ERNST GOTTFRIED, a German physician of considerable eminence, and the author of a great number of medical publications, was born near Erfurth, 13th May 1738. He was originally destined for the church; but having acquired a strong predilection for medicine, his father yielded to his wishes, and with this view he prosecuted his studies at Erfurth, Halle, and Jena. In 1761 he was intrusted with the superintendence of the military hospitals connected with the Prussian encampment near Torgau; and he there gave public lectures with great applause. Having acquired considerable experience in army practice by his assiduous attention to the duties of his office, he published, in 1763, a dissertation on the diseases of soldiers, which met with so favourable a reception from the public, that he enlarged the plan of his work, and republished it under the title of Treatise on the Diseases that prevail in Armies, Langensalz, 1774; 8vo. In 1773 he was appointed professor of medicine at Göttingen, where he enjoyed considerable reputation. He was afterwards professor of the theory of medicine at Jena; and in 1785 was promoted to a professorship at Marburg, where he died of apoplexy on the 21st of January 1804. Among the number of his pupils were Akermann, Sommering, and Blumenbach.

His writings are exceedingly numerous: many of them are scattered in various collections and journals. No less than eighty-four distinct treatises are mentioned as having proceeded from his pen. He had collected an extensive library, consisting of 16,000 volumes, of which a catalogue was published after his death.