Bjarni Pálsson

Bjarni Pálsson was an Icelandic medical doctor and naturalist, born at Upsum in Eyjafjordur in 1719 and dead at Nes on Seltjarnarnes in 1779. On 18 March 1760 a royal decree named him the first Director of Health in Iceland, and in that office he lived first at Bessastaðir and later at Nes. From 1752 to 1757 he travelled around Iceland with his friend Eggert Olafsson on a grant from the Danish state. The book they wrote about the journey, published in 1772 as Journey through Iceland, is a comprehensive account of the country and its population at that time; it was translated into German, French and English in the nineteenth century and appeared in Icelandic only in 1943.