Johann Adam Schmidt

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Johann Adam Schmidt (1759-1809) was a German-Austrian surgeon and ophthalmologist who was a native of Aub, a town near Würzburg. He studied under Joseph Barth (1745-1818) in Vienna, and began his medical career as an army surgeon. In 1789 he became a professor of anatomy and surgery at Josephs-Akademie in Vienna.

Schmidt is known for his pioneer work with lacrimal surgery and his research of iritis. In 1802 with Karl Gustav Himly (1772-1837) he founded Ophthalmologische Bibliothek, which was the first German magazine of ophthalmic medicine. In 1811 his Lehrbuch der Materia Medica was published posthumously, which was a work on medicinal plants and their properties. In this book the term "pharmacognosy" is originally coined.

Schmidt is best remembered as a personal physician of Ludwig van Beethoven, whom he attended to from 1801 until 1809. Beethoven dedicated the trio for piano, violin and cello in E flat major opus 38 (arrangement of the Septet opus 20) to Schmidt.