Camerarius, Joachim

, son of the preceding, was born at Nuremberg, in 1534, and there first educated. | As his mind was early turned to the study of botany and medicine, with the view of improving himself he visited the principal seminaries in Germany, and thence went to Padua, and afterwards to Bologna, where he took the degree of doctor in 1562. Two years after he returned to Nuremberg, and by his superior skill and ability, seemed the legitimate inheritor of his father’s fame. In 1592, he founded a medical college, of which he was appointed dean or president, and continued to direct its affairs for the remainder of his life. He formed an extensive garden, stored with the choicest plants, the cultivation of which he superintended with great assiduity, and assisted the landgrave of Hesse in forming a botanical garden; and with a view of disseminating the knowledge of plants, he purchased the collections of Gesner and Wolfe, which he methodised, and corrected, and with considerable additions from his own stores, together with the works of Matthiolus, he published them in 1586, under the title of “De Plantis Epitome utilissima Petri Andrew Matthioli novis Iconibus et Descriptionibus plurimis diligenter aucta,” 4to. “Hortus Medicus et Philosophicus, in quo piurimarum Stirpium breves Descriptiones, novae Icones non paucae, continentur,” 1588, 4to. “Opercula de Re Rustica, quibus, praeter alia, Catalogus Rei Botanicac et Rusticae Scriptorum veterum et recentiorum insertus est,” 1577, 4to. Also “De recta et necessaria Ratione preservandi a Pestis Contagione,” 1583, with other small tracts on the same subject, and three centuries of emblems. On his death, which happened October 11, 1598, he was succeeded by his son Joachim in his practice, and in the honour of being dean of the college. Elias Rodolphus Camerarius, and his son of the same names, appear likewise to have been of the same family, and were physicians of considerable fame, although their works are now in little request. ¹