Johannes Jacob Hegetschweiler

Johannes Jacob Hegetschweiler (4 December 1789, Rifferswil – 9 September 1839, Zürich) was a Swiss physician and botanist. He is remembered for his investigations of Alpine vegetation.

Biography[edit]

In 1809 he studied medicine at the medical-surgical institute in Zürich, followed by medical studies at the University of Tübingen as a pupil of Johann Heinrich Ferdinand von Autenrieth. While at Tübingen, he also attended lectures in natural sciences given by Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer.^[1] Later on, he worked as a physician at the typhus hospital in Rheinau, and from 1814 to 1831, he served as a doctor in the town of Stafa.^[2]

From 1831 to 1839 he held various posts with the cantonal government in Zürich. During the so-called Züriputsch of September 6, 1839, as a mediator between government militia and insurrectionists, he was wounded in the head from a bullet fired by the insurgents, and died three days later on September 9.^[2][3]

The botanical genus Hegetschweilera Heer, Regel (1842) commemorates his name,^[4] as does taxa with the specific epithet of hegetschweileri.^[5]

Published works[edit]

Among his better written efforts was an enumeration of Swiss plants, titled Beyträge zur einer kritischent aufzählung der Schweizer pflanzen (1831),^[2] and a new edition of Johann Rudolf Suter's Flora Helvetica (1822).^[6] After his death, Oswald Heer edited and published Hegetschweiler's Flora der Schweiz (1840).^[7]

References[edit]