58 The Botanical Renaissance [ch. 



contain his scorn at the "monkey tricks and ceremonies" 

 connected with the use of the latter. 



Leonhard Fuchs [or Fuchsius], the third of the Fathers 

 of German Botany (see Frontispiece), belonged to the same 

 generation as Hieronymus Bock, though he was a little 

 younger and produced his chief work three years later. 

 He was born in 1501 at Membdingen in Bavaria, and at 

 an early age he became a student of the University of 

 Erfurt, where he is said to have taken a bachelor's degree 

 in his thirteenth year ! After a period of school teaching, 

 he resumed his studies, this time at the University of 

 Ingolstadt, where he devoted himself chiefly to classics, and 

 became a Master of Arts. After this he turned his 

 attention to medicine, and took a doctor's degree. At 

 Ingolstadt he came under the influence of Luther's writings, 

 which won him over to the reformed faith. 



Fuchs began to practise as a physician at Munich, but 

 in 1526 he returned to Ingolstadt as Professor of Medicine. 

 He seems to have been of a restless temperament, which 

 was probably accentuated by the persecution to which his 

 protestant opinions exposed him. His career for more 

 than forty years consisted of periods of active practice, 

 alternating with periods of university teaching. In 1535 

 he was appointed to a professorship at Tubingen, and, 

 while he held this post, he declined a call to the University 

 of Pisa, and also an invitation to become physician to the 

 King of Denmark. It is clear that, both as a physician and 

 a teacher, he was in great demand. He acquired a wide- 

 spread reputation by his successful treatment of a terrible 

 epidemic disease, which swept over Germany in 1529. 

 A little book of medical instructions and prayers against 

 the plague, which was published in London in the latter 

 half of the sixteenth century, shows that his fame had 

 extended to England. It is entitled, 'A worthy practise of 

 the moste learned Phisition Maister Leonerd Fuchsius, 

 Doctor in Phisicke, most necessary in this needfull tyme of 

 our visitation, for the comforte of all good and faythfuU 

 people, both olde and yonge, both for the sicke and for 

 them that woulde avoyde the daunger of contagion.' 



In spite of his professional activity, Fuchs found time 

 to produce a botanical masterpiece, which appeared in 



