Urban Hjärne
Urban Hjärne (20 December 1641 – 10 March 1724) was a Swedish chemist, geologist, physician and writer.
He was born in Skworitz near Nyenschantz, Ingria, and educated at Dorpat (admitted 1655), Uppsala and Angers. He was awarded MD in 1670.
He travelled to the Netherlands, England and France and then practised as a physician in Stockholm. He became Director of the State Chemical Laboratory in 1683, President of the Collegium Medicum in 1698 and President of the Bergskollegium (Board of Mines) in 1713.
He was also the author of Stratonice, sometimes claimed to be the first Swedish novel, a partly autobiographical romance of seduction begun in 1665 and published in several parts, completed in 1668.[1]
He built up scientific library of 3500 books, one of the largest in Sweden. In 1669 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
He married three times: firstly Maria Svahn; secondly Catharina Elisabeth Bergenhielm; and thirdly Elisabeth Carlsdotter.
References
- "Library and Archive". Royal Society. Retrieved 27 November 2012.
Further reading
- "Hiaerne [Hjarne], Urban".
- Pierer, Heinrich August (1859). Pierer's Universal-Lexikon der Vergangenheit und Gegenwart: Oder, Neuestes encyclopädisches Wörterbuch der Wissenschaften, Künste und Gewerbe. p. 416.
- Meyer, Hermann Julius (1850). Das grosse Conversations-Lexicon für die gebildeten Stände: In Verbindung mit Staatsmännern, Gelehrten, Künstlern und Technikern herausgegeben von J. Meyer. \Abth I, Bd.i-vi; vii, Abth.1,3–4;viii–xxiii;II,i-xv (in 45 volumes). p. 887.