14 Facts About Leonhart Fuchs

Leonhart Fuchs was born in 1501 in Wemding, near Donauworth in Donau-Ries in the then Duchy of Bavaria, as the youngest son of Johann Leonhart Fuchs and his wife Anna Denten.

Leonhart Fuchs's father was the town Burgomaster, and both parents came from families of municipal councillors.

Leonhart Fuchs's father died prematurely in 1506, leaving Leonhart to be brought up by his mother and grandfather, an earlier Burgomaster.

Leonhart Fuchs's family considered him gifted, but felt that local schools could not provide him with the education he needed.

Leonhart Fuchs was called to Tubingen by Ulrich, Duke of Wurttemberg in 1533 to help in reforming the University of Tubingen in the spirit of humanism.

Leonhart Fuchs created its first medicinal garden in 1535 and served as chancellor seven times, spending the last thirty-one years of his life as professor of medicine.

Leonhart Fuchs criticized the confusion in nomenclature which led to the production of medicines that did not demonstrate the alleged effects.

Leonhart Fuchs rebutted "Arabist" criticisms of the work in his Paradoxorum medicinae, an expanded version of the Errata.

Leonhart Fuchs wanted to fight the Arab hegemony in medicine, as it had been transmitted by the Medical School of Salerno, and to "return" to the Greek authors.

Leonhart Fuchs argued in favour of a return to using herbes medicinales, in contrast to the arcane and often noxious "compounds" of medieval prescribing.

Leonhart Fuchs founded one of the first German botanical gardens.

Leonhart Fuchs, a famous doctor and botanist, was born here.

Leonhart Fuchs published the first description of "Fuchsia triphylla, flore coccineo" in 1703.

Leonhart Fuchs is recognised in the specific epithet of the a plant widespread over Europe and northern Asia: the common spotted orchid, Dactylorhiza fuchsii.