Johann Gotthelf Fischer von Waldheim (Grigorij Ivanovitsch Fischer von Waldheim in Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

) (October 13, 1771 – October 18, 1853) was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 anatomist, entomologist and paleontologist.

Fischer was born in Waldheim

Waldheim, Saxony

Waldheim is a town in the district of Mittelsachsen, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the Zschopau River, 9 km southwest of Döbeln, and 28 km north of Chemnitz....

, Saxony

Saxony

The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

, the son of a linen

Linen

Linen is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant, Linum usitatissimum. Linen is labor-intensive to manufacture, but when it is made into garments, it is valued for its exceptional coolness and freshness in hot weather....

 weaver. He studied medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

 at Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

. He travelled to Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 and Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 with his friend Alexander von Humboldt

Alexander von Humboldt

Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt...

 and studied under Georges Cuvier

Georges Cuvier

Georges Chrétien Léopold Dagobert Cuvier or Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier , known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist...

. He took up a professorship at Mainz

Mainz

Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...

, and then in 1804 became Demidov

Demidov

The Demidov family, also Demidoff, were an influential Russian merchant, industrialist and later chivalry family, possibly second only to the Tsar himself in wealth during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.-History:...

 Professor of Natural History and Director of the Natural History Museum at the Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 University

Moscow State University

Lomonosov Moscow State University , previously known as Lomonosov University or MSU , is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be one of the oldest university in Russia and to have the tallest educational building in the world. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy...

. In August 1805 he founded the Société Impériale des Naturalistes de Moscou.

Fischer was mainly engaged in the classification of invertebrate

Invertebrate

An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...

s, the result of which was his Entomographia Imperii Rossici (1820–1851). He also spent time studying fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

s from the area around Moscow.

Partial list of publications

• Versuch über die Schwimmblase der Fische, Leipzig 1795
• Memoire pour servir d'introduction à un ouvrage sur la respiration des animaux, Paris 1798
• J. Ingenhousz über Ernährung der Pflanzen und Fruchtbarkeit des Bodens aus dem Englischen übersetzt und mit Anmerkungen versehen von Gotthelf Fischer. Nebst einer Einleitung über einige Gegenstände der Pflanzenphysiologie von F. A. von Humboldt, Leipzig 1798
• Ueber die verschiedene Form des Intermaxillarknochens in verschiedenen Thieren, Leipzig 1800
• Beschreibung einiger typographischer Seltenheiten. Nebst Beyträgen zur Erfindungsgeschichte der Buchdruckerkunst, Mainz und Nürnberg 1800
• Naturhistorische Fragmente, Frankfurt am Main 1801
• Beschreibung typographischer Seltenheiten und merkwürdiger Handschriften nebst Beyträgen zur Erfindungsgeschichte der Buchdruckerkunst, Mainz um 1801
• Essai sur les monuments typographiques de Jean Gutenberg, Mayençais, inventeur de l'imprimerie, Mainz 1801/1802
• Das Nationalmuseum der Naturgeschichte
  Muséum national d'histoire naturelle
  The Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle is the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France.- History :The museum was formally founded on 10 June 1793, during the French Revolution...
  
   zu Paris, 1802
• Vorlesungen über vergleichende Anatomie, deutsche Übersetzung der Vorlesungen Georges Cuvier
  Georges Cuvier
  Georges Chrétien Léopold Dagobert Cuvier or Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier , known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist...
  
  s, Braunschweig 1801–1802
• Lettre au citoyen E. Geoffroy ... sur une nouvelle espèce de Loris : accompagnée de la description d'un craniomètre de nouvelle invention, Mainz 1804
• Anatomie der Maki und der ihnen verwandten Thiere, Frankfurt am Main 1804
• Tableaux synoptiques de zoognosie, 1805
• Museum Demidoff, ou catalogue systematique et raisonné des curiosités etc. donnés a l'université de Moscou par Paul de Demidoff, Moskau 1806
• Muséum d'Histoire naturelle de l'université imperiale de Moscou, 1806
• Notices sur les fossiles de Moscau, 1809–1811
• Notices d'un animal fossile de Sibérie, 1811
• Onomasticon du Système d'Oryctognoise, 1811
• Zoognosia tabulis synopticis illustrata, in usum prälectionum Academiae Imperialis Medico-Chirurgicae Mosquentis edita, Moskau 1813
• Observations sur quelques Diptères de Russie, 1813
• Essai sur la Turquoise et sur la Calaite, Moskau 1816
• Adversaria zoologica, 1817–1823
• Entomographie de la Russie, Moskau 1820–1851
• Prodromus Petromatognosiae animalium systematicae, continens bibliographiam animalium fossilium, Moskau 1829–1832
• Oryctographie du gouvernement de Moscou, 1830–1837
• Bibliographia Palaeonthologica Animalium Systematica, Moskau 1834
• Einige Worte an die Mainzer, bei der Feierlichkeit des dem Erfinder der Buchdruckerkunst Johann Gutenberg in Mainz zu errichtenden Denkmals, Moskau 1836
• Recherches sur les ossements fossils de la Russie, Moskau 1836–1839
• Spicilegium entomographiae Rossicae, Moskau 1844

External links