1515-1544

German physician, botanist, pharmacologist, and chemist who won the admiration of his contemporary scientists even before his early death from malaria. Cordus synthesized ether; developed ways to categorize plants; invented phytography, the systematic science of describing plants; updated and augmented the authoritative first-century catalog of medicinal plants prepared by the Greek physician Dioscorides Pedanius Anazarbeus; and wrote the first pharmacopoeia, the Nuremberg Dispensatorium (1546). (A pharmacopoeia is a reference source detailing the dosages and administration of medicinal preparations and drugs.) Swiss naturalist Konrad von Gesner (1516-1565) edited and published several of Cordus's posthumous works, including the revision of Dioscorides (1561).