Stephen Lumnitzer

* Selmecbánya, April 4, 1749 – † Bratislava, January 11, 1806 / physician, botanist, pharmacist ; ; The date and place of his birth were a subject of debate for a long time, as some sources mention Besztercebánya and the year 1740 (e.g. MÉL, Zoltán Gombocz), while according to Szinnyei he was born in 1747. He began his studies in Selmecbánya, and studied medicine in Jena, Halle, Vienna and Nagyszombat. He obtained his medical degree in Nagyszombat in 1777 as a student of József Jakab Winterl. After that, he was an intern first in Bratislava (between 1777–1785), then in Szentgyörgy and Bazin (1785–1791). In 1791, he settled permanently in Bratislava, started a family and became the city's chief physician. He fell victim to a typhus epidemic during the Napoleonic Wars. In addition to his medical work, he primarily dealt with botany and the flora of Bratislava and its surroundings. He discovered several new plant species, the number of species he described was nearly 1,300, and his herbarium became the property of the Hungarian Museum of Natural History. From the materials of his herbarium relating to the Bratislava area, he compiled and published in Leipzig in 1791 the work Flora Posoniensis exhibens plantas circa Posonium sponte crescencentes ; secundum systema sexuale Linneanum digestas. This was the first work in Hungary at that time that processed the entire flora of an area, both vascular and cryptogamous plants. His thoroughness is demonstrated by the fact that it contains approximately 80 percent of the flora of the region known today. Several plant species bear his name. His grandson, Sándor Lumniczer (1821–1892), was also a doctor and one of the most significant Hungarian surgeons of the second half of the 19th century.