| Hieronymus Bock | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1497 / 98 |
| Died | 21 February 1554 |
| Church | Lutheran |
Hieronymus Bock (Latinised Tragus) (1498 – February 21, 1554) was a German botanist, physician, and Lutheran minister who began the transition from medieval botany to the modern scientific worldview by arranging plants by their relation or resemblance.
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The details of his life are sketchy, in particular his educational background is unknown. In 1519 he inscribed at the university of Heidelberg. He married an Eva Victor in 1523, and was schoolteacher and caretaker of the grounds of the count palatine in Zweibrücken for nine years. In 1532 he became the prince's physician and later received a life-time position as a Lutheran minister in a nearby town (Hornbach) where he stayed up to his death in 1554.
The first edition of his Kreutterbuch (literally "plant book") appeared in 1539 unillustrated; his stated objectives were to describe German plants, including their names, characteristics, and medical uses. Instead of following Dioscorides as was traditional, he developed his own system to classify 700 plants. Bock apparently traveled widely through the German region observing the plants for himself, since he includes ecological and distributional observations.
His 1546 Kreutterbuch or "herbal" was illustrated by the artist David Kandel. In the wine world, Bock is noted for having the first documented use of the modern word Riesling in 1552 when it was mentioned in his Latin herbal.[1]
The grass genus Tragus and spurge genus Tragia are both named after him.
Hieronymus Bock was also an entomologist.[2]