Leonhart Fuchs

Leonhart Fuchs (1501 to 1566) was a German physician and botanist, best known as the author of a large herbal on plants and their uses as medicines, first published in Latin in 1542. The book carries about 500 accurate and detailed plant drawings printed from woodcuts, and its main advance over earlier herbals was its insistence that high-quality drawings are the clearest way to show what a plant name stands for. Born in Wemding in Bavaria, the youngest son of the town burgomaster, he studied at Erfurt and Ingolstadt, adopted the Lutheran faith and took his medical doctorate on 1 March 1524. He practised as a doctor in Munich from 1524 to 1526 and was then offered the chair of medicine at the University of Ingolstadt.