles and ideas that guided him in his work as a systematic botanist. In the famous aphorism “we have as many species as many different forms were created at first”, he expressed his belief in the constant number and immutability of species from the time of their creation (later he allowed the appearance of new species as a result of crosses between already existing species). Here is an interesting classification of the nerds themselves.
The works “Genera plantarun” (“Childbirth”) and “Critica Botanica” are devoted to the establishment and description of genera (994) and problems of the botanical nomenclature, and “Bibliotheca Botanica” to the botanical bibliography. The systematic description of Cliffort's botanical garden, by Hortus Cliffortianus (1737), compiled by Karl Linnaeus, has long become a model for such works. In addition, Linnaeus published "Ichthyology" of his untimely deceased friend Artedi, saving for science the work of one of the founders of ichthyology.
Returning to his homeland in the spring of 1738, Linnaeus married and settled in Stockholm, practicing medicine, teaching and science.
In 1739 he became one of the founders of the Royal Academy of Sciences and its first president, received the title of “Royal Botanist”.
In May 1741 Karl Linney traveled around Gotland and to the island of Oland, and in October of the same year, a lecture on the need to travel around the country began his professorship at Uppsala University. Many sought to study botany and medicine in Uppsala. The number of university students has tripled, and in the summer it increased many times thanks to the famous excursions that ended with a solemn procession and the loud proclamation of “Vivat Linnaeus!” By all its participants.
In 1742, Linnaeus restored the University Botanical Garden, which was almost destroyed by fire, with a particularly lively collection of Siberian plants. Here, rarities sent from all over the world by his traveling students were also cultivated.
In 1751, Philosophia Botanica (Philosophy of Botany) was published, and in 1753, probably the most significant and most important essay for Karl Linnaeus, was Species plantarum (Plant Species).
Surrounded by worship, showered with honors, elected an honorary member of many scientific societies and Academies, including St. Petersburg (1754), built in 1757 as a nobility, Linnaeus, in his declining years, acquired a small estate of Hammarby, where he spent time peacefully engaged in his own garden and collections . Karl Linney died in Uppsala in the seventy-first year.
In 1783, after the death of Linney’s son, Karl, his widow, she sold the herbarium, collections, manuscripts and the scientist’s library for 1,000 guineas to England. The Linnaeus Society was established in London in 1788, and its first president, J. Smith, became the chief curator of the collections. Called to become a center for the study of the scientific heritage of Linnaeus, it still plays this role.
Thanks to Carl Linnaeus, plant science has become one of the most popular in the second half of the 18th century. Linnaeus himself was recognized as the “head of the nerds,” although many contemporaries condemned the artificiality of his system. His merit was to streamline the almost chaotic variety of forms of living organisms into a clear and visible system. He described more than 10,000 species of plants and 4,400 species of animals (including Homo sapiens, Homo sapiens). Linnaeus's binomial nomenclature remains the basis of modern taxonomy.
The Linnean names of plants in Species plantarum (Plant Species, 1753) and animals in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae (1758) are legal, and both dates are officially recognized as the beginning of modern botanical and zoological nomenclature. The Linnean principle ensured the universality and continuity of the scientific names of plants and animals and ensured the flowering of taxonomy. Linnaeus' passion for taxonomy and classification was not limited to plants - he also classified minerals, soils, diseases, and human races. He wrote a number of medical works. Unlike scientific works written in Latin, Karl Linney wrote his travel notes in his native language. They are considered a model of this genre in Swedish prose. (A.K. Sytin)
More about Karl Linney:
Karl Linney, the famous Swedish natural scientist, was born in Sweden, in the village of Rosgult. He was a noble family, his ancestors were simple peasants; father Nile Linneus, was a poor rural priest. The year after the birth of his son, he received a more profitable parish in Stenbrogult, where Karl Linnaeus spent his entire childhood until the age of ten.
My father was a big lover of flowers and gardening; in the picturesque Stenbrogult he planted a garden, which soon became the first in the entire province. This garden and father’s activities, of course, played a significant role in the spiritual development of the future founder of scientific botany. The boy was given a special corner in the garden, several beds, where he was considered a complete master; they were called “Karl’s kindergarten”.
When the boy was ten years old, he was sent to elementary school in the town of Vexie. School activities of a gifted child went poorly; Karl continued to engage in botany with enthusiasm, and preparing lessons was tiring for him. My father was about to take the young man from the gymnasium, but the case pushed him with the local doctor Rothman. He was a good friend of the head of the school where Linnaeus began his teachings, and from him he knew about the exceptional talents of the boy. Rothman’s classes of the “underperforming” schoolboy went better. The doctor began to introduce him little by little to medicine and even - contrary to teachers' reviews - made him fall in love with Latin.
At the end of the gymnasium, Karl entered Lund University, but soon transferred from there to one of the most prestigious universities in Sweden - Uppsala. Linnaeus was only 23 years old when professor of botany Oluas Celsius took him as his assistant, after which he, while still a student, Karl began to teach at the university.
Very significant for the young scientist was a trip to Lapland. Karl Linney walked nearly 700 kilometers, collected significant collections, and as a result published his first book, Flora of Lapland.
In the spring of 1735 Linney arrived in Holland, to Amsterdam. In the small campus of Gardervik, he passed the exam and on June 24 he defended a dissertation on a medical subject - about the fever, which he wrote back in Sweden. The immediate goal of his journey was achieved, but Karl remained. Fortunately for itself and for science, a rich and highly cultured Holland remained a cradle for its ardent creative activity and its high-profile fame.
One of his new friends, Dr. Gronov, invited him to publish some work, then Linnaeus compiled and printed the first draft of his famous work, which laid the foundation for systematic zoology and botany in the modern sense. This was the first edition of his “Systema naturae”, which so far contained only 14 pages of a huge format, on which brief descriptions of minerals, plants and animals were grouped in tables. A series of quick scientific successes of Linnaeus begins with this publication.
His new works, published in 1736-1737, already contained in a more or less finished form his main and most fruitful ideas - a system of generic and specific names, improved terminology, and an artificial system of the plant kingdom.
At this time, he received a brilliant offer to become George Cliffort's personal physician with a salary of 1,000 guilders and full content. Clifffort was one of the directors of the East India Company (which flourished then and filled the Netherlands with wealth) and the burgomaster of the city of Amsterdam. And most importantly, Clifffort was a passionate gardener, a lover of botany and the natural sciences in general. His estate, Garte Campa, near Harlem, had a famous garden in Holland, in which, regardless of costs and tirelessly, he was engaged in the cultivation and acclimatization of foreign plants, - plants of southern Europe, Asia, Africa, America. At the garden he had both herbariums and a rich botanical library. All this contributed to the scientific work of Linnaeus.
Despite the successes that surrounded Linnaeus in Holland, he began to gradually pull home. In 1738 he returned to his homeland and faced with unexpected problems. He, accustomed in three years of foreign life to universal respect, friendship and tokens of the most prominent and famous people, at home, at home, was just a doctor without a place, without practice and without money, and no one cared for his scholarship . So Linnaeus the nerd gave way to Linnaeus the doctor, and his favorite activities were temporarily abandoned by him.
However, already in 1739, the Swedish Diet allocated to him one hundred ducats of annual content with an obligation to teach botany and mineralogy. At the same time, he was awarded the title of “Royal Botanist”. In the same year, Karl Linney received the position of Admiralty Doctor in Stockholm: this position opened up a wide scope of his medical activity.
Finally, K. Linney found the opportunity to marry, and on June 26, 1739, a five-year postponed wedding took place. Alas, as is often the case with people of outstanding talent, his wife was the exact opposite of her husband. An ill-mannered, rude and grumpy woman, without mental interests, in her husband’s brilliant activities, she valued only the material side, it was a mistress wife, a cook wife. In economic matters, she held power in the house and in this respect had a bad influence on her husband, developing in him a tendency to stinginess. There was a lot of sadness in their relationship in the family. Linnaeus had one son and several daughters, the mother loved daughters, and they grew up under her influence uneducated and petty girls of the bourgeois family. To his son, a gifted boy, his mother had a strange dislike, in every possible way pursued him and tried to restore his father against him. The latter, however, did not succeed: Linnaeus loved his son and with passion developed in him those inclinations for which he himself suffered so much in childhood.
In the short period of his Stockholm life, Karl Linney took part in the founding of the Stockholm Academy of Sciences. It emerged as a private community of several individuals, and the initial number of its full members was only six. At its first meeting, Linnaeus was appointed by lot by president.
In 1742, Linnaeus's dream came true and he became a professor of botany at his home university. The Botanical Department in Uppsala acquired an unusual brilliance at Linnaeus, which she never had, either before or after. All his other life passed in this city almost without a break. He occupied the department for more than thirty years and left it only shortly before his death.
His financial situation becomes strong, Karl has the good fortune to see the complete triumph of his scientific ideas, the rapid spread and widespread acceptance of his teachings. The name of Linnaeus was considered among the first names of that time: people such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau respected him. External successes and honors fell on him from all sides. In that century — the century of enlightened absolutism and philanthropists — scholars were in fashion, and Karl Linnaeus was one of those progressive minds of the last century on which courtesies of sovereigns poured.
The scientist bought a small estate of Gammarba near Uppsala, where he spent the summer in the last 15 years of his life. Foreigners who came to study under his leadership, rented an apartment in a neighboring village.
Of course now Karl Linney stopped practicing medicine, was engaged only in scientific research. He described all medicinal plants known at that time and studied the effect of drugs made from them. Interestingly, these classes, which seemed to fill all his time, Linnaeus successfully combined with others. It was at this time that he invented the thermometer, using the Celsius temperature scale.
But the main thing in his life, Linnaeus still considered the systematization of plants. The main work, Plant System, took as long as 25 years, and only in 1753 did he publish his main work.
The scientist decided to systematize the entire plant world of the Earth. At the time when Karl Linney began his activities, zoology was in a period of exceptional predominance of taxonomy. The task, which she then set for herself, consisted in a simple acquaintance with all breeds of animals living on the globe, without regard to their internal structure and to the connection of individual forms with each other; The subject of zoological writings of that time was a simple enumeration and description of all known animals.
Thus, zoology and botany of that time were mainly engaged in the study and description of species, but there was boundless confusion in their recognition. The descriptions that the author gave to new animals or plants were usually so confused and inaccurate. The second main drawback of the then science was the lack of a tolerable and accurate classification.
These basic shortcomings of systematic zoology and botany were corrected by the genius of Linnaeus. Remaining on the same basis of the study of nature on which his predecessors and contemporaries stood, he was a powerful reformer of science. His merit is purely methodological. He did not discover new areas of knowledge and laws of nature unknown until then, but he created a new method, clear, logical, and with the help of it brought light and order to where chaos and turmoil reigned before him, which gave a huge impetus to science, paving the way in a powerful way for further research. This was a necessary step in science, without which further progress would not have been possible.
The scientist proposed binary nomenclature - a system for the scientific naming of plants and animals. Based on the peculiarities of the structure, he divided all the plants into 24 classes, highlighting also individual genera and species. Each name, in his opinion, should consist of two words - generic and species designations.
Despite the fact that the principle applied by him was quite skilled, it turned out to be very convenient and became generally accepted in the scientific classification, retaining its significance in our time. But in order for the new nomenclature to be fruitful, it was necessary that the species that received the conditional name, at the same time, be so accurately and thoroughly described that they could not be mixed with other species of the same genus. Karl Linnaeus did this: he was the first to introduce a strictly defined, exact language and exact definition of features into science. His essay, Fundamental Botany, published in Amsterdam during his life with Cliffort and representing the result of seven years of work, sets out the foundations of the botanical terminology that he used to describe plants.
The Linnaean zoological system did not play such a large role in science as the botanical one, although in some respects it was superior to it as less artificial, but it did not represent its main advantages in terms of determination. Linnaeus was little familiar with anatomy.
The work of Karl Linnaeus gave a huge impetus to the systematic botany of zoology. The developed terminology and convenient nomenclature made it easier to cope with a huge material, which was so difficult to understand before. Soon, all classes of plants and the animal kingdom were thoroughly studied in a systematic way, and the number of species described increased from hour to hour.
Later, Karl Linney applied his principle to the classification of all nature, in particular minerals and rocks. He also became the first scientist to classify humans and monkeys in the same group of animals - primates. As a result of his observations, the naturalist compiled yet another book - The System of Nature. Linnaeus worked on it all his life, from time to time reprinting his work. In total, the scientist prepared 12 editions of this work, which from a small book gradually turned into a voluminous multivolume edition
The last years of Karl Linney’s life were overshadowed by senility and decrepitude. He died on January 10, 1778, in the seventy-first year of his life.
After his death, the department of botany at Uppsala University was received by his son, who zealously set about continuing the work of his father. But in 1783 he suddenly fell ill and died in the forty-second year of his life. The son was not married, and with his death, the family of Linnaeus in the male generation ceased.
More about Karl Linney from another source:
Linney (Carolus Linnaeus, since 1762 Carl Linne) - the famous Swedish natural scientist, genus. in Sweden, in Smaland, in the village of Rashult in 1707. From early childhood, Karl Linney showed a great love for nature, this was greatly facilitated by the fact that his father, a village priest, was a lover of flowers and gardening.
Karl’s parents prepared for the clergy and sent to elementary school in Wexio, where he stayed from 1717 to 1724, but the school was not doing well. On the advice of the school authorities, who recognized Karl as incapable, his father wanted to take his son from school and give him training in craft, but his acquaintance, Dr. Rothmann, convinced him to let his son prepare for medicine. Rothmann, from whom Karl Linnaeus settled, began to acquaint him with medicine and with works on natural history.
In 1724-27, Karl Linney studied at the gymnasium in Vexia, and then entered the university in Lund, but in 1728 he moved to the university in Uppsala to listen to the famous professors: Rogberg and Rudbeck. His financial situation was extremely difficult, but then he met support in the scholarly theologian and botanist Olaus Celsius.
The first article by Karl Linnaeus on the field of plants (handwritten) attracted the attention of Rudbeck and in 1730, at his suggestion, Linnaeus was given part of the lectures of Rudbeck. In 1732, the scientific community in Uppsala commissioned Karl to explore the nature of Lapland and provided funds for travel, after which Linnaeus published the first printed work: Florula Lapponica (1732). However, K. Linnaeus, who did not have a diploma, was supposed to leave Uppsala University.
Karl Linnaeus traveled to Dalecarlia in 1734 with several young people, mainly at the expense of the governor of the province, Reuterholm, and then settled in the city of Falun, giving lectures on mineralogy and assay art and practicing medical practice. Here he became engaged to the daughter of Dr. Moreus and partly to his own savings, partly to the funds of the future father-in-law went to Holland, where in 1735 he defended his thesis (on intermittent fever) in the city of Garderwick.
Then Karl Linney settled in Leiden and published the first edition of his Systema naturae (1735) with the assistance of Gronov, whom he met in Holland. This composition immediately brought him fame and brought him close to the then famous professor of Leiden University, Burger (Boerhave), thanks to which Linnaeus got the position of a family doctor and head of the botanical garden in Hartkamp with a rich man, director of the East Indian company, Clifffort. It was here that Linnaeus settled.
In 1736, he visited London and Oxford, met with prominent English naturalists of that time, with rich collections of the Elephant (Sloane), etc. During the two-year service at Cliffort (1736-1737), Karl Linney published a number of works that brought him great fame in the scientific world and embodying the main reforms that Linnaeus introduced into science: Hortus cliffortianus, Fundamenta botanica, Critica botanica, Genera plantarum (1737), followed by the work of Classes plantarum (1738).
In 1738, Karl Linney published an essay on the ichthyology of his friend Artedi (or Peter Arctadius), who died in Amsterdam. Despite the huge success in Holland, Karl returned to Sweden, visiting Paris. Having settled in Stockholm, at first he was in poverty, practicing poor medical practice, but he soon gained fame and began to treat high-ranking officials in the court and in the houses. In 1739, the Seimas appropriated annual content to him, with an obligation to give lectures on botany and mineralogy, and Karl Linney received the title of “Royal Botanist”. In the same year, he received the post of Admiralty doctor, who, in addition to material security, gave him the opportunity to study rich clinical material, and at the same time he was allowed to dissect the bodies of people who died in the hospital.
In Stockholm Carl Linney took part in the founding of the Academy of Sciences (originally private society) and was its first president. In 1741, he managed to get the department of anatomy and medicine in Uppsala, and the next year he changed chairs with Rosen, who two years earlier had taken up the department of botany in Uppsala. In Uppsala, he brought the Botanical Garden to a brilliant state, founded the Natural History Museum in 1745, published Fauna Suecica in 1746, and Philosophia botanica in 1750.
At the same time, Karl Linney published a number of editions of his Systema naturae, gradually supplementing, expanding and improving it (the 2nd edition was published in 1740 in Stockholm, the 12th and the last - during the life of Linnaeus in 1766 - 68, and after of his death, Gmelin issued in Leipzig a new, partly amended edition in 1788).
Karl Linney’s teaching was also a huge success, the number of students from Uppsala University increased from 500 to 1500 thanks to Linnaeus. Many foreigners came to listen to him, with his students he took excursions in the vicinity of Uppsala, and many of his students were later given the opportunity to conduct research in various countries. Proud of Carl Linnaeus as an outstanding scientific force, the Swedish kings showered him with honors, in 1757 he received the nobility, in which he was established in 1762 (and his name was remade in Linne).
Karl Linney received honorary and advantageous offers in Madrid, Petersburg (even earlier in 1741 Albrecht Galler offered him to take a chair in Göttingen), but rejected them. In 1763, Linnaeus was elected a member of the French Academy. In 1774, a blow was struck with him, and two years later a new one deprived him of the opportunity to continue his activities and he died in 1778.
In recent years, Karl Linney lived in the Gammarby estate (Nammarby), giving lectures to his son Karl, who after his death took up the Department of Botany in Uppsala, but died almost at the beginning of his scientific career, in 1783. Linney's collections and library were sold after his death to England (Smith) by his wife.
The scientific merit of Carl Linnaeus is extremely important. He introduced precise terminology in the descriptions of plants and animals, while before him the descriptions were so uncertain and confused that it was impossible to accurately determine animals and plants, and descriptions of new forms more and more confused because it was impossible to decide whether this form really was described earlier.
Another important merit of Carl Linnaeus is the introduction of a double nomenclature: each species Linnaeus designates in two terms: the name of the genus and the name of the species (e.g. tiger, leopard, wild cat belong to the genus cat (Felis) and are denoted by the names Felis tigris, Felis pardus, Felis catus). This brief accurate nomenclature replaced the previous descriptions, diagnoses, which denoted individual forms in the absence of exact names for them, and thereby eliminated many difficulties.
Karl Linney made his first application in the work “Pan suecicus” (1749). At the same time, taking the concept of species as the starting point in systematics (which Linnaeus considered constant), Karl accurately defined the relationship between different systematic groups (class, order, genus, species and variety - before him these names were used incorrectly and did not contacted certain submissions). At the same time, he gave a new classification for plants, which although it was artificial (which Linnaeus himself recognized), it was very convenient for putting in order the accumulated factual material (the scientist pointed out in Philosophia botanica the natural plant groups corresponding to modern families ; in some cases, he even retreated from his system, not wanting to violate the natural relationships of known species).
Karl Linney divided the animal kingdom into 6 classes: mammals, birds, reptiles (\u003d modern reptiles + amphibians), fish, insects (\u003d modern type of arthropods) and worms. The most unfortunate is the last group, combining representatives of the most diverse groups. The Linnaeus system also concludes some improvements compared with the previous ones (for example, cetaceans are classified as mammals). But, although in his classification he kept mainly external signs, his division into main groups is based on anatomical facts.
Carrying out these reforms in taxonomy, Linnaeus tidied up all the factual material on botany and zoology that had accumulated before him and was in a chaotic state, and thereby greatly contributed to the further growth of scientific knowledge.
Carl Linney - quotes
In natural science, principles must be corroborated by observation. 
The eternal, infinite, omniscient and omnipotent God passed me by. I did not see Him face to face, but the reflection of the Divine filled my soul with silent surprise. I saw the trace of God in His creation; and everywhere, even in His smallest and most inconspicuous works, what kind of power, what kind of wisdom, what kind of indescribable perfection! I watched how animated beings, standing at the highest level, are connected with the kingdom of plants, and plants, in turn, with minerals that are in the bowels of the globe, and how the globe itself gravitates towards the sun and rotates around it in an unchanging order, getting life from him. The system of nature.
Nature does not make a leap.
Using art, nature works wonders.
Minerals exist, plants live and grow, animals live, grow and feel.
By the 18th century scientists and nature lovers have done a great job collecting and describing plants and animals around the world. But it became increasingly difficult to navigate in the ocean of information accumulated by them. The Swedish naturalist Karl Linney summarized and brought this knowledge into the system. He laid the foundations of modern taxonomy.
Karl Linney was born on May 23, 1707 in the family of a village priest. Karl’s mother from childhood instilled in him a love for all living things, especially for flowers.
But the future president of the Swedish Academy of Sciences remained very indifferent to schoolwork. The Latin language was not given to him in any way. Teachers said that education, apparently, was not enough for a boy - it is better to teach him some profession. The angry father decided to give Carl to study with the shoemaker.
And Liina would have expected a career in shoe-making from the master, if the doctor who had not known had persuaded the father of the boy to let him study medicine. In addition, he helped Karl graduate from high school.
Karl studied medicine and biology at universities in the Swedish cities of Lund and Uppsala. He lived in his student years poorly.
When Karl was 25 years old, the leadership of Uppsala University invited him to go on a scientific trip to northern Scandinavia - Lapland, to explore its nature. He carried all his luggage on his shoulders. During this trip, he ate what he had to, barely got out of the swamp swamps, fought against mosquitoes. And once he faced the enemy more seriously - a robber who nearly killed him. Despite all the obstacles, Linnaeus collected samples of Lapland plants.
In his homeland, Linnaeus could not find a permanent job in his specialty, and for several years he moved to Holland, where he was in charge of one of the best botanical gardens in the country.
Here he received the doctorate, here in 1735 his most famous work, The System of Nature, was published. During the life of Linnaeus, 12 editions of this book were published. All this time, Linnaeus constantly supplemented it and increased its volume from 14 pages to 3 volumes.
Karl Linney System:
The concept of the form.
To “sort through” a huge number of descriptions of plants and animals, some sort of taxonomy was needed. Linnaeus considered the species to be such a unit common to all living things. Linnaeus named the group of individuals similar to each other as children of the same parents and their children. The species consists of many similar individuals giving fertile offspring. For example, forest raspberries are one species, bone is another, cloudberries are a third kind of plant. All domestic cats comprise one species, tigers - another, lions - the third animal species. Consequently, the entire organic world consists of various species of plants and animals. All wildlife consists, as it were, of separate links - species.
Linnaeus discovered and described about 1,500 species of plants and over 400 species of animals, he distributed all kinds of plants and animals into large groups - classes, he divided each class into groups, each group into genera. Each genus Linnaeus was composed of similar species.
Nomenclature.
Linnaeus began to give names to the species in the very Latin that was given so badly to him in his school years. Latin was at that time the international language of science. Thus, Linnaeus solved a difficult problem: after all, when the names were given in different languages, the same species could be described under many names.
A very important merit of Linnaeus was the introduction into practice of double names of species (binary nomenclature). He suggested calling each species in two words. The first is the name of the genus, which includes related species. For example, a lion, a tiger, a domestic cat belong to the genus Felis (Cat). The second word is the name of the species itself (respectively Felis leo, Felis tigris, Felis do-mestica). In the same way, European Spruce and Tien Shan (Blue) Spruce species are combined into the Spruce genus, and the Hare and Hare species in the Hare species. Thanks to the double nomenclature, the similarity, commonality, unity of the species forming one genus is revealed.
Systematics of animals.
Linnaeus divided the animals into 6 classes:
Mammals
Amphibians (in this class he placed amphibians and reptiles)
Insects
Among the "worms" were mollusks, jellyfish, and a variety of worms, and all microorganisms (the latter Linnaeus united in a single genus - Chaos infusorium).
The man (whom he called “Homo sapiens”, Homo sapiens) Linnaeus quite boldly for his time placed in the class of mammals and a squad of primates, along with monkeys. He did this 120 years before C. Darwin. He did not consider that man descended from other primates, but saw a great resemblance in their structure.
Systematics of plants.
Linnaeus approached the systematization of plants in more detail than the systematization of animals. Among the plants, he identified 24 classes. Linnaeus understood that the most essential and characteristic part of the plant is the flower. To the 1st class, he attributed plants with one stamen in a flower, to the 2nd - with two, to the 3rd - with three, etc. Mushrooms, lichens, algae, horsetails, ferns - in general, all, deprived of flowers, were in the 24th grade (“secret-married”).
The artificiality of Linnaeus taxonomy.
The system of plants and animals of Linnaeus was largely artificial. Distant plants (for example, carrots and currants) ended up in the same class only because their flowers have the same number of stamens. Many related plants ended up in different classes. Linnaeus' systematics is artificial, also because it helped to recognize plants and animals, but did not reflect the course of the historical development of the world.
Linnaeus was aware of this flaw in his system. He believed that future naturalists should create a natural system of plants and animals, which should take into account all the characteristics of organisms, and not one or two signs. Trying to develop a natural plant system, Linnaeus was convinced that the science of that time did not have the knowledge necessary for this.
Despite the artificiality, the Linnaeus system played a positive role in biology. The systematic divisions and dual nomenclature proposed by Linnaeus are firmly established in science and are used in modern botany and zoology. Later, two more units were introduced:
Type - the highest unit uniting similar classes;
Family - bringing together similar births
Innovation Linnaeus.
Karl Linney has reformed the botanical language. He first proposed plant names such as a corolla, anther, nectary, ovary, stigma, filament, receptacle, perianth. In total, K. Linney introduced about a thousand terms to botany.
Linnaeus looks at nature.
Science at that time was under the influence of religion. Linnaeus was an idealist, he argued that in nature there are so many species of plants and animals, "how many different forms the almighty produced in the beginning of the world." Linnaeus believed that plant and animal species did not change; they retained their characteristics "from the moment of creation." According to Linnaeus, each modern species is the offspring of the original god-created parent pair. Each species reproduces, but retains, in his opinion, unchanged all the features of this ancestral pair.
As a good observer, Linnaeus could not help but see the contradiction between the ideas about the complete immutability of plants and animals with what is observed in nature. He allowed the formation of species within the species due to the influence of climate change on organisms and other external conditions.
The idealistic and metaphysical doctrine of the creation and immutability of species prevailed in biology until the beginning of the 19th century, until it was refuted as a result of the discovery of many evidence of evolution.
The outstanding scientist Karl Linney was born in 1707 in Sweden. The most famous was brought to him by the classification system of the living world. She had and is of great importance for all biology. The researcher traveled a lot around the world. Karl Linney's contribution to biology is also expressed in the definition of many important concepts and terms.
Childhood and youth
Little Karl became interested in plants and the whole living world in early childhood. This was due to the fact that his father was courting his own garden in the backyard of the house. The child was so keen on plants that it affected his studies. His parents were from the families of priests. Both father and mother wanted Karl to become a shepherd. However, the son did not study theology well. Instead, he spent his free time studying plants.
Parents at first were wary of their hobbies. However, in the end, they agreed that Karl went to study as a doctor. In 1727, he ended up at Lund University, and a year later transferred to Uppsala University, which was larger and more prestigious. There he met with Peter Arthady. Young guys became best friends. Together they took up the revision of the existing classification in the natural sciences.
Also, Karl Linney met Professor Olof Celsius. This meeting was of great importance to the beginning scientist. Celsius became his companion and helped in difficult times. The contribution of Carl Linnaeus to biology is concluded not only in his later, but even in his youthful works. For example, during these years he published his first monograph, which was devoted to the reproductive system of plants.
Naturalist Travels
In 1732, Karl Linney went to Lapland. This journey was dictated by several goals. The scientist wanted to enrich his knowledge with practical experience. Theoretical work and long research in the walls of the office could not continue indefinitely.
Lapland is a harsh northern province in Finland, which at that time was part of Sweden. The uniqueness of these lands was a rare flora and fauna, unknown to the average European of that era. Linnaeus traveled alone for five months around this distant land, researching plants, animals and minerals. The result of the voyage was a colossal herbarium collected by a naturalist. Many exhibits were unique and unknown to science. Karl Linney began to describe them from scratch. This experience helped him a lot in the future. After the expedition, he published several works on nature, plants, animals, etc. These publications were extremely popular in Sweden. Thanks to Carl Linnaeus, the country was able to learn a lot about itself.
This was also due to the fact that the scientist published ethnographic descriptions of the life and customs of the Sami. The isolated people lived for centuries in the Far North, practically not in contact with the rest of civilization. Many of Linnaeus's notes are especially interesting today, since the original life of the then inhabitants of the North remained in the past.
Sami items, plants, shells and minerals collected on that journey became the foundation of the scientist’s vast collection. She replenished until his death. Having traveled to various parts of the world, he collected artifacts everywhere, which he then carefully stored. This is about 19 thousand plants, 3 thousand insects, hundreds of minerals, shells and corals. Such a legacy shows how great Karl Linnaeus contributed to biology (especially for his era).
"System of nature"
In 1735, the System of Nature was published in the Netherlands. This work of Linnaeus is his main merit and success. He divided nature into several parts and gave the order of classification of the entire living world. The zoological nomenclature proposed in the tenth lifetime edition of the author gave science binomial names. Now they are used everywhere. They are written in Latin and reflect the species and genus of the animal.
Thanks to this book, a systematic method triumphed in all science (not only in zoology or botany). Each living creature received characteristics according to which it was attributed to the kingdom (for example, to animals), group, genus, species, etc. Karl Linney's contribution to biology is difficult to overestimate. Only during the author’s lifetime, this book was published 13 times (additions and clarifications were entered).
"Types of plants"
As mentioned above, plants were a special passion of the Swedish scientist. Botany was the discipline to which many outstanding researchers, including Karl Linnaeus, devoted their work. The contribution to science of the biology of this naturalist is reflected in his book “Plant Species”. It appeared in print in 1753 and was divided into two volumes. The publication became the basis for all subsequent nomenclature in botany.
The book contained detailed descriptions of all types of plants known to science at that time. Particular attention was paid to the reproductive system (pistils and stamens). In “Species of plants” was used the binomial nomenclature, which was successfully applied in the past works of the scientist. After the first edition, the second followed, on which Karl Linnaeus worked directly. The contribution to biology, briefly described in each textbook, has made this science extremely popular. Linnaeus left a galaxy of students who successfully continued the work of the teacher. So, for example, Karl Vildenov after the death of the author supplemented this book, based on the principles developed by the Swedish naturalist. The contribution that Karl Linney made to biology is fundamental to this science today.
last years of life
In the last years of his life, Karl Linney was almost inoperative. In 1774, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, due to which the researcher was partially paralyzed. After a second blow, he lost his memory and soon died. It happened in 1778. During his lifetime, Linnaeus became a recognized scientist and national pride. He was buried in the Uppsala Cathedral, where he studied in his youth.
The scientist's final work was the multivolume edition of his lectures for students. Teaching turned out to be the area to which Karl Linnaeus devoted much time and energy. Contribution to biology (every educated person knew about him briefly during the life of a naturalist) made him an authority in various European higher education institutions.
In addition to his main activities, the researcher also devoted himself to the classification of odors. He based his system on seven main scents, such as cloves, musk, etc., who became the creator of the famous scale, left behind an apparatus that showed 100 degrees at the freezing point of water. Zero, on the contrary, meant boiling. Linnaeus, who often used the scale, found this option uncomfortable. He “flipped” it. It is in this form that the scale exists today. Therefore, the contribution of Carl Linnaeus to the development of biology is not the only thing the scientist is famous for.
Carl Linney (Swede. Carl Linnaeus, 1707-1778) - an outstanding Swedish scientist, naturalist and physician, professor at Uppsala University. He laid down the principles of the classification of nature, dividing it into three kingdoms. The merit of the great scientist was the detailed descriptions of plants left by him and one of the most successful artificial classifications of plants and animals. He introduced the concept of a taxon into science and proposed a binary nomenclature method, and also built a system of the organic world based on a hierarchical principle.
Childhood and youth
Karl Linney was born on May 23, 1707 in the Swedish city of Roshult in the family of rural pastor Nicholas Linneus. He was so enthusiastic florist that he changed his former surname Ingemarson to a Latinized version of Linneus from the name of a huge linden tree (in Swedish Lind), which grew near the house. Despite the great desire of the parents to see their firstborn as a priest, he was attracted from a young age by the natural sciences, and especially botany.
When the son was two years old, the family moved to the neighboring city of Stenbrohult, but the future scientist studied in the town of Vekshe - first at the local grammar school, and then at the gymnasium. The main subjects - ancient languages \u200b\u200band theology - were not easy for Karl. But the young man with his head was passionate about mathematics and botany. For the sake of the latter, he often skipped classes in order to study plants under natural conditions. He also mastered Latin with great difficulty, and then for the sake of being able to read Pliny in the original “Natural History”. On the advice of Dr. Rothman, who taught logic and medicine with Carl, his parents decided to give his son to study as a doctor.
Studying at the University
In 1727, Linney successfully passed the exams at Lund University. Here, the greatest impressions were made by the lectures of Professor C. Stobeus, who helped to replenish and systematize Karl's knowledge. During the first year of study, he scrupulously studied the flora of the surroundings of Lund and created a catalog of rare plants. However, Linnaeus did not study at Lund for long: on the advice of Rothman, he transferred to Uppsala University, which had a greater medical bias. However, the level of teaching in both educational institutions was below the capabilities of the student Linnaeus, so most of the time he was engaged in self-education. In 1730, he began teaching in the botanical garden as a demonstrator and was a great success among students.
However, the benefit of staying in Uppsala was still. Within the walls of the university, Linnaeus meets Professor O. Celsius, who sometimes helped a poor student with money and Professor W. Rudbeck Jr., on whose advice he went on a trip to Lapland. In addition, his fate brought him together with a student P. Artedi, in co-authorship with whom the natural-historical classification will be revised.
In 1732, Karl traveled to Lapland to study in detail the three kingdoms of nature - plants, animals and minerals. He also collected large ethnographic material, including about the life of Aboriginal people. Following the trip, Linnaeus wrote a short review work, which in 1737 was released in an expanded version called "Flora Lapponica." The aspiring scientist continued his research activities in 1734, when, at the invitation of the local governor, he went to Delecarli. After that, he moved to Falun, where he was engaged in assaying and the study of minerals.
Dutch period
In 1735, Linnaeus went to the shores of the North Sea as a doctor of medicine degree. This trip took place, including at the insistence of his future father-in-law. Having defended his thesis at the University of Garderwijk, Karl enthusiastically studied the natural sciences of Amsterdam, and then went to Leiden, where one of his fundamental works, Systema naturae, was published. In it, the author presented the distribution of plants into 24 classes, laying the foundation for the classification according to the number, size, and location of stamens and pistils. Later, the work will be constantly updated, and during the life of Linnaeus will be released 12 editions.
The created system turned out to be very accessible even for lay people, making it easy to identify plants and animals. Its author was aware of his special mission, calling himself the chosen one of the Creator, who was called to give an interpretation of his plans. In addition, in Holland he writes “Bibliotheca Botanica”, which systematizes the literature on botany, “Genera plantraum” with a description of plant genera, “Classes plantraum” - a comparison of various plant classifications with the author’s system and a number of other works.
Homecoming
Returning to Sweden, Linnaeus engaged in medical practice in Stockholm and quickly entered the royal court. The reason was the cure of several maids of honor decoction of yarrow. He widely used healing plants in his activity, in particular, he treated gout with strawberries. The scientist made a lot of efforts to create the Royal Academy of Sciences (1739), became its first president and was awarded the title of “Royal Botanist”.
In 1742, Linnaeus fulfills a long-held dream and becomes a professor of botany in his alma mater. Under him, the Department of Botany at Uppsala University (Karl headed it for more than 30 years) gained great respect and authority. An important role in his studies was played by the Botanical Garden, where several thousand plants were grown, collected literally from around the world. "In the natural sciences, principles must be supported by observation."said Linnaeus. At this time, real success and fame came to the scientist: Karl was admired by many prominent contemporaries, including Rousseau. In the Age of Enlightenment, scientists like Linnaeus were in fashion.
Having settled in his estate of Gammarba near Uppsala, Karl retreated from medical practice and plunged into science with his head. He managed to describe all the medicinal plants known at that time and to study the effect on humans of the medicines made from them. In 1753, he published his main work, The System of Plants, on which he worked for a quarter of a century.
Linnea's scientific contribution
Linnaeus was able to correct the existing shortcomings of botany and zoology, whose mission previously was reduced to a simple description of objects. The scientist forced everyone to take a fresh look at the goals of these sciences by classifying objects and developing a system for recognizing them. The main merit of Linnaeus is related to the field of methodology - he did not discover new laws of nature, but he was able to streamline the already accumulated knowledge. The scientist proposed a method of binary nomenclature, according to which animals and plants were given names. He divided nature into three kingdoms and applied four ranks to systematize it - classes, orders, species and genera.
Linnaeus distributed all plants into 24 classes in accordance with the peculiarities of their structure and identified their genus and species. In the second edition of the book “Plant Species,” he described 1260 genera and 7540 plant species. The scientist was convinced that the plants have sex and laid the foundation for the classification of the structural features of stamens and pistils that he highlighted. When using the names of plants and animals, it was necessary to use the generic and species name. This approach put an end to the chaos in the classification of flora and fauna, and over time became an important tool for determining the kinship of individual species. In order for the new nomenclature to be convenient to use and not cause ambiguity, the author described each species in detail, introducing the exact terminological language into science, which he described in detail in the work “Fundamental Botany”.
At the end of his life, Linnaeus tried to apply his principle of systematization to all nature, including rocks and minerals. He became the first to classify humans and monkeys as a general group of primates. Moreover, the Swedish scientist was never a supporter of the evolutionary trend and believed that the first organisms were created in some kind of paradise. He sharply criticized supporters of the idea of \u200b\u200bspecies variability, calling it a departure from biblical traditions. “Nature does not make a leap,” the scientist repeated more than once.
In 1761, after four years of waiting, Linnaeus received the noble title. This allowed him to slightly modify the name in the French manner (von Linne) and create his own coat of arms, the central elements of which became three symbols of the kingdoms of nature. Linnaeus has the idea of \u200b\u200bmaking a thermometer, for the creation of which he applied the Celsius scale. For his numerous services in 1762, the scientist was accepted into the ranks of the Paris Academy of Sciences.
In the last years of his life, Karl was seriously ill and suffered several strokes. He died in his own house in Uppsala on January 10, 1778, and was buried in the local cathedral.
The scientific legacy of the scientist was presented in the form of a huge collection, including a collection of shells, minerals and insects, two herbariums and a huge library. Despite the family disputes that arose, she went to the eldest son of Linnaeus and his full namesake, who continued the work of his father and did everything to save this collection. After his premature death, she came to the English naturalist John Smith, who founded the London Linnean Society in the British capital.
Personal life
The scientist was married to Sarah Lisa Morena, whom she met in 1734, the daughter of a Falun city doctor. The romance proceeded very rapidly, and two weeks later Karl decided to make her an offer. In the spring of 1735, they rather modestly became engaged, after which Karl left for Holland to defend his dissertation. Due to various circumstances, their wedding took place only 4 years later in the family farm of the bride's family. Linnaeus became a father of many children: he had two sons and five daughters, of whom two children died in infancy. In honor of his wife and father-in-law, the scientist named Moraea a genus of perennial plants from the Iris family, native to South Africa.