Georg Joseph Kamel

Georg Joseph Kamel
Born 21 April 1661
Brno, Moravia
Died 2 May 1706
Philippines
Fields botany
Author abbrev. (botany) KAMEL
Author abbrev. (zoology) KAMEL

Georg Joseph Kamel (21 April 1661), Brno, Moravia, Czech Republic – 2 May 1706, Manila, Philippines), also known as Jiří Josef Kamel (Czech), Georgio Josepho Camello, Jorge Camello (Spanish) or simply Camellus (Latin), was one of several Czech Jesuit missionaries from the Jesuit Province of Bohemia and botanists to the Philippines.,[1][2] He is the author of the first descriptions of the Philippine flora, fauna and also the author of the first publication on Philippine birds.[3] Also the first depiction of Philippine tarsier comes from Kamel.

He was also the founder of the first Philippine pharmacy from where he treated a large population of Luzon as well as of the first Philippine Botanical Garden known to be located somewhere in St. Ignatius Monastery in Old Manila. The well known genus of flowering plants Camellia was named in his honour by Carolus Linnaeus later.

Life

Czech Kingdom

Kamel was born in the city of Brno in the Margraviate of Moravia, part of the Crown of Bohemia (Czech Kingdom) then within the Habsburg Empire.

He studied at the Jesuit College in Brno continuing a Jesuit pharmacy practice here. On November 12, 1682 Kamel entered the Society of Jesus, spending his noviciate in Brno and his exams in Krems. After Krems he returned to Brno to prepare for the missions .

From 1685 he worked as the farmacist at Holy Trinity College at the Czech town of Jindřichův Hradec and later he directed the pharmacy of St. Vittus in Český Krumlov from 1686. This pharmacy has been saved and installed in a local museum,[4] where it can be visited even now.

Philippines

He was sent first to the Marianas, then he transferred to the Philippines. Kamel established a pharmacy in Manila, the first in the Philippines, where poor people were supplied with remedies for free.

The results of his botanizing, largely of plants already established in the gardens of Chinese at Manila, many of which he sent to London, to the leading British botanist, Rev. John Ray, and the apothecary-botanist James Petiver, was his Herbarium aliarumque stirpium in insula Luzone Philippinarum ("Herbs and Medicinal Plants in the island of Luzon, Philippines"), the first description of Philippine flora ever from 1697-1698. Kamel also led correspondence with the Dutch physician Willem Ten Rhijne and exchanged plants with botanists in London, Madras and Batavia.

His first shipment of botanical drawings fell into the hands of pirates and was lost. Parts of this work on oriental plants were published as a 96-page appendix in John Ray's third volume of Historia plantarum; species hactenus editas insuper multas noviter inventas & descriptas complectens (1703), and in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Petiver published a third section devoted to climbers.

Among others, Kamel was also the first person to describe the now well known Bean Of St. Ignatius (Strychnos ignatia), used in homeopathy and to extract the poisonous strychnine from its fruit. He named it for Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of Kamel's Jesuit missionary order. The plant is known in the Philippines under the names of aguwason (in Tagalog).

Kamel was also interested in birds and wrote this first account of the birds of the Philippines, „Observationes de Avibus Philippensibus“, published in 1702 in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.[5]

Kamel's Work

Large part of his work on the Philippines has not been worked on or published yet. Kamel's notes are now deposited mostly in the British Museum in London, then 260 drawings of medicinal plants, animals and minerals of the Philippines can be found in the archive of the Theological Faculty in Leuven, Belgium. Copies of some of his texts and drawings can be found in his birthplace in Brno, the Czech Republic as well as his original birth register and several other documents related to him. His original pharmacy has been saved and newly installed in the Czech town of Český Krumlov.

Among his publications were:

Known Works Overview

Published in Historia plantarum of John Ray
Published in Philosophical Transactions by the British Royal Society

See also

References

  1. ↑ [ Paul Klein, Georg Josef Kamel etc https://books.google.com/books?id=g1LLF-L-WNIC&pg=PA82&dq=Paul+Klein+Pablo+Clain+tagalog&hl=en&sa=X&ei=eogyVeOZJsSqgwTz3oDADw&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Paul%20Klein%20Pablo%20Clain%20tagalog&f=false
  2. ↑ Reyes, Raquel A G (Oct 2009). "Botany and zoology in the late seventeenth-century Philippines: the work of Georg Josef Camel SJ (1661–1706)". Arch Nat Hist (England) 36 (2): 262–76. ISSN 0260-9541. PMID 20014508.
  3. ↑ http://www.philippineplants.org/History.html A History of Philippine Botanical Exploration
  4. ↑ Muzeum Český Krumlov http://www.muzeumck.cz/gallery/barokni-jezuitska-lekarna/
  5. ↑ Transactions, 23 (1702:1394–1399).
  6. ↑ http://www.philippineplants.org/History.html A History of Philippine Botanical Exploration
  7. ↑ Transactions, 23 (1702:1394–1399).
  8. ↑ "Author Query for 'Kamel'". International Plant Names Index.

Literature

External links


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