1707-1778
Naturalist

Swedish Roots. Best known by the Latin version of his name, Carolus Linnaeus was born Carl Linne in the village of Stenbrohult in Smaland, a poor province in southern Sweden. He was the eldest son of a curate-farmer and a parson's daughter. (His father, Nils, had devised the Latin surname Linnaeus after a linden tree on the family property.) Carl attended the universities of Lund and Uppsala. He became a medical doctor in 1735 and opened a practice that specialized in treating venereal disease, and in 1739 he was one of six founding members of the Swedish Academy of Science. In 1741 Linnaeus was appointed a professor of medicine at Uppsala University and rose steadily in the ranks of the Swedish royal service, as chief physician to the navy and as a high-ranking adviser to several rulers and ministries. He was ennobled for these contributions and his...