Johann Jakob Scheuchzer

Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (2 August 1672 – 23 June 1733) was a Swiss physician and natural scientist born at Zürich. His most famous work was the Physica sacra in four volumes which was a commentary on the Bible and his views on the world demonstrating a convergence of science and religion. It was filled with copperplate etchings and came to be called the Kupfer-Bibel or "Copper Bible". He supported Biblical creation but his support for a Copernican heliocentric system forced him to print his works outside Switzerland. He supported Neptunism and considered fossils as evidence for the Biblical deluge. A fossil from Ohningen that he identified as a human drowned by the Flood was later identified as a Miocene salamander which was named after him as Andrias scheuchzeri.
Life and career
The son of the namesake senior town physician (Archiater) of Zürich and Barbara Fäsi, daughter of the principal of the Latin school, he received his education in Zürich and, in 1692, went to the University of Altdorf near Nuremberg, being intended for the medical profession. Early in 1694, he took his degree of doctor in medicine at the University of Utrecht, and then returned to Altdorf, Germany to complete his mathematical studies. He studied astronomy under Georg Eimmart. He went back to Zürich in 1696 (following the death of the town physician Johann Jakob Wagner in 1695) and was made junior town physician (Poliater) with the promise of the professorship of mathematics which he duly obtained in 1710. From 1697 he was a secretary at the Collegium der Wohlgesinnten where he gave lectures on philosophy. He also worked as a curator of the Kunstkammer (natural history cabinet) of the city of Zürich. He corresponded widely with other scholars and published in the transactions of the Royal Society where he was elected a Fellow on November 30, 1703 seconded by John Woodward (1665–1728) with whom he shared Neptunist views. He married Susanna Vogel and they had nearly nine children but only a few lived to adulthood. He was promoted to the chair of physics, with the office of senior city physician, in January 1733, only a few months before his death on 23 June.
Published works
Scheuchzer wrote extensively to Nova literaria Helvetica, the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and started his own periodicals, Beschreibung der Natur-Geschichten des Schweizerlands and Historischer und politischer Mercurius. He also published works (apart from numerous articles) were estimated at thirty-four in number. He corresponded extensively across Europe with nearly 800 correspondents. These included the theologian Hortensia von Moos, and his many students such as Antonio Picenino (and his father Giacomo Picenino) with whom he went on alpine excursions. His historical writings are mostly still in manuscript. The more important of his published writings relate either to his scientific observations (all branches) or to his journeys, in the course of which he collected materials for these scientific works.
Scientific works
In the former category is his self-published Beschreibung der Naturgeschichte des Schweitzerlandes (3 vols., Zürich, 1706–1708), the third volume containing an account in German of his journey of 1705; a new edition of this book and, with important omissions, of his 1723 work, was issued, in 2 vols, in 1746, by JG Sulzer, under the title of Naturgeschichte des Schweitzerlandes sammt seinen Reisen über die schweitzerischen Gebirge, and his Helvetiae historia naturalis oder Naturhistorie des Schweitzerlandes (published in 3 vols, at Zürich, 1716–1718, and reissued in the same form in 1752, under the German title just given). The first of the three parts of the last-named work deals with the Swiss mountains (summing up all that was then known about them, and serving as a link between Simmler's work of 1574 and Gruner's of 1760), the second with the Swiss rivers, lakes and mineral baths, and the third with Swiss meteorology and geology.
In his Physica sacra he included arguments for the existence of God, suggesting that an atheist should be shown a pin-hole camera and then shown how the eye is a perfect replica of the same, demonstrating intelligent design. He also followed the contemporary tradition of interpreting fossil ammonites as proof of the Biblical deluge. He also described fossil plants in his Herbarium diluvianum (1709). He observed the solar eclipse of 1706 and the lunar eclipse of the same year in which he recorded a Perseid meteor shower.
Scheuchzer's works, as issued in 1746 and in 1752, formed (with Tschudi's Chronicum Helveticum) one of the chief sources for Schiller's drama Wilhelm Tell (1804). In 1704, Scheuchzer was elected FRS. He published many scientific notes and papers in the Philosophical Transactions for 1706–07, 1709 and 1727–28.
Travel works
In the second category are his Itinera alpina tria (made in 1702–04), which was published in London in 1708, and dedicated to the Royal Society, while the plates illustrating it were executed at the expense of various fellows of the society, including the president, Sir Isaac Newton (whose imprimatur appears on the title-page), Sir Hans Sloane, Dean Aldrich, Humfrey Wanley, etc. The text is written in Latin, as is that of the definitive work describing his travels (with which is incorporated the 1708 volume) that appeared in 1723 at Leiden, in four quarto volumes, under the title of Itinera per Helvetiae alpinas regiones facta annis 1702–11. He also wrote Helvetiae stoicheiographia (1716–1718) based on his annual alpine travels.
These journeys led Scheuchzer to almost every part of Switzerland, particularly its central and eastern districts. Apropos of his visit (1705) to the Rhône Glacier, he inserts a full account of the other Swiss glaciers, as far as they were then known, while in 1706, after mentioning certain wonders to be seen in the museum at Lucerne, he adds reports by men of good faith who had seen dragons in Switzerland. He doubts their existence, but illustrates the reports by fanciful representations of dragons, which have led some modern writers to depreciate his merits as a traveller and naturalist, for the belief in dragons was then widely spread.
In 1712 he published a map of Switzerland in four sheets (scale 1/290,000), of which the east portion (based on his personal observations) is far the most accurate, though the map as a whole was the best map of Switzerland till the end of the 18th century. At the end of his 1723 book he gives a full list (covering 27 quarto pages) of his writings from 1694 to 1721.
Scheuchzer is also known for his paleontological work. In his Lithographia Helvetica, he described fossils as "plays of nature" or alternately as leftovers from the biblical Flood. Most famously, he claimed that a fossilized skeleton found in a Baden quarry was the remains of a human who had perished in the deluge. This claim, which seemed to verify the claims of Christian scripture, was accepted for several decades after Scheuchzer's death, until 1811, when French naturalist Georges Cuvier re-examined the specimen and showed that it was actually a large prehistoric salamander which was named in his memory as Andrias scheuchzeri.
Honours and awards
In November 1703, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Scheuchzerhorn (3462 m) and Scheuchzerjoch in the Bernese Alps are named after Johann Jakob Scheuchzer. Scheuchzeriaceae and Scheuchzeria palustris are named in his honor.
References
Other sources
See Franz Xaver Hoeherl, J.J. Scheuchzer, der Begründer d. phys. Geographie d. Hochgebirges (Munich, 1901), a useful little pamphlet, conveniently summarizing Scheuchzer's scientific views.
External links
Digitized copy of "Bibliotheca scriptorum historiæ naturali omnium terræ regionum inservientium" via John Carter Brown Library on Internet Archive
Digitized copy of "Physica sacra" from John Carter Brown Library [Volume 1 (1731) Volume 2 (1732) Volume 3 (1733) Volume 4 (1735)
Herbarium diluvianum, 1723.
Herbarium diluvianum (1709) - full digital facsimile from the Linda Hall Library.
Specimen lithographiae Helveticae... (1702) - full digital facsimile from the Linda Hall Library.
Homo diluvii testis (1726) - full digital facsimile from the Linda Hall Library.
Piscium querelae et vindiciae (1708) - full digital facsimile from the Linda Hall Library.
Physica Sacra (1731) - Examples of engravings.
Critical edition of part of Scheuchzer's correspondence, Project hallerNet.org, University of Bern
1672 births
1733 deaths
People from Zürich
Swiss paleontologists
Utrecht University alumni
Fellows of the Royal Society