Augustus Quirinus Rivinus

Who was Augustus Quirinus Rivinus?

Augustus Quirinus Rivinus, also known as August Bachmann, was a German physician and botanist.

He was born in Leipzig, Germany, and studied at the University of Leipzig, continued his studies in the University of Helmstedt. In 1677, he started lecturing in medicine at the University of Leipzig, in 1691 appointed to two chairs, that of physiology and of botany, and made the curator of the University medical garden. In 1701, he became professor of pathology, in 1719, professor of therapeutics and permanent dean of the Faculty of Medicine. The same year he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. Being interested also in astronomy, by the end of his life, he nearly completely blinded himself by looking at sunspots. He died in Leipzig.

In his Introductio generalis in rem herbariam and three books on the plant orders he introduced several important innovations which were later used by other botanists. He classified the plants according to the structure of the flower. Like John Ray he extensively used dichotomous keys which led first to the higher groups, which he called higher genera of plant orders, and then to the lower genera. Alongside with Joseph Pitton de Tournefort he was the first to apply consistently the rule according to which the names of all species belonging to the same genus should start with the same word. If a genus contains just one species, the generic name would be its only name. If there are more than one species belonging to the genus, their names should consist of the generic name followed by differentia specifica. His nomenclature differed from that by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort because he did not use differentia specifica with the first plant of a genus, adding differentiae only to the second and subsequent plant species. He corresponded with John Ray on matters of plant classification.