Marcus Elieser Bloch

Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723 to 1799) was a German physician and naturalist, best known for his multivolume catalogue of plates illustrating the fishes of the world. He was brought up in a Hebrew-speaking Jewish family, learned German and Latin, studied anatomy and settled in Berlin as a physician. He built up a large natural history collection, particularly of fish specimens, and wrote many papers on natural history, comparative anatomy and physiology. He is generally considered one of the most important ichthyologists of the eighteenth century. The source describes no particular medical specialty beyond his work as a physician in Berlin.