Joseph Lauterer

Joseph Lauterer (18 November 1848 – 29 July 1911) was a German-Australian biologist, doctor, ethnographer and travel writer.

Leben

Lauterer was born Freiburg im Breisgauand studied Medicine at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. On the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war he enlisted and did service in a sanitary usit as a surgeon’s mate, and then returned to his studies, graduating in 1872. He published an important study of the Freiburg’s area's botanical heritage in 1874.

Australien

In 1885, Lauterer emigrated to Australia, and, after sojourning in the Blue Mountains, moved to Queensland where he set up a medical practice in Brisbane and worked as a physician for 25 years. In his leisure, he joined several learned societies. IN 1896 he was elected president of the Royal Society of Queensland. He did considerable fieldwork on Australia’s ethnobotany, concentrating on plants that had either a medicinal function or toxic effects. He undertook experiments in a laboratory he rigged up at home, where he investigated the resins and exudates of Australian species such as eucalypts and angophora, which bore fruit in a scientific study in 1895. He identified the Charon annulipes an indigenous species of scorpion endemic to Queensland.

Personal details

Lauterer would often entertain those who came to listen to his lectures by singing Aboriginal songs, or preparing foods, like the bunya nuts, which formed part of the diet of Brisbane area tribes.

References

• Lauterer, Joseph (1895). Queensland native astringent medicines, illustrated by the chemistry of the gums of eucalypts and angophoras. Report of the Sixth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science. pp. 293–304. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lauterer, Joseph (1874). Excursions-Flora für Freiburg und seine Umgebung: von Lahr bis Efringen, vom Rhein bis St. Blasien, Neustadt und Triberg; zum Bestimmen der Pflanzen angeordnet und mit einer Uebersicht der geologischen Verhältnisse versehen. Verlag Herder. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Lauterer, Joseph (1848 - 1911). Australian National Herbarium.
• Pearn, John (2001). A Doctor in the Garden: Nomen Medici in Botanicis : Australian Flora and the World of Medicine. Amphion Press. ISBN 978-1-864-99503-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)