Biography of Carl Linnaeus Essay Example

Carl Linnaeus, from a boy to a man was interested in God’s creation and was always amazed at the complexity of everything. At a young age Linnaeus studied plants and their names. Linnaeus was both popular and influential as a scientist and a professor. Linnaeus is sometimes referred to as the “Father of Taxonomy” and was the one who created Taxonomy to help organize everything God had made and designed into unique categories based on curtain features that they had in common.

Carl Linnaeus was born in 1707 as the oldest of five children. Linnaeus’s father was a gardener and a minister. In Linnaeus’s first years his father would take him into the garden. He would teach him about botany and God’s wonderful creation. At the age of five Linnaeus had his very own garden, which gave him the desire to learn about plants and how they work.

Carl Linnaeus’s father taught him that every plant had a name. Linnaeus dedicated himself to the study of plants and learned as much as he could. At school Linnaeus was often more interested in memorizing plant names than in his school lessons. Due to his huge interest in plants and science, Carl was encouraged by his tutor, Johan Stensson Rothman to study medicine.

In 1728, after a year of studying medicine at the university of Lund, Linnaeus transferred to a different university in the hope that the course would be better. This was Uppsala University. There Linnaeus studied the use of minerals, plants, and the use of animals in medicine. It was here that Linnaeus came to the attention of Olof Celsius who was a theologian and a naturalist. Celsius found Linnaeus studying in the university botanic garden.

Olof was shocked to find that the young man knew the names of all the surrounding plants. Linnaeus had very little money so Celsius offered him a place at the university which allowed him to use the library. During this time, Carl Linnaeus wrote a paper on the classification of plants based on their sexual parts. One of Linnaeus’s professors, Olof Rudbeck, was so impressed that he asked Carl to become a teaching assistant in his class on botany.

Instead from 1732 to 1735, Linnaeus traveled throughout Sweden. But, Linnaeus particularly stayed in Lapland and northwest Sweden. Linnaeus did this in order to record and collect information on the country’s natural resources. Soon Linnaeus returned to the university of Uppsala and lectured at Uppsala between field studies. Linnaeus was still a student, until finally in 1735 he traveled to the University of Harderwijk in Holland where he took his medical degree.

Linnaeus spent the next three years in Holland along with some traveling to Germany, France, and England!  Linnaeus was the supervisor of a wealthy banker, George Clifford’s zoo, and gardens, while he was in Holland. It was also during this time that Linnaeus was able to publish the first of his many scientific books and papers. Then Linnaeus returned to Sweden where first, he practiced medicine in Stockholm. Then, soon after he married Sara Lisa Moraea, and became a professor of botany at Uppsala University in 1741.

Linnaeus was a very charismatic teacher, who always surrounded himself with students. The most gifted students Linnaeus sent on voyages of exploration. Linnaeus’s 'apostles', as he called them, would cross the continents to bring back new plants and animals, for Linnaeus would name them according to his new binomial system of nomenclature. In 1747, Linnaeus was appointed chief royal physician. Linnaeus was then knighted in 1758, given the name Carl von Linné.

Linnaeus suffered from many illnesses towards the end of his career and just a few years after retiring, he sadly died on 10 January, 1778.

Linnaeus not only is considered the “Father of Taxonomy”, but was also a pioneer in the study of ecology. Linnaeus was one of the first to describe the relationships between living things and their environments that they live in. Linnaeus named over 12,000 species of plants and animals. Although some had to be renamed because we know more about them now. Linnaeus published many books using his new system of classification, the binomial system. Two of Linnaeus’s most famous books, Species plantarum and Systema naturae. These books are still used by scientists as the basis for naming plants and animals.