Antal Rochel, Anton Rochel

* Neunkirchen, 18 June 1770 – † Graz, 12 May 1847 / physician, botanist ; ; He studied surgery in Vienna, then served as a paramedic in the imperial army from 1788. In 1792 he became a master surgeon, and then obtained the title of master obstetrician. After that, he served as a military doctor again, but was taken prisoner by the French, from which he was released. He lived in the Low Countries for a few years, but in 1798 he finally left the army and worked as a doctor in Moravia. In 1800–1805 he was the personal physician of Baron Alajos Mednyánszky (Révayfalva) in Vígvár, and later, in 1811–1815, in Rákfalu. In 1815–1820, he was the personal physician of Count Aspremont in Lednicrón and also supervised the count's botanical garden, where about 2,000 wild plant species were entrusted to his care. He researched the flora of Trenčín County and the Middle Váh River. When Pál Kitaibel (1757–1817), director of the Pest University Botanical Garden, died, they looked for a successor and noticed Rochel, who was the chief gardener of the botanical garden from 1821 to 1840. He brought about 400 plant species with him from Lednicrón. During his work in Pest, he primarily collected Hungarian plant rarities (his herbariums have survived to this day), and sent some of them abroad. He retired in March 1840 and settled in Graz. Many of his works remain in manuscript form. ; ; His main works: ; Naturhistorische Miscellen über den nord-westlichen Karpath in Ober-Ungarn. Mit einer Karte, 1822, ; Plantae Banatus rariores iconibus et descripcionibus illustrae. Praemisso tractatu phyto-geographico et subnexis additamentis in terminologiam botanicam. Accedunt tubulae botanicae XL et mappae lithographicae, 1828, ; Botanische Reise in das Banat in Jahre 1835, nebst Gelegenheitbemerkungen und einem Verzeichnisse allerbis zur Stunde daselbst wildwaschensenden phanerogamischen Pflanzen sammt topographischen Beiträgen über den südöstrlichen Theil des Donau-Stromes im österr. Kaiserthum, 1838.