BAUHIN, JOHN, a distinguished botanist, was born at Lyons in the year 1541. He was the son of an eminent physician who quitted France, his native country, on account of religion, and settled at Basil. In early life he travelled with Gesner, the celebrated naturalist, and collected plants in the Alps, in France, and Italy, for the purpose of the great botanical work which he afterwards accomplished. He practised medicine first at Basil, where he was also elected profes-
son of rhetoric in 1566. He resided some time at Yverdu; and was afterwards invited to be physician to the duke of Wirtemberg at Montbelliard, and in this situation he spent the remaining forty years of his life. He devoted his studies chiefly to botany, on which he bestowed great labour, comparing authors ancient and modern with each other, and with nature, and collecting information from all quarters. He likewise prosecuted other branches of natural history, and published an account of "Medicinal Waters throughout Europe," and especially in the duchy of Wirtemberg; and a particular account of the mineral spring of Boll, and the natural history of the place. His great work on plants was not completed at his death, which happened in 1613. A society at Yverdu published in 1619 the Prodromus of it; but it was not till 1650 and 1651 that the work itself appeared in three vols. fol. entitled Historia Plantarum nova et absolutissima, cum auctorum consensu et dissensu circa eas. Bauhin's son-in-law, Henry Cherler, was also a contributor to the work. This is a great performance; and, with all its defects, has been pronounced by Haller to be without an equal. The plants are numerous, generally well described and discriminated, and many new species are added. It is still considered as a standard work; and the names of John Bauhin and his brother rank high among the founders and first promoters of botanical science.